This is my attempt to summarize some of the latest ideas / strategies / techniques related to lean product startups. Most of the content is based on my understanding from literature and applying these principles to my own startup

1. MAKING SENSE OF LEAN STARTUP
STRATEGIES
WWW.SQUAREPRISM.COM
Sep 2012

2. NEW JARGON AND TECHNIQUES
 Lean Startups
 Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas
 Customer Development
 Minimum Viable Product and Minimum Desirable Product
 Desire Engine, Habit forming technologies
 AAARR Metrics
 Growth Hacking
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3. SO WHAT HAS CHANGED THE MARKET?
Rails, Node, Grails, Lift
MVC based client-side Javascript
Extremely agile
web technologies frameworks
that have reduced
product dev cycles Faster turnaround times to build proof of
YCombinator, concepts
500Startups,
TechStars
Indian Angels, Access to early Access to cheap
Cloud – Amazon,
stage funds Infrastructure for
Morpheus, others rent (Cloud) Google, Heroku
Emergence of
accelerators Opex versus Capex Reduced
setup/fixed costs
Design standards Facebook, Twitter,
HTML5, CSS3 that provide
Emergence of mega
Google+ and now
social platforms for
excellent user
marketing Instagram, Pinterest
Mobile browsers and rich experience
UI native platforms Application AppStore, Google Play,
Non-geeks able to
Platforms on Mobile
use latest tech others
Ability to provide user
interfaces to non- Increased reach at lower
technical consumers costs
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4. HAS “CROSSING THE CHASM” BECOME EASIER?
High-Tech Marketing Model a la Geoffrey
Moore (circa 1991)
Find consumers that can cross reference
each other
Target Pioneers and Early Adopters, Meet
their needs and then move to Mainstream
consumers and laggards
Provide a “change agent” product to early
adopters and “productivity improvement”
product to mainstream consumers
Moore’s strategy to cross the chasm was to address the diverse requirements
of early adopters and mainstream consumers separately. Target a niche
segment of mainstream consumers to rapidly grow in one segment before the
next
In today’s context of building software as service solutions the time to jump across
the chasm by quickly iterating from “change agent” features to “productivity
improvement” features may make or break the product
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5. LEAN STARTUP: TEST AN IDEA FOR VIABILITY
The lean startup philosophy encourages quickly releasing products to
receive user feedback and iterating on strategy to reach product-market fit
 Build-Measure-Learn-Build-Measure-Learn..
 Identify early adopters,
 Build a Prototype,
 Test it with users
 Release early and get feedback from real users
 Test both Product and Business
 feasibility and viability
 Product Feasibility and Viability
 Is it possible to build this product with available technologies before I run out of
time and money
 Business Feasibility and Viability
 Will this business become profitable before I run out of time and money?
 Minimum Viable Product
 A concept or product that can be tested in a real market to satisfy the
above assumptions
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6. A FRAMEWORK TO TEST AND VALIDATE ASSUMPTIONS
Business Model Canvas
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7. TEST BEFORE YOU SCALE THE BUSINESS
Agile Product Development
Customer Development
Pivot
 Build-Measure-Learn-Build-Measure-Learn..
 Until you are sure your business will scale profitably
 Measure and Pivot when things don’t work out
 Until you start making profit
 Unless you run out of Cash or Time!
 Get to the Minimum Viable Product that fits into a Market
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8. WHAT IF THE PROBLEM/SOLUTION IS NOT OBVIOUS?
 Hard to build products that require lifestyle change in consumers
 Business maybe viable
 only if you get a million users
 only if you grow your platform to critical mass
 Build a Minimum Desirable Product!
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9. HOW DOES ONE CREATE DESIRE?
 Habit-forming technologies!
 Build Desire Engines
 Triggers
 Actions (Doing < Thinking)
 Variable Rewards
 Commitment
 Fogg Behavior Model
 Behavior = motivation.ability.trigger
 Many Cycles
 Take users through one cycle
quickly
 Take users through many cycles
quickly
 More cycles = Habit
Map your product features to the desire engine cycle !
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10. HAVE WE GOT TO CRITICAL MASS?
 Measure using AARRR metrics (Dave McLure, 500Hats)
 Acquisition
 Activation
 Retention
 Revenue
 Referral
Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue Referrals
 Also measure growth
 Number of daily active users / Number of monthly active users
(DAU/MAU)
 Many popular social sites struggle to be > 5%
 Facebook = 58%
 http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/05/never-take-your-eyes-off-this-hacker-
metric.html
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11. BUILDING A PLATFORM? HACK TO REACH CRITICAL MASS
Widgetify
Provide tools
for personal
creation
(Youtube)
Seed
Fake it till you Standalone
make it Community
(Paypal) (Youtube)
Make producers invite
their consumers
(Slideshare)
Get Super
connectors Focus on Transactions
to reduce traction on
both sides(Groupon)
Piggyback on
existing networks
(Paypal, Aribnb)
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12. REFERENCES
 Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
 The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
 Business Model Generation, Alexander Ostwalder
 Four Steps to Epiphany, Steve Blank
 Minimum Desirable Product, Andrew Chen’s Blog
 Desire Engine Canvas, Nir and Far Blog, Nir Eyal
 AARRR metrics, Dave McLure
 Growth Hacks from platformed.info, Sangeet Paul Chaudary
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13. COMMENTS?
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