Lean Startup™: a Learning Organization

@vladblagojevic@nickboucart

@sirris_be

Agile Development is good for…

Will agile help them build better products?

Welcome to the world of startups

Build it, and they will come…(good products = big bucks)

Right?

Google Wave

Startup is more than product alone

What do you need for a successful business?

Tool #1: Business Model Canvas

Who are your customers?

What do you offer?Value?Uniqueness? How to

communicate & deliver?

Automatic PersonalCommunities?

How will you make money?

What do you need to build up?

What will you need to master?What

can you outsource to whom?

What are my costs?

Exercise #1: fill in a canvas

Groupon: deal of the day in your inbox.

Get 50%-90% off the best stuff your city has to offer.

Your own idea?

Merchants

ConsumersDiscounts

New, local customers (guarantee

#)

Automated/E-mail

Social media

Personal/Call

Centers

Direct sales

Merchant Acquisition

Deal selection

Email DB

50% commission

Personalization engine

20% unfulfilled groupons

Cust. acquisition

(30% of revenue)

Google ads

Merchant Acquisition (sales = ½ employees)

Copy-writing

Churn

Website

Part IIEntrepreneurship as a science

began with PDA payment tool

began as a MMO game

What happenedhere?

Conditions of extreme uncertainty

Who is the customer?

What do they value?

What is our product anyway?

The guessing game

guess

guess

guess

guessguess

guess

guess

guess

guess

”Startup is a temporary organization with purpose to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

S. Blank

Startup ~ research

Entrepreneurship as a science

State Hypothes

es

Experiment

Pivot or persever

e

State your Hypotheses

State Hypothes

es

Experiment

Pivot or persever

e

Sketch your Business

Drivers in cities

Help find parking

Monetize unused parking

SMS

Mobile app

Micro commission

App store

Viral

Bootstrapping: parking

scouts

Community

User credit cards

parkr™

GPS producers

Near-location

notifier + UI

Community (parking spotter)

Platform

Identify Major Risks

Drivers in cities

Help find parking

Monetize unused parking

SMS

Mobile app

Micro commission

App store

Viral

Bootstrapping: parking

scouts

Community

User credit cards

parkr™

GPS producers

Near-location

notifier + UI

Community (scouts)Platform

Good start: problem-solution fit

Customers do I know who they are & how to

reach them?

Segment? Early adopter? Roles: user, economic

buyer, influencer, saboteur? How do they search for

products?

Problemtop 3 customer problems?

Pain level: must have vs nice to have

Awareness: active vs. latent Alternatives : how do they

deal with these problems today?

Solutiontop 3 product features?

Do they solve the top 3 problems? Barriers to adoption (e.g. fit/integration with existing

workflow)? Is my price accepted?

cheatsheet

Experiment

State Hypothes

es

Experiment

Pivot or persevere

Example 1: Problem-Solution Interview

A 1st problem is… Does this resonate with you? How do you deal with it today? Is it a must-have?...

This is how our solution looks today (screen per problem). Which of the screens resonated the most? Which could you live without? Are there any additional features you think are missing?

Would you pay $20 a month to use a tool like this?

Use Mocks

Example 2: Landing Page Experiment

Call t

o

actio

n

Trouble Parking in Brussels?www.parkr.comFind parking when you need it. Park easily in busy streets of BrusselsPaying too much for parking?www.parkr.comMonetize your unused parking time and help others find free parking!

Example 3: Fake your ProductConcierge MVP Wizard of Oz

Pivot or persevere

Document

Hypotheses

Experiment

Pivot or

persevere

What is a pivot?

Change of an aspect of a business model Successful startups

change direction quickly Based on learning

Grounded in the vision They keep one foot in

the past and place one foot in a new possible future

Vision: search space

CHEATSHEET

Customer problem pivot: same product, same segment, different problem

Starbucks : started selling coffee beans & espresso makers

Segment pivot: same product , similar problem, different set of customers

e.g. consumers aren’t buying, enterprises have a similar problem

Sometimes a pure marketing change

Technology pivot: repurpose the technology to solve a more pressing or marketable problemProduct feature pivot:  remove features for focus, or to add features for a more holistic solution

pay close attention to what real customers are doing

Revenue model pivote.g. from a premium customized, to a low price

commoditized solutione.g. from a one-time sale to monthly subscription or

license feese.g. razor versus blade strategy

Sales channel pivot: use lessons learned from customers to switch from direct sales

E.g. distribution channel, ecommerce, white-labeling …

Product versus services pivot: if products are too different or too complex to be sold effectively to the customer with the problem

bundle support services with the product, education offerings...

Major competitor pivot:  react when a major new player or competitor jumps into your space

one of the above pivots to build your differentiation and stay alive

Gather data, draw conclusions

Drivers in cities

Help find parking

Monetize unused parking

SMS

Mobile app

Micro commission

App store

Viral

Bootstrapping: parking

scouts

Community

User credit cards

Parkr™ foursquare for parking spots

GPS producers

Near-location

notifier + UI

Building Community

(critical mass)Platform City

budget

Community

App fee

CitiesPromoting

public transport

Closing words

Onto the Product Development

Lean startup build-measure-learn loop

by Eric Ries

IDEAS

BUILD

PRODUCT

MEASURE

DATA

LEARNContinuous deployment

Pivot Root-cause

MetricsFeedback

SPEED!

#tips from the trenches

Counter-intuitive and beyond comfort zone

Learn from the data You don’t get a gold

star for following the process

It’s okay to be opportunistic …but stay grounded

in your vision

Speed If you’re really on to

something, there are other 4-5 companies pursuing a similar vision

Techniques helpful, but you need to be very creative

Emotional rollercoaster

Find mentors

References

Lean Startup by Eric Ries startuplessonslearned.com theleanstartup.com/book sllconf.com

Steve Blank steveblank.com steveblank.com/

books.html Ash Maurya

ashmaurya.com runningleanhq.com (book)

Dave McClure AARRR: Startup metrics

for pirates

Tools leancanvas.com

leanlaunchlab.com usertesting.com KissMetrics, Piwik uservoice.com

More references businessmodelgeneration.com venturehacks.com 500hats.typepad.com paulgraham.com news.ycombinator.com/ Even more:

steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs

Local

Lean Startup Circle Brussels ICAB, Beta Group Co-

Working space www.meetup.com/lean-

brussels/ Startup Weekend Brussels

/Eindhoven Lean Startup Machine

Rotterdam betagroup.be Founder Institute

& MIC westartup .eu techbrew.be

Talk to us

Vladimir Blagojevic▪ vladimir .blagojevic@sirris.

be▪ launched.be▪ @vladblagi

Nick Boucart ▪ nick.boucart@sirris.be▪ Blog.sirris.be▪ @nickboucart▪ Book:

The art of software innovation