science

Body of knowledge comprising of measurable or verifiable facts acquired through application of the scientific method, and generalized into scientific laws or principles. While all sciences are founded on valid reasoning and conform to the principles of logic, they are not concerned with the definitiveness of their assertions or findings. In the words of the US paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-), "Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one's provisional consent."

You can envision the wealth created by a startup as a rectangle, where one side is the number of users and the other is how much you improve their lives. The second dimension is the one you have most control over. And indeed, the growth in the first will be driven by how well you do in the second. As in science, the hard part is not answering questions but asking them: the hard part is seeing something new that users lack. The better you understand them the better the odds of doing that. That's why so many successful startups make something the founders needed.

• One Perspective on Book-Keeping by Double Entry