This document provides an overview of the Lean Startup methodology and introduces a framework for organizing startup tools called the Six Abilities Framework. The framework identifies six core abilities for startups: forming, transforming, projecting, persuading, collecting, and protecting. Examples of tools are given for each ability. The document concludes by introducing a online toolkit resource that provides links to over 230 startup tools organized using the Six Abilities Framework.
Answering the age old question - how can Sales and Marketing work together effectively?
What I cover:
- Why sales x marketing alignment is integral
- Understanding sales x marketing priorities
- Actionable ideas for creating shared context
This was presented on 29th July 2021 at the SaaS Insider event. Will be revisiting this later to revise & update.
You can get in touch with me on Twitter (@RoshanCariappa) or LinkedIn (Roshan Cariappa) if you have questions.
Marketing to the Enterprise - Roshan CariappaRoshan Cariappa
Outline:
- How is enterprise Sales & Marketing different
- What can you do to be more relevant to the org
- How to get started - team, campaigns, & more
Relevant for: founders, investors, and marketers who are interested in understanding how to go up market, build teams, and execute campaigns.
Outline:
- What changes in a crisis and what should you continue doing
- Turning a crisis into an opportunity and executing strategically
- Preparing for life after the crisis and not being under leveraged
[April 2020]
Eight lessons:
1. This is not the new normal
2. Stay away from perma-bears
3. Change tactically, not strategically
4. Find new stakeholders, new channels
5. Don’t be afraid to pivot your positioning
6. Sweat every lead and opportunity
7. Focus on your existing customers
8. Create and broadcast your narrative
How to scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan CariappaRoshan Cariappa
Notes from a workshop conducted on 16th Feb 2020 for Entrepreneurs and early hires at B2B SaaS startups on how they should go about building their Marketing function from scratch. [Note - will revise this periodically]
The content focused on principles one could use to think about various things from who you should hire and what campaigns you should run to what metrics you should focus on and how marketing should align with Sales.
The purpose of the slides themselves was to seed conversations and provoke questions from the audience (the session extended beyond 2hrs!) and so you might need some additional explanation on a few of the slides.
Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Email - happy to help in any way possible.
Zero to 100 - Part 3: Founder-led Selling - Pete KazanjyDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Don’t Sleep on BDRs: Lessons in Scaling a Sales Team from SaaS Sales Leaders ...saastr
Anna Baird / CRO / Outreach
Amy Appleyard / SVP Global Sales / Malwarebytes
Michelle Benfer / VP, Head of North America Sales / HubSpot
Tony Benvenuto / SVP of Sales West / Seismic
Hear from CROs and sales leaders at rapidly growing SaaS companies talk about lessons learned when scaling their sales teams, the importance of BDRs, key hires and when to prioritize them, and more. Topics may include:
Why BDRs/SDRs have the hardest, but one of the most important, positions in B2B sales. How can fast-paced SaaS companies retain BDR/SDR talent by keeping them motivated, focused, and constantly-learning?
How young SaaS companies can develop a sales hiring strategy to accommodate explosive growth, new markets, and changing priorities.
Growth inflection points SaaS leaders should look for that indicate when it’s time to fill crucial sales leadership roles.
Interview and recruiting strategies to vet salesperson talent and resiliency, ranging from junior BDRs/SDRs to seasoned sales VPs.
Getting Back to the Basics of Lead GenerationSales Hacker
Lesley Collins - SurveyMonkey - Senior Sales Manager EMEA - Getting Back to the Basics of Lead Generation
http://www.saleshacker.com/saas/back-to-basics-of-lead-generation/
Visit SalesHacker.com for more sales hacks, tips, and tactics.
Answering the age old question - how can Sales and Marketing work together effectively?
What I cover:
- Why sales x marketing alignment is integral
- Understanding sales x marketing priorities
- Actionable ideas for creating shared context
This was presented on 29th July 2021 at the SaaS Insider event. Will be revisiting this later to revise & update.
You can get in touch with me on Twitter (@RoshanCariappa) or LinkedIn (Roshan Cariappa) if you have questions.
Marketing to the Enterprise - Roshan CariappaRoshan Cariappa
Outline:
- How is enterprise Sales & Marketing different
- What can you do to be more relevant to the org
- How to get started - team, campaigns, & more
Relevant for: founders, investors, and marketers who are interested in understanding how to go up market, build teams, and execute campaigns.
