The Lean Startup is just another term for Design thinking. As happens mostly in these fads, it is just old wine in new bottles.

Design thinking was in many ways a predecessor of the Lean Startup. The Lean Startup keeps the same perspective of learning cycles as Design thinking, but whereas Design thinking was developed mainly for new product development, the Lean Startup extended this process to startup processes in general.

Design thinking is the thinking process that you need to complete before you embark in the Lean Startup doing.

The Lean Startup was developed by Nobel Prize winners and reflects a rigorous series of concepts that have absolutely no practical relevance. Design thinking was developed by a bunch of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that is scientifically flawed, but somehow people like the term “Design”, which is the only reason it is considered useful in practice.