The document discusses seven myths surrounding lean startups, emphasizing that lean does not equate to being cheap, small, or easy, and outlines the importance of metrics for measuring business success. It illustrates how analytics can guide startups in achieving product/market fit through data-driven decisions, while sharing case studies of companies that successfully adapted their business models. Ultimately, it stresses the need for startups to focus on specific metrics that reflect their stage and business model for sustained growth.

1. 7 MYTHS OF LEAN
AND HOW
ANALYTICS CAN HELP
Ben Yoskovitz
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kxlly/349894433/
@byosko

2. HOW DO WE BRING
INVESTORS AND
ENTREPRENEURS
TOGETHER?
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3489/3922495716_bea9de1bed_z.jpg?zz=1

3. More wins than losses
GoInstant
1st startup Year One Labs
Started blogging
Standout Jobs
Big pivot
1996 1998 2001 2006 2007 2010 2011
The “I got too comfy” years Failed $0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atbaker/3745556550/

5. Pre-order today!
(please)
http://leananalyticsbook.com

6. Basics of Lean Startup
Eric Ries
http://theleanstartup.com

7. MYTH #1: LEAN = CHEAP

8. KNOW WHEN TO
HACK
AND WHEN TO
SCALE

9. MYTH #2: LEAN = SMALL
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/7824157082/sizes/c/in/photostream/

10. HAVE YOU EVER HAD A
HARD TIME HIRING
TOP TALENT?

11. ALL THE HARD
WORK IS IN THE ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiki/36895053/

12. WHAT ARE THE
RISKS WITH
ACCELERATORS?

13. MYTH #3: LEAN = CRAPPY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/privatenobby/79831409/sizes/l/in/photostream/

14. AN MVP
IS FOR
LEARNING
AND MUST PROVIDE
THE CORE VALUE
YOU PROMISED

16. MYTH #4: PIVOT IS BAD WORD
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaitlinmarie/6006759537/sizes/l/in/photostream/

17. A SHIFT IN ONE ASPECT
OF YOUR STARTUP’S
FOCUS BASED ON
VALIDATED LEARNING

18. BEWARE THE
LAZY PIVOT

19. SOME PIVOTS WORK (BIG TIME!)
from b2c to b2b.
from friends to moms.

20. IF THE
FUNDAMENTALS
AREN’T THERE
YOU CAN’T
SCALE

21. MYTH #5: LEAN = CONSUMER STARTUPS
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travlr/with/3005170442/

22. If you want to:
• Compete
• Reduce waste
• Innovate
• Succeed

23. MYTH #6: LEAN = EASY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffk/59597637/

24. MYTH #7: LEAN = AUTO WIN
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8136496@N05/2327243497/sizes/l/in/photostream/

25. THINGS TAKE
TIME
EVEN IF STARTUPS
SHOULD BE GOING
FASTER

26. EXTERNAL
PRESSURE IS A
DANGEROUS
THING

27. SO HOW CAN
LEAN ANALYTICS
HELP?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skidder/37675092/sizes/l/in/photostream/

28. Analytics is the measurement of
movement towards your
business goals.

29. In a startup, the purpose of
analytics is to iterate to
product/market fit before the
money runs out.

30. VANITY METRICS ARE BAD
A metric from the early, foolish days of the Web.
Hits
Count people instead.
Marginally better than hits. Unless you’re displaying
Page views
ad inventory, count people.
Is this one person visiting a hundred times, or are a
Visits
hundred people visiting once? Fail.
This tells you nothing about what they did, why they
Unique visitors
stuck around, or if they left.
Followers/friends Count actions instead. Find out how many followers
/likes will do your bidding.

31. http://www.flickr.com/photos/circasassy/78581
55676/
it’s a
bad
If it won’t change
how you behave,
metric.

32. LEADING LAGGING
Number today that Historical metric
shows metric that shows how
tomorrow-makes you’re doing-
the news reports the news
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegaseddie/3310041214/sizes/l/in/photostream/

33. What mode of e-commerce are you?
How many of your
customers buy a Then you are in this Your customers will You are just
Focus on
second time in 90 mode buy from you like
days?
Low CAC,
1-15% Acquisition Once 70% high
of retailers checkout
15-30% Hybrid 2-2.5 20% Increasing
per year of retailers returns
Loyalty,
>30% Loyalty >2.5 10% inventory
per year of retailers expansion
(Thanks to Kevin Hilstrom for
this.)

34. SO WHAT
METRICS
SHOULD YOU TRACK?

35. YOUR BASIC THE STAGE OF
BUSINESS YOUR
MODEL STARTUP
How you make $$ Lifecycle
• E-commerce • Empathy
• SaaS • Stickiness
• Free mobile app • Virality
• Media site • Revenue
• Collaborative content site • Scale
• Two-sided marketplace

36. CORRESPONDING FUNDING
Accelerator ($25-$50k)
Seed ($500k)
Series A ($1-3M)
Series B+ ($5-10M)

37. Case study: Buffer goes from
Stickiness to Scale (through Revenue)
• Stage: Scale
• Model: SaaS (consumer)
• Popular social sharing application.
• Focused primarily on customer acquisition
• Charged from day one

38. Buffer charges early to prove people
want the problem solved
of visitors create an account
20% (acquisition / Empathy)
of sign-ups become active
64% (start of Stickiness)
of sign-ups return in the 1st month
60% (engagement / Stickiness)
of sign-ups are active after 6 months
20% (engagement / Stickiness)
convert from free to paid
2% (Revenue)

39. SKIP STEPS
AT YOUR
OWN RISK

40. Case study: ClearFit
• Stage: Scale
• Model: SaaS
• Recruitment marketing and assessment
software
• Switched business models from monthly
subscription to pay per job posting

41. ClearFit: Lots of money!
10x
revenue increase off
of 3x in sales volume
“People don’t do subscriptions for haircuts, hamburgers, and
hiring. You have to understand your customer, who they are,
how and why they buy, and how they value your product or
service.” - Ben Baldwin, co-founder

42. DON’T JUST
FOLLOW THE
LEADER
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86791111@N00/3126955746/

43. How it all comes together
The business you’re in
E- 2-sided Mobile User-gen
SaaS Media
commerce market app content
Empathy
The stage you’re
One Metric
Stickiness
at
Virality
Revenue That Matters.
Scale

44. CHOOSE
ONLY ONE
METRIC
AND
DRAW A LINE
IN THE SAND

45. Case study: Timehop aims for
virality through content sharing
• Stage: Virality
• Model: Mobile app
• Social network around the past
• Focused on virality (but not the viral
coefficient)

46. The One Metric That Matters:
Content sharing
• Focused on % of daily active users
that share content
• Aiming for 20-30% of daily active users
to share content
“All that matters now is virality. Everything else—be it
press, publicity stunts or something else—is like pushing a
rock up a mountain: it will never scale. But being viral will.”
- Jonathan Wegener, co-founder

47. METRICS ARE
LIKE SQUEEZE
TOYS

48. Once, a leader convinced others
in the absence of data.

49. Now, a leader knows what
questions to ask.

50. Thank you.
follow me. email me.
@byosko
byosko@gmail.com
instigatorblog.com
subscribe.
pre-order!
leananalyticsbook.com