Outline:
- What changes in a crisis and what should you continue doing
- Turning a crisis into an opportunity and executing strategically
- Preparing for life after the crisis and not being under leveraged
[April 2020]
Eight lessons:
1. This is not the new normal
2. Stay away from perma-bears
3. Change tactically, not strategically
4. Find new stakeholders, new channels
5. Don’t be afraid to pivot your positioning
6. Sweat every lead and opportunity
7. Focus on your existing customers
8. Create and broadcast your narrative
How to scale a B2B Marketing Function - Roshan CariappaRoshan Cariappa
Notes from a workshop conducted on 16th Feb 2020 for Entrepreneurs and early hires at B2B SaaS startups on how they should go about building their Marketing function from scratch. [Note - will revise this periodically]
The content focused on principles one could use to think about various things from who you should hire and what campaigns you should run to what metrics you should focus on and how marketing should align with Sales.
The purpose of the slides themselves was to seed conversations and provoke questions from the audience (the session extended beyond 2hrs!) and so you might need some additional explanation on a few of the slides.
Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Email - happy to help in any way possible.
Zero to 100 - Part 3: Founder-led Selling - Pete KazanjyDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Don’t Sleep on BDRs: Lessons in Scaling a Sales Team from SaaS Sales Leaders ...saastr
Anna Baird / CRO / Outreach
Amy Appleyard / SVP Global Sales / Malwarebytes
Michelle Benfer / VP, Head of North America Sales / HubSpot
Tony Benvenuto / SVP of Sales West / Seismic
Hear from CROs and sales leaders at rapidly growing SaaS companies talk about lessons learned when scaling their sales teams, the importance of BDRs, key hires and when to prioritize them, and more. Topics may include:
Why BDRs/SDRs have the hardest, but one of the most important, positions in B2B sales. How can fast-paced SaaS companies retain BDR/SDR talent by keeping them motivated, focused, and constantly-learning?
How young SaaS companies can develop a sales hiring strategy to accommodate explosive growth, new markets, and changing priorities.
Growth inflection points SaaS leaders should look for that indicate when it’s time to fill crucial sales leadership roles.
Interview and recruiting strategies to vet salesperson talent and resiliency, ranging from junior BDRs/SDRs to seasoned sales VPs.
Getting Back to the Basics of Lead GenerationSales Hacker
Lesley Collins - SurveyMonkey - Senior Sales Manager EMEA - Getting Back to the Basics of Lead Generation
http://www.saleshacker.com/saas/back-to-basics-of-lead-generation/
Visit SalesHacker.com for more sales hacks, tips, and tactics.
Read the full blog post: http://www.distilled.net/blog/distilled/dear-cmo-your-marketing-plan-is-broken/
We've been doing a lot of work recently looking into agile marketing. In the slidedeck above we want to make the case for and show off some worthy examples of how and where agile works in the three areas that we really care about and can influence as consultants - budget, people and processes.
Simple Steps to Superstardom. 1 Day, 40+ Experts, Countless Insights - all on October 4, 2016, San Francisco Marriott Marquis
This year's Dreamforce Sales Summit ls larger than ever! If you're in sales and coming to Dreamforce, this is a must-attend event!
There are 12 Sales Summit super-sessions (consisting of 25 mini sessions) available in Agenda Builder and linked from our event page. Ensure to enroll now!
A workshop that looks at the key elements of developing a marketing strategy: goals, target audiences, stories, channels, budgeting, measurement, and optimization. It's a look at how to creating a marketing plan for success.
Approached to talk about lead funnels and marketing automation, I suggested we change the topic to be relevant to the problem:
- Where to Start & Attracting an Audience
- Managing Audience & Growth
Marketing is the crutch of product mediocrity ... if your offering is good enough, you don't need for marketing and any form of active sales diminishes ... your "sales-funnel" turns into something that much more closely resembles a pipe ... almost every lead that comes in the top is a conversion through the bottom.
------
Socialising and Sharing the Love & Expertise @ 2 Day Startup Accelerator with Entrepreneur Social Club in Melbourne Australia
> http://www.entrepreneursocialclub.com.au
> http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurial-Social-Club
> https://www.facebook.com/entrepreneursc
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Key Takeaways from The Sales Development Playbook, part 1 and part 2WhereDat
Key takeaways, section-by-section from the Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales
In The Sales Development Playbook, author Trish Bertuzzi shares 3 decades experience on building pipeline and speeding up growth.
