Presented at the "IT Leadership Summit, Brisbane, QLD Australia" May 2014. This presentation shares the approaches taken by Wotif (leading Australian on-line travel company) to innovate and implement the Lean Start-up approach.

1. Data Driven
Innovation
PRESENTED BY: Robin Mack DATE: May 2014

2. We Want Innovation
You’re the IT Expert…….
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3. Option 1: Implement Google Flex Time
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4. Option 2: Build a creative office space
Everyone has Ideas
How do I make a viable
business opportunity from
ideas?
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5. Ideas, Ideas, Ideas……..
• Estimated 112 million
patents globally
• About 40% will never see
a customer
• If they do go to market,
within 4 years a majority
will fail
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6. Test your ideas
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Option 3: Do what entrepreneurs do

7. What is Lean Startup?
“Lean Startup is a term trademarked by Eric Ries
and represents a synthesis of Customer
Development, Agile Software Development
methodologies, and Lean (as in the Toyota
Production System) practices.”
Ash Maurya
Running Lean
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9. Startups are different to my business
I already have
customers
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10. Existing companies face different problems
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11. What’s different about a start-up?
“A company is a permanent organization designed
to execute a repeatable and scalable business model.”
Opposed to
“a startup is a temporary organization designed
to search for a repeatable and scalable business model”
Steve Blank, Why Companies are Not Startups, 4 March 2014
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12. Business model canvas
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14. How I interpret Lean Startup
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ReleaseRelease
ReleaseRelease
EvaluateEvaluateProblem/Idea
Identification
Problem/Idea
Identification
Measure
User Testing
Iterations

15. Sounds easy, right?
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16. Here is what we learned
• Know your customers
• Be careful of what the data tells you
(be careful what you ask)
• Use a scientific approach
• Fight the urge for short-term uplift
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17. Know your customers
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18. Be careful of what the data tells you
• Huge user testing with over
200,000 tests
• Overwhelming results favored the
a specific outcome
Resulted in…….
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One of the largest
marketing blunders
in history

19. Use a scientific approach
• Do not look to the data to
tell you something
• Use the data to confirm or
reject what you are testing
for
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21. Fight the urge for short-term uplift
Your cash cow is great at
providing incremental
revenue,
But
your financial
management will never let
you invest in new
directions
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22. Like all great inventors
Expect to fail
Learn from it
.
.
.
Be successful
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23. Questions
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