Get Out of the Product Cave: From Plato to Steve Blank
Did the philosopher Plato lay down one of the most crucial startup and innovation principles?
Steve Blank, a contemporary innovation thinker (and, dare I say, philosopher), popularised the widely accepted principle “Get Out Of The Building,” urging entrepreneurs to engage directly with customers early in the product development cycle, challenging critical assumptions. This concept parallels Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a 3,000-year-old lesson about perception and reality.
The Allegory of the Cave
In Plato’s “The Republic,” he presents the story of prisoners who’ve been chained inside a dark cave their entire lives. Their only reality are shadows projected onto a wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them. To these prisoners, the shadows are reality. One day, a prisoner breaks free and steps outside the cave. Not without struggling, he discovers a world full of light, colour, and the true forms of the objects that were mere shadows before.
This allegory illustrates a challenging journey from ignorance to enlightenment, highlighting how tough it can be to accept reality.

Get Out of the Building
Steve Blank and now many of his disciples (myself included) emphasise the importance of leaving the confines of our office, startup garage, or R&D lab to interact with real customers. This approach flips the traditional product development cycle on its head. Instead of operating on untested assumptions particularly around customer needs until the product is fully developed—much like prisoners accepting shadows as reality—we’re encouraged to challenge our beliefs early and often in the real world.
“Get out of the building” pushes innovators to test their most critical assumptions in the real world. It’s not just about whether a product can be built, but whether it should be built. Does anyone actually want it and what do they really want?
This journey isn’t easy. Just as the freed prisoner initially struggles with the overwhelming light of the outside world, innovation teams may find raw customer feedback hard to hear. The comforting “shadows” of internal data and beliefs provide a reassuring narrative, but the stark light of customer reality can be jarring.
Yet, this step is essential. Only by confronting the true needs of customers and the realities of the market can innovation teams create solutions that are relevant, impactful, and successful.
The Product Cave
Leaving the “cave” is easier said than done. It means facing reality instead of clinging to comfortable illusions. In Plato’s allegory, the prisoners are initially fearful of leaving the cave. The light outside is blinding, and adjusting to this new reality is a struggle. This discomfort mirrors the natural human fear of the unknown and the challenge of questioning long-held beliefs.
Although a more complex situation, innovation teams in large organizations might not realise the necessity of firsthand customer discovery. They can be imprisoned by corporate silos, chained to governance structures unfit for innovation but certainly also comforted by their own assumptions. They’re confined not by physical chains, but by processes and wanting to believe something to be true that just isn’t.
Confronting the Real World
So, what’s the takeaway? The lesson from both Plato’s Cave and the Lean Startup is clear: true progress comes from confronting reality, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. By moving beyond the shadows of assumptions and actively collecting and analyzing real-world qualitative and quantitative data, we can create products and services that truly meet customer needs and have a much higher chance to be successful.
For those in product development and innovation, the journey out of the cave isn’t just a philosophical exercise—it’s a practical necessity for achieving meaningful, customer-centric innovation.
Lessons Learned
- Check if you’re just seeing shadows—and get out of the building!