In this takeaway:
Part 1 - Strategy
Part 2 - Specilaization
• Introductory meetings and generating qualified opportunities, which one?
• Pursuing qualified opportunities using the PACT method
• When is to build an in-house sales development team?
• Deciding between inbound and outbound marketing
• Gaining clarity of your ICP (ideal customer profile)
• When to separate inbound SDRs and outbound SDRs into separate roles
• Why you should consider a research role
A workshop (including templates and frameworks) that focuses on the key areas of a marketing strategy - goals, target audiences, buyers personas, the buyer's journey, and tactical execution.
Must-have marketing know-how for high-growing SaaS companiesEgri Viktor
If you are an owner of or marketer at a SaaS company, you should really know these to scale your business to the next level:
Why should you take advantage of inbound marketing?
What is a buyer persona?
How to choose the right business and marketing model for your business?
How to generate leads?
Why and how should you implement lead nurturing?
What is marketing automation?
What is the must have software pack for your marketing?
Atlanta Ad Club - New Business in the Modern Age - May 2014Joe Koufman
During this Atlanta Ad Club event, Joe Koufman (CEO of AgencySparks) moderated. The panelists included Patricia Camden (VP, Client Engagement for Razorfish), Minsoo Pak (VP, Chief Creative Officer for Sparks Grove), Chris Breen (Creative Director for breensmith), and Scott Thomas (VP, Consumer Marketing for the Cartoon Network).
Every business uses a sales funnel.
A sales funnel is the predetermined journey people are taken through before becoming your customer. It can also be referred to as a sales tunnel or sales pipeline.
In my talk at the 2017 LAUNCH SCALE conference in San Francisco, I discuss how to get inside your buyer's head to increase funnel conversion rates. In the talk, I cover:
- How to design and build a buyer-centric sales funnel that has low CAC and fast sales cycles.
- How to figure out why your sales funnel isn't working as well as it could be, and how to fix it.
- How to understand the way buyers react to your funnel, and how to use that knowledge to increase funnel conversion rates.
Read the full blog post: http://www.distilled.net/blog/distilled/dear-cmo-your-marketing-plan-is-broken/
We've been doing a lot of work recently looking into agile marketing. In the slidedeck above we want to make the case for and show off some worthy examples of how and where agile works in the three areas that we really care about and can influence as consultants - budget, people and processes.
Simple Steps to Superstardom. 1 Day, 40+ Experts, Countless Insights - all on October 4, 2016, San Francisco Marriott Marquis
This year's Dreamforce Sales Summit ls larger than ever! If you're in sales and coming to Dreamforce, this is a must-attend event!
There are 12 Sales Summit super-sessions (consisting of 25 mini sessions) available in Agenda Builder and linked from our event page. Ensure to enroll now!
A workshop that looks at the key elements of developing a marketing strategy: goals, target audiences, stories, channels, budgeting, measurement, and optimization. It's a look at how to creating a marketing plan for success.
Approached to talk about lead funnels and marketing automation, I suggested we change the topic to be relevant to the problem:
- Where to Start & Attracting an Audience
- Managing Audience & Growth
Marketing is the crutch of product mediocrity ... if your offering is good enough, you don't need for marketing and any form of active sales diminishes ... your "sales-funnel" turns into something that much more closely resembles a pipe ... almost every lead that comes in the top is a conversion through the bottom.
------
Socialising and Sharing the Love & Expertise @ 2 Day Startup Accelerator with Entrepreneur Social Club in Melbourne Australia
> http://www.entrepreneursocialclub.com.au
> http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurial-Social-Club
> https://www.facebook.com/entrepreneursc
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Key Takeaways from The Sales Development Playbook, part 1 and part 2WhereDat
Key takeaways, section-by-section from the Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales
In The Sales Development Playbook, author Trish Bertuzzi shares 3 decades experience on building pipeline and speeding up growth.
In this takeaway:
Part 1 - Strategy
Part 2 - Specilaization
• Introductory meetings and generating qualified opportunities, which one?
• Pursuing qualified opportunities using the PACT method
• When is to build an in-house sales development team?
