How to start a startup
1. Why Startups Fail
Most startups fail (1) 
93% of the companies that get 
accepted by Y Combinator 
eventually fail.
Most startups fail (2) 
The default state of the world is to stay the way it is, 
which means the default state of a startup is failure. 
Chris Dixon
Startups don’t die, they commit suicide 
Startups die in many ways, but in the past couple of 
years I’ve noticed that the most common cause of 
death is what I call “Startup Suicide”, a phenomenon 
in which a startup’s founders and its management kill 
the company while it’s still very much breathing. 
Justin Kan
Top 5 Reasons 
Why Startups Fail
1. The market 
The real reason most startups fail is that they fail to build 
something that people actually want to use and pay for. 
An anonymous guy on the internet
2. The founders 
What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's 
a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder 
couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company 
with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are 
the ones who know him best. 
Paul Graham
3. Procrastinating 
Perfectionism is often an excuse for procrastination. 
Paul Graham
5. Poor Execution 
Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business 
world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to 
success and the cause of most of the disappointments 
that are mistakenly attributed to other causes. 
Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan
So what ? 
Fail Fast, 
Fail Often
2. How to turn your idea into a business
2.1 The process
Etapes de la création par l’APCE 
L'idée 
Le projet personnel 
L'étude de marché 
Les prévisions 
financières 
Financements 
Formalités de 
création
Etapes de la création par l’APCE 
L'idée 
Le projet personnel 
L'étude de marché 
Les prévisions 
financières 
Financements 
Formalités de 
création 
Absolument pas 
adapté aux startups!!!
Business plan 
VS Business model
Complete Startup Pyramid by Sean Ellis 
Growth 
Optimize 
Economics 
Positioning 
Product/Market fit
Product/Market fit (1) 
The ONLY thing that matters is getting to product/ 
market fit. 
Marc Andreesen
Product/Market fit (2) 
Achieving product/market fit requires at least 40% of 
users saying they would be “very disappointed” 
without your product. 
Sean Ellis
The Lean Startup methodology (1) 
Lean Startup is a systematic process for iterating from 
Plan A to a plan that works before running out of 
resources. 
Ash Maurya
The Lean Startup methodology (2) 
Customer discovery 
Est ce que le problème est réel ? 
Customer validation 
Est ce que mon produit répond au problème ? 
Customer creation 
Comment générer de la croissance ?
The Lean Startup methodology (3) 
Ideas 
Design 
Data Experience 
Measure 
Learn
2.2 Customer discovery
Your product is 
NOT 
“the product” 
Ash Maurya
Your business model 
is 
“the product” 
Ash Maurya
The lean canvas 
Problem 
Solution 
Unique value 
proposition 
Unfair 
advantage 
Customer 
segments 
Key 
metrics 
Channels 
Cost structure Revenue streams 
Created by spark59, adapté de The business model canvas
An unexpected journey … 
Brainstorming 
Priorisation 
Test 
Apprentissage 
Pivot ou 
Amélioration
Source : http://practicetrumpstheory.com/your-product-is-not-the-product/
Prioriser les business model 
1 - L’importance du problème 
2 - L’accessibilité du client 
3 - Prix & Marge brute 
4 - Taille du marché
Source : http://practicetrumpstheory.com/your-product-is-not-the-product/
Source : http://practicetrumpstheory.com/your-product-is-not-the-product/
How to test a business model ? 
Get out 
of the 
building
How to interview a client ? 
Source : http://practicetrumpstheory.com/customer-development-getting-started/
Exemples questions 
Ask about the situation wherein they might discover the 
problem you're attempting to solve. 
Can you describe the problem to me in your own 
words? 
Talk me through the last time you had this problem 
How are you solving the problem currently? What are 
your workarounds?
Interview templates 
docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_hlcsbNUS4YzdlMTk3OTgtNDM5MC00YmMyLWEyM2QtYWU4YTJhNmU2NTZj/edit 
practicetrumpstheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/problem-interview-script.png 
http://www.louisecaldwell.com/2012/06/26/10-ways-to-get-useful-information-in-early-customer-development/
2.3 Customer validation
Unique value proposition (1) 
We help X do Y doing Z 
Steve Blank
Unique value proposition (2) 
ZocDoc is a free service that helps patients find and book appointments 
with local doctors instantly online or via mobile app 
Pinterest is a visual discovery tool for finding ideas for projects and 
interests. 
Algolia provides a developer-friendly search API enabling users to 
perform database search functions in a user-friendly manner. 
Heroku is a multi-language cloud application platform that enables 
developers to deploy, scale, and manage their applications. 
Stripe provides a set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enable 
businesses to accept and manage online payments.
