1.
The magic of loops,
markets & moxie
Creating an actionable
framework based on Lean
Startup and other methods
to keep you focused

2.
Nicole Capuana
@ncapuana
LeanDog
@leandog
Nick Barendt
@nickbarendt

3.
What we work on
Product Design & Development
● web, mobile, cloud, embedded, IoT(H)
● software making an impact

4.
Loops

5.
If I only knew then what I know now

6.
Why Lean?
● reduce waste
● continuous learning
● focus on customer value
● feedback
● retrospectives

7.
Lean Startup
● Eric Ries & Steve
Blank
● Apply Lean and
Scientific Principle
to Entrepreneurship

8.
Build Measure Learn
Loops, feedback, cadence, &
retrospectives
Hypothesis format
We believe that
[building this feature]
[for these people]
will achieve [this outcome]

9.
Markets

10.
“No business plan
survives first contact
with a customer.”
-Steve Blank

11.
Hypotheses
● Leap-of-Faith Assumptions/Hypotheses
● Focus on Learning Initially
● Sequence or Collection of Hypotheses
● Riskiest hypotheses first

12.
Customer Development

13.
Customer Development
● Core focus
● Solve a problem
● Product Market Fit
● Don’t build for everyone
● Talk to them to understand
● Observe what they do

14.
Get out of the Building
● Uncomfortable for developers
● Friends and family don’t count
● Whole team participates
● Identify Personas
● Develop Empathy
● Interview and Observe
● Stay out of the “Woulds”

15.
Safe Driving? What is “safe”?

16.
Who are your customers
● Segments
● Personas
● Channels
● B2B or B2C?
● User vs. buyer
● You are not your customer

17.
Understand how + why your
customers buy
● Pricing
○ what are you selling against?
● Day-in-the-life
● Journey Map
● How big of a pain do they have?
● Do they want and need it?

18.
Experiment & Validate

19.
...there is no try
● Prove or
Disprove
Hypotheses
● Experiment
Design

20.
Types of Experiments
● Landing page - test the water
● Customer interviews - create a script for
consistency
● Paper prototypes to clickable prototypes
● Concierge service or Wizard of Oz
● Technical spikes to to prove feasibility and
improve effort estimates
● Actual software prototype

21.
Build Less - Prototype More!
● Learn before building
● Picture worth 1000s words
● Building feels like progress
● Validate with customer
● Tell a story
● It’s priceless

22.
Testing & Metrics
● Can they use it?
● Do they want it?
● What did you
observe?
● What did you learn?
● What does the data
indicate?

23.
Experiment Mapping
● David Bland
● Can we learn
faster?
● Can we do
less?
Learning
Time
Days Weeks Months

24.
Build

25.
User Stories

26.
Story Backlog

27.
Story Mapping
● Jeff Patton
● Epics > Features >
Icebox
● Prioritize across
● Play Devil’s Advocate
● Create an actionable
plan
There’s always
more to it than you
think & priorities
will change

28.
Story Map - Before

29.
Story Map - After

30.
MVP - Minimum Viable/Valuable Product
“A minimum viable product has the exact
(not least) amount of features to make it
desirable and sellable, thus giving value.”
-Martin Christensen

31.
Feedback
Cycle

32.
Moxie

33.
Path only looks
straight in hindsight

34.
Dont’ Do it Alone
Hustler, tech, sales, fund raising
● a founder (the idea creator)
● someone who can see the big picture
● someone who hold all the details & will do whatever it takes to get the job
done
● someone who is the hustler
Be mentored

35.
Be mindful of the toll
● Relationships
● Exhaustion
● You

36.
Lots of “No”s to get
to Yes

37.
Kill Your Darlings

38.
Pivot
● Based on what you
learn
● Course corrective
● Build an app that
solves only your
problem or build a
business?

39.
Funding (really not your problem)
● Bootstrapping
● Friends and Family
● Angels
● Accelerators
● Venture Capital
● Rich vs. King

40.
end of funnel is opening of another

41.
feedback loops are
reality check against
vision
better to learn sooner

42.
Have the audacity to
learn, fail fast + have
fun changing the
world
http://www.leandog.com/what-we-do/studio/
http://www.leandog.com/dogtreats/