• Deciding between inbound and outbound marketing
• Gaining clarity of your ICP (ideal customer profile)
• When to separate inbound SDRs and outbound SDRs into separate roles
• Why you should consider a research role
A workshop (including templates and frameworks) that focuses on the key areas of a marketing strategy - goals, target audiences, buyers personas, the buyer's journey, and tactical execution.
Must-have marketing know-how for high-growing SaaS companiesEgri Viktor
If you are an owner of or marketer at a SaaS company, you should really know these to scale your business to the next level:
Why should you take advantage of inbound marketing?
What is a buyer persona?
How to choose the right business and marketing model for your business?
How to generate leads?
Why and how should you implement lead nurturing?
What is marketing automation?
What is the must have software pack for your marketing?
Atlanta Ad Club - New Business in the Modern Age - May 2014Joe Koufman
During this Atlanta Ad Club event, Joe Koufman (CEO of AgencySparks) moderated. The panelists included Patricia Camden (VP, Client Engagement for Razorfish), Minsoo Pak (VP, Chief Creative Officer for Sparks Grove), Chris Breen (Creative Director for breensmith), and Scott Thomas (VP, Consumer Marketing for the Cartoon Network).
Every business uses a sales funnel.
A sales funnel is the predetermined journey people are taken through before becoming your customer. It can also be referred to as a sales tunnel or sales pipeline.
In my talk at the 2017 LAUNCH SCALE conference in San Francisco, I discuss how to get inside your buyer's head to increase funnel conversion rates. In the talk, I cover:
- How to design and build a buyer-centric sales funnel that has low CAC and fast sales cycles.
- How to figure out why your sales funnel isn't working as well as it could be, and how to fix it.
- How to understand the way buyers react to your funnel, and how to use that knowledge to increase funnel conversion rates.
This is the handout that we used during the first-ever workshop based on Eric Ries's Leader's Guide. This work is based on a pre-release draft of the book, and includes many hands-on activities for putting the Leader's Guide into practice. Consider this Iteration Zero.
SUPERSMART LEARNING TOOLS for Lean Startups: Volume 1 - Six Question (Q) Temp...Rod King, Ph.D.
Fast Validated Learning is at the core of the Lean Startup Method. However, learning and mastering the Lean Startup Method is a time-consuming, arduous, and expensive venture. The main reason is that Lean Startup tools are developed, learned, and applied using a Fragmented Learning approach. There is an exponential increase in the number of Lean Startup tools. However, Lean Startup tools hardly talk to each other; they do not share a register or common vocabulary of topics,
Question-tags are very powerful tools for organizing and managing ideas as well as tools in any methodology including the Lean Startup Method. In this presentation, six question-tags and basic templates are presented. These question-tags and templates can be used as the basic building blocks or "atoms" for creating tools ("molecules" and "compounds") for Universal Problem Solving & Project Management (UPSPM). In other words, the presented blank and annotated Question (Q)-Templates can be used for discovering, solving, and managing problems in every domain.
For Lean Startups, these Q-Templates are the basic tools for effectively as well as efficiently organizing and managing Lean Startup projects. These Q-Templates can be put together to function like any Lean Startup tool' for instance, Validation Board, Value Proposition Canvas, Business Model Canvas, and Lean Canvas. Also, all business tools can be deconstructed or decomposed using the Q-Templates.
This all-day workshop puts Eric Ries's Leader's Guide into practice through a series of 9 hands-on activities. The introductory talk makes the case that Change is the greatest threat to business today, and Lean Startup is emerging as the leading Management Practice enabling companies to adapt.
Für einen neuen Impulsvortrag sammle ich Fallbeispiele bei denen klar erkennbar ist das Unternehmen Innovationen und Ideen von KMU kopieren anstatt mit ihnen zu kooperieren.
How to build a startup if you are not technicalEdward Liu
Busting the misconception that you must need a product for your startup. Start building the next billion dollar business without a line of code written.
Lean Startup Analytics and MVP – Lecture and Workshop at Zeppelin UniversitySebastian Fittko
This lecture and workshop was held at E-Entrepreneurship Summer School at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen.
The first part explains the differences and challenges between of a new idea driven startup and proof of concept startup (aka copycat).
The first Workshop part is on the key assumptions and hypothesis of the business ideas in the course.
The second part of the lecture is about the validation of the problem/solution fit using interview techniques.
The third part is on the Minimum Viable Product concept and 6 different MVP cases.
The second workshop is on developing a MVP concept for each of the business ideas in the course.