2.3.2 Marché
Market size (1) 
Total Addressable Market (TAM) 
Everyone you wish to reach with your product. 
Serviceable Available Market (SAM) 
The portion of your TAM that you can actually address. 
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) 
What is the realistic prediction of acquiring share of your SAM by you, 
considering competition, locality, your distribution and sales channels and 
any other market influences.
Market size (2) 
TAM 
Total Addressable Market 
SAM 
Serviceable Available Market 
SOM 
Serviceable Obtainable 
Market
Market size - exemple 
Vous souhaitez créer une startup proposant un gestionnaire 
d’emploi du temps pour les écoles. 
Le TAM serait le nombre d’écoles dans le monde. 
Le SAM serait le nombre d’écoles en France. 
Le SOM serait le nombre d’écoles en France que vous 
pouvez convaincre dans les trois ans.
Market size - outils 
Google Trends 
- 
Google AdWords 
- 
Facebook ads 
- 
Insee
Early-Evangelists by Steve Blank 
Have the problem you think they have 
- 
Knows they have the problem 
- 
Tried to solve the problem themselves 
- 
Looked for a solution themselves 
- 
Put budget behind solving the problem
Persona (1) 
Hello, I’m Henri ! 
31 years old - art director 
1000€ / month for clothing 
Like picking girls’ clothing 
Alternative culture is my drug 
Hey, je suis Gege ! 
26 ans - photographe 
350€ / mois de shopping 
Un style ne me suffit pas ! 
Je tiens un blog post-punk
Persona (2) 
Nom 
& 
Photo 
Caractéristiques 
Objectifs & besoins
2.3.2 Concurrence & Positionnement
Comprendre le marché (1) 
Marché 
La valeur totale des produits ou des services d'une catégorie donnée vendue sur une 
période de temps donnée sur une zone géographique donnée. 
Segment 
Regroupement de personnes ayant un comportement 
homogène dans un marché. 
Cible 
Segment choisi pour être le coeur de cible du produit.
Comprendre le marché (2) 
Marché 
Segment 1 
Segment 2 
Segment 3 
Segment 4 
Segment 5 
Cible
Concurrence (1) 
Competitors 
don’t matter.
Concurrence (2) 
Learn, Copy & Ignore
Concurrence (3) 
Crunchbase 
- 
AngelList 
- 
Product Hunt
Cible & positionnement 
Le positionnement permet d'identifier l'entreprise, le 
produit ou la marque dans l'esprit du consommateur 
en indiquant clairement sa différence par rapport aux 
concurrents. 
lescoursdevente.fr
2.3.1 Produit
Minimum Viable Product (1) 
What is the smallest or least 
complicated problem that the 
customer will pay us to solve? 
Steve Blank
Minimum Viable Product (2) 
How minimal should your Minimum Viable Product be? 
Probably much more 
minimum than you think! 
Eric Ries
Types de MVP 
Smoke test or Low-fidelity MVP 
Crash test or real MVP
Low-fidelity MVP - exemples (1) 
Landing Page 
Tools : LaunchRock - Unbounce - Strikingly 
Exemples : Buffer - Moustache Cookies 
Video 
Tools : Youtube - Explee - Powtoon 
Exemples : Dropbox - Zynga
Low-fidelity MVP - exemples (2) 
Prototype 
Tools : Balsamiq - Moqups - Pop 
Inspirations : ProductHunt - Startupli.st 
Online communities 
Tools : Facebook - reddit - Hacker News 
Inspirations : Civvy Street - r/beards/
Real MVP 
Source : Spotify & blog.fastmonkeys.com
Real MVP - exemples (1) 
Wizard of Oz 
Where customers believe they are interacting with the 
actual product, but behind the scenes human beings are 
doing the work. 
Concierge 
Manually perform tasks related to delivering 
the value of your product or service
Real MVP - exemples (1) 
Piecemeal 
Emulate all the missing features with 
existing services 
One Painkiller feature 
Restate any hard problem that requires a 
lot of software into a simple problem that 
requires much less.
What now ? 
Iterate 
or Exit.
Bibliographie (1) 
Product/Market Fit - Marc Andreesen 
http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee204/ProductMarketFit.html 
Running Lean - Ash Maurya 
http://runninglean.co 
Démarrer avec le Customer Development - Guilhem Bertholet 
http://www.guilhembertholet.com/blog/2011/10/05/demarrer-avec-le-customer-development-cust-dev 
Le Manuel du créateur de start-up - Steve Blank et Bob Dorf 
http://www.stevenblank.com/startup_index_qty.html 
Business Model Generation - Alexander Osterwalder et Yves Pigneur 
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com 
The Startup Pyramid - Sean Ellis 
http://www.startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/ 
Practice trumps theory - Ash Maurya 
https://practicetrumpstheory.com/
Bibliographie (2) 
How to actually do customer development - Rob Fitzpatrick 
http://fr.slideshare.net/robfitz/how-to-actually-do-customer-development-and-not-waste-your-time
ToDo 
Ecrire une value proposition 
Estimer la taille du marché & persona des early evangelist 
Créer un MVP low fidelity

Startup & Marketing #4 : how to start a startup

  • 1.
