Lean startup:a learning organization

@vladblagojevic
@nickboucart
@sirris_be

Google Wave

Build it, and they will come…
(good products = big bucks)

Right?

What do you need for a successful business?

Automatic
What Personal
will you Communities
need to What do ? Who are
What can master? you offer? your
you Value? customer
outsource Uniqueness s?
to whom? ?
What do How to
you need communicat
to build e &
up? deliver?

How will
What you make
are my money?
costs?

Groupon: deal of the day in your inbox.

Get 50%-90% off the best stuff your city has to
offer.

Your own
idea?

Merchant Personal/Call
Acquisition Centers
Copy-writing
Automated/
Deal New, local Merchants
E-mail
selection customers
(guarantee #)

Consumers
Discounts
Direct sales
Email DB
Google ads
Personalization
engine Social media

Website

50% commission
Cust. acquisition
Merchant (30% of revenue) 20% unfulfilled
Acquisition (sales =
groupons
½ employees) Churn

began as a MMO game
What happened
here?

began with PDA payment tool

Who is the
customer?

What do they
value?

What is our product
anyway?

”Startup is a temporary
organization with purpose to
search for a repeatable and
scalable business model.

S. Blank

Startup ~ research

State
Hypotheses

Pivot or
Experiment
persevere

parkr™

Bootstrapping:
parking scouts SMS
Help find Drivers in
parking Mobile app
GPS producers cities
Monetize
Near-location unused
notifier + UI parking App store
Community Viral
User credit
cards

Micro
Community commission
Platform (parking spotter)

parkr™

Bootstrapping:
parking scouts SMS
Help find
parking Mobile app Drivers in
GPS producers
cities
Monetize
Community Viral
User credit
cards

Micro
commission
Community
Platform (scouts)

Customers Problem
do I know who they are & how to reach top 3 customer problems?
them?
 Pain level: must have vs nice to
 Segment? Early adopter? have
 Roles: user, economic
 Awareness: active vs. latent
buyer, influencer, saboteur?
 How do they search for  Alternatives : how do they deal
products? with these problems today?

Solution
top 3 product features?
 Do they solve the top 3 problems?
 Barriers to adoption (e.g. fit/integration with existing workflow)?
 Is my price accepted?

A 1st problem is… Would you pay $20 a
Does this resonate with month to use a tool like
you? How do you deal this?
with it today?
Is it a must-have?...

This is how our solution looks today
(screen per problem).
Which of the screens resonated the
most? Which could you live without?
Are there any additional features you
think are missing? Use Mocks

Trouble Parking in Brussels?
www.parkr.com
Find parking when you need it.
Park easily in busy streets of Brussels

Paying too much for parking?
www.parkr.com
Monetize your unused parking time and
help others find free parking!

Document
Hypotheses

Pivot or Experiment
persevere

CHEATSHEET

Customer problem pivot: same product, same
segment, different problem
 Change of an aspect of Starbucks : started selling coffee beans & espresso makers
Segment pivot: same product , similar
a business model problem, different set of customers
e.g. consumers aren’t buying, enterprises have a similar problem

 Successful startups Sometimes a pure marketing change
Technology pivot: repurpose the technology to solve a
change direction quickly more pressing or marketable problem
Product feature pivot: remove features for focus, or to
 Based on learning add features for a more holistic solution
pay close attention to what real customers are doing
Revenue model pivot
e.g. from a premium customized, to a low price commoditized solution
 Grounded in the vision e.g. from a one-time sale to monthly subscription or license fees
e.g. razor versus blade strategy

 They keep one foot in the Sales channel pivot: use lessons learned from customers
to switch from direct sales
past and place one foot in E.g. distribution channel, ecommerce, white-labeling …
Product versus services pivot: if products are too
a new possible future different or too complex to be sold effectively to the
customer with the problem
bundle support services with the product, education offerings...

 Vision: search space Major competitor pivot: react when a major new player
or competitor jumps into your space
one of the above pivots to build your differentiation and stay alive

Parkr™ foursquare for parking spots

Bootstrapping:
parking scouts SMS
Help find
parking Community Drivers in
GPS producers
cities
Monetize
Community Viral Cities
Promoting
User credit public
cards Mobile app
transport

App fee Micro
Building commission
Platform Community City budget
(critical mass)

IDEAS

Pivot Continuous
LEARN BUILD
Root-cause deployment
SPEED!

DATA PRODUCT

MEASURE

Metrics Lean startup
Feedback build-measure-learn loop
by Eric Ries

 Counter-intuitive and  Speed
beyond comfort zone  If you’re really on to
something, there are other
 Learn from the data 4-5 companies pursuing a
similar vision
 You don’t get a gold star
for following the process
 Techniques helpful, but
 It’s okay to be you need to be very
opportunistic creative
 …but stay grounded in
your vision  Emotional rollercoaster

 Find mentors

 Lean Startup by Eric Ries  Tools
 startuplessonslearned.com  leancanvas.com
 theleanstartup.com/book leanlaunchlab.com
 sllconf.com  usertesting.com
 Steve Blank  KissMetrics, Piwik
 steveblank.com  uservoice.com
 steveblank.com/books.html
 Ash Maurya  More references
 ashmaurya.com  businessmodelgeneration.com
 runningleanhq.com (book)  venturehacks.com
 Dave McClure  500hats.typepad.com
 AARRR: Startup metrics for  paulgraham.com
pirates  news.ycombinator.com/
 Even more:
steveblank.com/tools-and-
blogs-for-entrepreneurs

 Lean Startup Circle
Brussels  Nick Boucart
 ICAB, Beta Group Co-  nick.boucart@sirris.be
Working space  blog.sirris.be
 www.meetup.com/lean-  @nickboucart
brussels/  Book: The art of software
 Startup Weekends innovation
 betagroup.be  Sirris
 Founder Institute  http://www.startathlon.co
& MIC m
 westartup .eu
 techbrew.be

Lean startup:a learning organization