Finally some fundamental quantitative analytics (split testing, cohort analysis) are explained.
Steve Jobs' LEAN STARTUP PROJECT MANAGEMENT: How Steve Jobs Planned, Organize...Rod King, Ph.D.
Steve Jobs' approach to creating extraordinarily successful products is shrouded in mystery. This presentation introduces a new framework, "Lean Startup Project Management", which can be used to explain Steve Jobs' innovation methodology which was largely intuitive. As the name implies, Lean Startup Project Management focuses on translating into reality ideas and principles from Eric Ries's bestselling book, "The Lean Startup." The core tool of Lean Startup Project Management is the One-Page Lean Startup which is a multilevel dashboard. Whereas existing approaches focus on using a tactical dashboard for Lean Startup Project Management, the One-Page Lean Startup uses 3 integrated dashboards: visionary, strategic, and tactical One-Page Lean Startup. Users end up saving time, money, energy, and lots of other resources. Experiment with the One-Page Lean Startup and provide us with your feedback.
15 Tips for Compelling Company Updates on LinkedInLinkedIn
LinkedIn has evolved into a platform for content marketing. With more than 225 million members worldwide, professionals are using LinkedIn to become great at what they do by seeking and sharing insights. On LinkedIn, marketers are able to build relationships with professionals by using accurate targeting to share relevant content. LinkedIn Company Updates, shared from your Company Page, are a powerful way to reach professionals with relevant content across devices. We’ve created these 15 tips for compelling company updates to help you drive better results.
For more about content marketing on LinkedIn, visit http://lnkd.in/LIContentMarketing
The presentation is about minimum viable product, what is it, why is it important and how to build it. In the presentation you can find many ideas that will help you with the build, measure and learn loop.
The second part of the presentation is about pivoting. Pivots are fundamental changes in business strategy and very important part of avoiding the big failure without learning or even worse becoming a zombie company.
This session explores how to generate ideas, how to assess whether an idea has potential, the skills required for entrepreneurial success, and how to handle initial failures. Delivered at Bath Spa University on 7/1015
No startup business experiences the same journey to success, but there are general stages that most companies move through as they grow:
1) Validation
2) Product Development
3) Commercialization
4) Scale/Growth
The Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation (CEI) helps its clients through these stages of business development and offers best practices for each stage. Represented by an amazing lineup of speakers, including Hart Shafer (Innovation Coach / Founder, Theraspecs), Eric Miller (Principal, PADT Inc.), Nate Curran (Entrepreneur-in-Residence, CEI) and Russ Yelton (CEO, Pinnacle Transplant Technologies, "The Startup Lifecycle" presentation offers unique insights and best practices for entrepreneurs growing their business.
Build Tech Startup in Bangladesh in a Lean WayNascenia IT
Lean Startup, as coined by Eric Ries, has been adopted by many organizations from Dropbox, Intuit to US Government, and is taught in Harvard Business School. The idea is first proposed in 2011, but now it has taken the startup world by storm.
What is startup? Who can be considered an entrepreneur? What numbers should you look at when you are building something new for the customers? What if you do not even know who your customers are? When traditional business plans don't work, Lean Startup will show you a scientific way to create a successful business.
If you are an entrepreneur creating a new business in an extremely uncertain environment, or if you are building a product around a new idea and/or in a new market, Lean Startup is a concept that you will regret not knowing about before. How Lean Startup is relevant in Bangladesh? How is it relevant to tech business? The speaker will try to answers all these questions. And perhaps make you ask more.
Business, STEM, Entrepreneurship: We all need each other!Shashi Jain
Keynote presentation by Shashi Jain for the MBA Research Conclave, 2017 a convening of business education programs for high school students. In this talk, I question siloing of programs for high school students and advocate for blended learning programs teaching entrepreneurial behavior. Lots of examples from TiE Young Entreprenreurs.
Aubrey Smith, Sparked Advisory
In this training, we will build on the foundation established in Lean Startup 101 and 201 by delving into examples and cases of the Lean Startup concepts in action. Attendees of Lean Startup 301 will be exposed to cutting edge work from thought leaders and experts using Lean Startup in practice today — at startups and within the enterprise. Participation in this session is essential: You will be asked to help design an MVP and experiment to test critical Leap of Faith Assumption(s) in groups and will be encourage to share experiences. The session is designed to allow attendees to stretch their skills and to push one-another to ‘learn by doing’. The session will also include:
Sample cases and live interviews with practitioners highlighting the application of core concepts;
Exercises designed to bring the concepts to life and challenge participants to deepen their skills;
Discussion of advanced topics such organizational culture and governance as well as industry-specific concepts such as using Lean Startup in heavily regulated markets.