    How to starta startup
  • 2.
  • 3.
    Most startups fail(1) 93% of the companies that get accepted by Y Combinator eventually fail.
  • 4.
    Most startups fail(2) The default state of the world is to stay the way it is, which means the default state of a startup is failure. Chris Dixon
  • 5.
    Startups don’t die,they commit suicide Startups die in many ways, but in the past couple of years I’ve noticed that the most common cause of death is what I call “Startup Suicide”, a phenomenon in which a startup’s founders and its management kill the company while it’s still very much breathing. Justin Kan
  • 6.
    Top 5 Reasons Why Startups Fail
  • 7.
    1. The market The real reason most startups fail is that they fail to build something that people actually want to use and pay for. An anonymous guy on the internet
  • 8.
    2. The founders What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best. Paul Graham
  • 9.
    3. Procrastinating Perfectionismis often an excuse for procrastination. Paul Graham
  • 10.
    5. Poor Execution Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes. Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan
  • 11.
    So what ? Fail Fast, Fail Often
  • 12.
    2. How toturn your idea into a business
  • 13.
  • 14.
    Etapes de lacréation par l’APCE L'idée Le projet personnel L'étude de marché Les prévisions financières Financements Formalités de création
  • 15.
    Etapes de lacréation par l’APCE L'idée Le projet personnel L'étude de marché Les prévisions financières Financements Formalités de création Absolument pas adapté aux startups!!!
  • 16.
    Business plan VSBusiness model
  • 17.
    Complete Startup Pyramidby Sean Ellis Growth Optimize Economics Positioning Product/Market fit
  • 18.
    Product/Market fit (1) The ONLY thing that matters is getting to product/ market fit. Marc Andreesen
  • 19.
    Product/Market fit (2) Achieving product/market fit requires at least 40% of users saying they would be “very disappointed” without your product. Sean Ellis
  • 20.
    The Lean Startupmethodology (1) Lean Startup is a systematic process for iterating from Plan A to a plan that works before running out of resources. Ash Maurya
  • 21.
    The Lean Startupmethodology (2) Customer discovery Est ce que le problème est réel ? Customer validation Est ce que mon produit répond au problème ? Customer creation Comment générer de la croissance ?
  • 22.
    The Lean Startupmethodology (3) Ideas Design Data Experience Measure Learn
  • 23.
  • 24.
    Your product is NOT “the product” Ash Maurya
  • 25.
    Your business model is “the product” Ash Maurya
  • 26.
    The lean canvas Problem Solution Unique value proposition Unfair advantage Customer segments Key metrics Channels Cost structure Revenue streams Created by spark59, adapté de The business model canvas
  • 27.
    An unexpected journey… Brainstorming Priorisation Test Apprentissage Pivot ou Amélioration
  • 28.
  • 29.
    Prioriser les businessmodel 1 - L’importance du problème 2 - L’accessibilité du client 3 - Prix & Marge brute 4 - Taille du marché
  • 30.
  • 31.
  • 32.
    How to testa business model ? Get out of the building
  • 33.
    How to interviewa client ? Source : http://practicetrumpstheory.com/customer-development-getting-started/
  • 34.
    Exemples questions Askabout the situation wherein they might discover the problem you're attempting to solve. Can you describe the problem to me in your own words? Talk me through the last time you had this problem How are you solving the problem currently? What are your workarounds?
  • 35.
    Interview templates docs.google.com/file/d/0B5_hlcsbNUS4YzdlMTk3OTgtNDM5MC00YmMyLWEyM2QtYWU4YTJhNmU2NTZj/edit practicetrumpstheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/problem-interview-script.png http://www.louisecaldwell.com/2012/06/26/10-ways-to-get-useful-information-in-early-customer-development/
  • 36.
  • 37.
    Unique value proposition(1) We help X do Y doing Z Steve Blank
  • 38.
    Unique value proposition(2) ZocDoc is a free service that helps patients find and book appointments with local doctors instantly online or via mobile app Pinterest is a visual discovery tool for finding ideas for projects and interests. Algolia provides a developer-friendly search API enabling users to perform database search functions in a user-friendly manner. Heroku is a multi-language cloud application platform that enables developers to deploy, scale, and manage their applications. Stripe provides a set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enable businesses to accept and manage online payments.
  • 39.
  • 40.
