Gaza Sky Geeks Validation and pivoting lauren

1. Validation and pivoting
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2. Agenda
•The Lean Startup process
•Validation
•Pivoting
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3. What have we talked about so far?
Develop your vision
Do customer research
Create an MVP (a Minimum Viable Product)
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4. Customer
research
Minimum
Viable Product
(MVP)
Validation

5. What is validation?
The process of testing a simple
version of the product (the MVP) with
customers to see what they like.
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6. Why should we validate?
1. We may not have understood what customers want.
2. Customers sometimes don’t know what they want (or don’t
want!) until they see it.
If you don’t validate, you may be wasting your time on
something customers don’t like.
Example: As CTO of IMVU, Eric Ries spent 6 months writing 40,000 lines of
code, then found out customers didn’t like the product.
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7. How do we validate?
Source: HBS
Share MVP with customers
After you share your MVP with customers:
• Observe what customers do—do they use the product? What features do they
use more or less?
• Talk to customers—what do they say they like or don’t like? What do they wish
they could do?
• What else do you notice—what are competitors doing? What are your
employees doing? 7

8. What if customers don’t like the MVP?
Source: HBS
It’s time to pivot!
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9. What is a startup pivot?
A major change in the company’s
direction based on user feedback.
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10. How do you pivot?
Source: HBS
Use the customer feedback and your observations to create a
new hypothesis about what the right product looks like.
Then make a new MVP and validate it again!
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11. Which of these companies pivoted?
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12. Pivot example: Technology not ready
BEFORE New information AFTER
Challenge:
Customers could actually
buy things on their
phoneIn 2009, mobile
payments were still slow
and difficult
Observation:
Users on Tote had created
large collections of items
and were sharing
collections with friends
• Tote: A mobile
shopping website—an
application for iPhone
with price-tracking,
locations, sales
updates, and a way to
save your favorite
options
• Launched: 2009
• Pinterest: A web and
mobile site that allows
users to create and
share collections of
images
• Launched: 2010
• Today: >70 million
users
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13. Pivot example: Competitor pressure
BEFORE New information AFTER
Challenge:
• iTunes launched
podcastsOdeo knew
it couldn’t compete
with Apple
• Odeo gave itself 2
weeks to come up with
a new idea
Observation:
Employees had created
and started using an
internal system for
sending group SMS
messages
• Odeo: A podcast
directory—allowed
users to collect
podcasts and record
their own podcasts
• Launched: July 2005
• Twitter: Originally
“twttr”, a group-send
SMS application,
Twitter is now an
online service that
allows users to send
and read 140-character
“tweets”
• Launched: July 2006
• Today: >280 million
active users;
completed IPO 13

14. Pivot example: User observation
BEFORE NEW INFORMATION AFTER
Challenge:
Users weren’t checking in
very often and not many
were signing up
Observation:
Users were sharing lots of
photosThe founders
decided to focus on being
really good at one thing
• Burbn: A check-in app
that let users check in
to locations, make
future plans with
friends, earn points for
hanging out with
friends, and post
pictures
• Launched: 2009
• Instagram: A social
photo- and video-
sharing service online
• Made it simple: 3
clicks to add a
photo
• 25,000 downloads
in day one
• Launched: Oct. 2010
• Today: >100 million
users, acquired by
Facebook 14

15. The goal: Achieve product-market fit & scale
Source: HBS
You may pivot multiple times
(=make big changes)
You will definitely iterate on
the product many times (=do
small improvements)
Once you have good customer
feedback, then you can scale:
Drive customer growth and
build the company
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16. Many parts of this won’t feel good
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KEEP GOING until
you get here

17. A few last words on validation & pivoting
• “Lean startup” doesn’t work for all products. Exceptions:
• Complex systems—Macintosh
• Manufacturing—Instabeat
• Eventually, the MVP must because a fully-operational product
• Once you have product-market fit, you will still need sales & marketing
What to remember:
• Focus on the customer
• Validated learning—create an MVP and test whether it
works; repeat this process as many times as needed
• Failure is ok as long as you learn from it
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