This document provides an overview of the Lean Startup methodology. It discusses key concepts like Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the Build-Measure-Learn loop, and Customer Development. Examples are given of startups like Dropbox and Peernuts that used Lean Startup principles to test ideas quickly and iteratively before building full products. The document warns against common startup failures like building too many features without customer feedback. It advocates starting simply to test assumptions and get feedback early in the development process.

1. Lean Startup Overview
Presented by Quang Nguyen (Sebastian) ,
MBA, PMP, TESOL

2. Little self-introduction
• Strong passion in entrepreneurship and
education
• Solid belief that entrepreneurship can be taught
and passion can be inspired
• Strong desire to make HCMC the next Silicon
Valley
• Facebook: @qtheboss
• Slideshare: @qtheboss
• Twitter: @nvquangvn
• Blog: http://nhakhoinghiep.wordpress.com/

3. Agenda
• What
• Why
• Where
• When
• Who
• How

4. Warning
• I am here to learn, not to teach
• I do not like good words. I love hear you says
“No, you’re wrong.”
• I have no credit for Lean Startup
• I have no credit for any intelligent work on this
slides, including
images, terminologies, processes, philosophie
s …
• The context is web startup

5. So who got the credit for
Lean Startup?
Eric Ries
• Co-founder and CTO of IMVU
• Entrepreneur-in-Residence at
Harvard Business school, 2010
• Best Young Entrepreneur of Tech,
2007
• Startup advisory
Steve Blank
• Retired serial entrepreneur
• Built 8 startups in 21 years
including MIPS Computers
• Now teaching Entrepreneurship at
Berkeley, Stanford, and Columbia

6. What is Lean?

7. And lean is everywhere

8. So what is lean startup
• Product/market fit means being in a good
market with a product that can satisfy that
market.
• Lean Startup is a method of testing the
assumptions and hypothesis of a business idea
in an iterative manner while validating your
product/market fit before you ship a complete
product.
• The key is to eliminate waste.

9. Webvan
• An online grocery business that
promised to deliver products to
customers’ homes within 30
minutes
• Backed up by Benchmark
Capital, Sequoia Capital, Softbank
Capital, Goldman Sachs, and
Yahoo!
• The largest dotcom failure in
history
• Why failed?
– Untested plan
– Grew too fast

10. Why should we care?

11. Where on earth do people use Lean?

12. Who actually used Lean Startup?
• Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
• Peernuts (www.peernuts.com)
– Peernuts is a sharing platform for cultural goods. You
just have to log in, list your library, connect with your
friends and get access to the hundreds of
films, books, video games, comics they want to share
with you.
– Right now, Peernuts is in beta mode, available in
French and just for DVDs.
• And a lot more:
IMVU, Votizen, KISSMetric, Aarkvard, Hearsay, Epi
c Scale, Food on the Table, Pbworks, …

13. Dropbox - 1st Launch

14. Dropbox - 2nd Launch

15. Dropbox - 3rd Launch

16. Dropbox - Key Lessons
• Public launch in Sep 2008
• Ignored mainstream PR
• Did not focus on building lots of features
• Invested heavily in analytics, such as
survey, split tests, landing page, signup flow
optimization, sharing encouragement …

17. Peernuts homepage

18. Peernuts – Blogging before Coding
• Step #1:
– A short blog post
– 10-question poll
– No code AT ALL

19. Peernuts – Market shrinking
• Step #2:
– Is your market really big and totally bullish? If yes,
you’re missing the point. If it’s big that’s too big.
Start shrinking your market!
– Started with DVD

20. Peernuts – Feature Burner
• Test #3:
– Ask yourself if you have more than 3 features. If
yes, you’re too fat.
– 3 features:
• a movie listing powered by an external movie database
• a loan dashboard
• a friend system coupled with Facebook connect and a basic
mail invitation
– No rating system, no wish list, no recommendation, no
notification, no privacy setting … NOOOOO!!!

21. Peernuts – No designer
• Step #4:
– First product ship objective is to learn, learn, and
learn.
– Don’t depress if you don’t have a wonderful logo.
It looks weird but if you don’t care, it will just be
fine!
– Remember: you don’t need the perfect product
but a working prototype.

22. Peernuts – Procrastination
• Did you postpone
product ship for the
3rd time? If yes, stop
messing around.
Release it!
• Learn with your
customers > Refine
useless aspects of
your product

23. Peernuts - Conclusion
• Right now: Peernuts doesn’t work.
• But: we have a great feedback on the service we are
building
• Will we add features? NO
– Increase customer performance
• Will we start massive communication? NO
– Wait until the virality rate > 1
• Will we work on our market? YES
– We don’t have the correct positioning yet.
• Is it okay to not consider any business model for the
moment?

24. Extra: The Lean Startup

25. How to use Lean Startup?
• Lean Canvas
• Key Metrics
• MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• Build – Measure – Learn loop
• Customer Development

26. Lean Canvas

29. Customer Lifecycle /
Conversion Behavior

30. Key Metrics - AARRR

31. Before Product / Market Fit

32. After Product / Market Fit

33. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• MVP is the product with just the necessary
features to get money and/or feedback from
early adopters.
• Do MVPs seem abstract to you?

34. MVP examples
1. “If Apple can launch a smartphone without Find or Cut-and-Paste, what can you
cut out of your product requirements?” – Sramana Mitra
2. USV-backed foursquare uses Google Docs to collect customer feedback. No
code, no maintenance.
3. Fliggo sells it before they build it.
4. Grockit puts up a notify-me-when-you-release form on steroids.
5. Auto e-commerce site uses manualation and flintstoning for their backend.
6. Semiconductor company uses 5 people and FPGAs to build a $100M
semiconductor product line.
7. Consumer company uses fake screenshots to sell their product.
8. Allicator uses Facebook ads: “Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
complete a survey and tell us about it.”
9. ManyWheels uses Microsoft Visio to build clickable web demos for prospective
customers.
10. Cloudfire uses a classic customer development problem presentation.

35. Build – Measure – Learn loop

37. Customer Development (cont)

38. Traditional Product Development

39. Agile Development

40. Product Development at Lean Startup

41. Conclusion
• Think big but start small.
• The longer you survive, the higher chance you
will succeed.
• If you have to fail, fail it early and cheaply.
• It’s new. So be skeptical.

42. Q & A