    Market size (1) Total Addressable Market (TAM) Everyone you wish to reach with your product. Serviceable Available Market (SAM) The portion of your TAM that you can actually address. Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) What is the realistic prediction of acquiring share of your SAM by you, considering competition, locality, your distribution and sales channels and any other market influences.
  • 41.
    Market size (2) TAM Total Addressable Market SAM Serviceable Available Market SOM Serviceable Obtainable Market
  • 42.
    Market size -exemple Vous souhaitez créer une startup proposant un gestionnaire d’emploi du temps pour les écoles. Le TAM serait le nombre d’écoles dans le monde. Le SAM serait le nombre d’écoles en France. Le SOM serait le nombre d’écoles en France que vous pouvez convaincre dans les trois ans.
  • 43.
    Market size -outils Google Trends - Google AdWords - Facebook ads - Insee
  • 44.
    Early-Evangelists by SteveBlank Have the problem you think they have - Knows they have the problem - Tried to solve the problem themselves - Looked for a solution themselves - Put budget behind solving the problem
  • 45.
    Persona (1) Hello,I’m Henri ! 31 years old - art director 1000€ / month for clothing Like picking girls’ clothing Alternative culture is my drug Hey, je suis Gege ! 26 ans - photographe 350€ / mois de shopping Un style ne me suffit pas ! Je tiens un blog post-punk
  • 46.
    Persona (2) Nom & Photo Caractéristiques Objectifs & besoins
  • 47.
    2.3.2 Concurrence &Positionnement
  • 48.
    Comprendre le marché(1) Marché La valeur totale des produits ou des services d'une catégorie donnée vendue sur une période de temps donnée sur une zone géographique donnée. Segment Regroupement de personnes ayant un comportement homogène dans un marché. Cible Segment choisi pour être le coeur de cible du produit.
  • 49.
    Comprendre le marché(2) Marché Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 Segment 4 Segment 5 Cible
  • 50.
  • 51.
  • 52.
    Concurrence (3) Crunchbase - AngelList - Product Hunt
  • 53.
    Cible & positionnement Le positionnement permet d'identifier l'entreprise, le produit ou la marque dans l'esprit du consommateur en indiquant clairement sa différence par rapport aux concurrents. lescoursdevente.fr
  • 54.
  • 55.
    Minimum Viable Product(1) What is the smallest or least complicated problem that the customer will pay us to solve? Steve Blank
  • 56.
    Minimum Viable Product(2) How minimal should your Minimum Viable Product be? Probably much more minimum than you think! Eric Ries
  • 57.
    Types de MVP Smoke test or Low-fidelity MVP Crash test or real MVP
  • 58.
    Low-fidelity MVP -exemples (1) Landing Page Tools : LaunchRock - Unbounce - Strikingly Exemples : Buffer - Moustache Cookies Video Tools : Youtube - Explee - Powtoon Exemples : Dropbox - Zynga
  • 59.
    Low-fidelity MVP -exemples (2) Prototype Tools : Balsamiq - Moqups - Pop Inspirations : ProductHunt - Startupli.st Online communities Tools : Facebook - reddit - Hacker News Inspirations : Civvy Street - r/beards/
  • 60.
    Real MVP Source: Spotify & blog.fastmonkeys.com
  • 61.
    Real MVP -exemples (1) Wizard of Oz Where customers believe they are interacting with the actual product, but behind the scenes human beings are doing the work. Concierge Manually perform tasks related to delivering the value of your product or service
  • 62.
    Real MVP -exemples (1) Piecemeal Emulate all the missing features with existing services One Painkiller feature Restate any hard problem that requires a lot of software into a simple problem that requires much less.
  • 63.
    What now ? Iterate or Exit.
  • 64.
    Bibliographie (1) Product/MarketFit - Marc Andreesen http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee204/ProductMarketFit.html Running Lean - Ash Maurya http://runninglean.co Démarrer avec le Customer Development - Guilhem Bertholet http://www.guilhembertholet.com/blog/2011/10/05/demarrer-avec-le-customer-development-cust-dev Le Manuel du créateur de start-up - Steve Blank et Bob Dorf http://www.stevenblank.com/startup_index_qty.html Business Model Generation - Alexander Osterwalder et Yves Pigneur http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com The Startup Pyramid - Sean Ellis http://www.startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/ Practice trumps theory - Ash Maurya https://practicetrumpstheory.com/
  • 65.
    Bibliographie (2) Howto actually do customer development - Rob Fitzpatrick http://fr.slideshare.net/robfitz/how-to-actually-do-customer-development-and-not-waste-your-time
  • 66.
    ToDo Ecrire unevalue proposition Estimer la taille du marché & persona des early evangelist Créer un MVP low fidelity