Thanks to Lean Startup Co.’s law firm, Orrick, for being the sponsor for this track.
1. Based on Presentation to Cambridge Startup Masterclass December 2011
Tools for Startup
Wizards
Paul Walsh
CogniDox
2. What I intend to cover:
• Introduction to The Lean Startup
• Lists of Tools – why lists don’t really work
• The Six Abilities Framework
• Stay Lean using Tools & the Framework
4. The Lean Startup
• Your time / life is precious, don't
waste it on stuff nobody wants
• Test and correct assumptions as
early as possible
• MVP - Minimum Viable Product
• Continuous deployment is good
• Always Be Measuring
• The Lean Startup is a company
built to learn
• Customer development rather
than product development
5. Not Lean as in “Frugal”
• Lean Startup ideas go back a long way (Lean
Manufacturing, Kanban, etc.) and are not a
response to “lean times” of current economy
• Where Philosophy of Science meets Business
School thinking:
– Scientific method: experimentation, empirical
data, hypothesis-testing, falsification
6. Not just for Startups
• Lean applies to any Product Management
enterprise
• Key requirement - “designed experiment”
must be a viable concept for your market
• Hypothesis testing is about
customer, user, buyer, pricing
model, channels… and product
7. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Eric Ries: “that version of a new product which
allows a team to collect the maximum amount of
validated learning about customers with the least
effort.”
• Neither Minimal
nor Viable but
Minimum Viable
8. MVP revisions & limitations
• Awkward if your MVP needs a network effect or
community to be useful
– http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/11/when-minimal-viable-
product-doesnt-work.html (Seth Godin)
• Should it be Minimum Marketable Product?
– http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/agile-product-innovation/the-
minimal-marketable-product/ (Roman Pichler)
• Should it be Maximally Buyable Product?
– http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/12999/From-Minimally-Viable-To-
Maximally-Buyable-Product.aspx (Dharmesh Shah)
• Do align your MVP cycles with risk of losing key
customers, especially in B2B markets
• How well does MVP fit non Web / Mobile App
markets such as Medical Devices, FMCG, etc?
9. Tools and the Lean Startup
• Tools help testing rapid iterative cycles of
high-fidelity customer experiences
• Good tools:
– accelerate Customer Development
– help you gather actionable data
– don’t need to cost big $$$
• Tools are not a substitute for thinking; nor are
they a substitute for expertise
• Sometimes a pencil is the best tool
11. History
• 2 years ago one of the
Songkick founders
started a Wiki
• Tools validated by
other startups
• We contributed our
opinions on tools we
used & found useful
• List has grown longer
since and spawned
other lists
12. Tool Lists
• Startup Tools
– http://startuptools.pbworks.com/w/page/17974963/FrontPage
– No framework + some very specialised tools = can
make it hard to search/find
• Seedcamp list for business tools
– http://biztools.pbworks.com/w/page/11120547/FrontPage
– Is a little heavy on business philosophy and tips, light
on recurring business tasks
• Lean Startup Wiki
– http://leanstartup.pbworks.com/w/page/15765221/FrontPage
– Good place to discuss Lean Startup concepts, but only
tools are Business Model Canvas (explained later)
14. It needs a Framework
• No single template, but a good-enough step-
by-step plan is better than no plan
• Setting up a team is harder than handing out
the job titles
• It’s not good enough to say that everybody in
a Startup needs to do everything
15. Roles not Job Titles
"I’m creating a Startup and I need to know how to
split up the various roles and responsibilities of
the founders. There are three of us plus a small
development team."
• So they call themselves CEO, CTO, CFO, COO…
• Job is NOT done, no real progress made
• Focus should be on Roles as things that need to
be done, not job titles
16. Role confusion…
“In a Startup, everybody does everything”
• … if they can
– Not everyone has the same skills
– Important to take roles suited to individual
– Important not to leave roles un-filled
– Important not to have the wrong roles filled
– Do things in the right temporal order
“This needs a Framework”
19. Look at the things Startups do
Built with:
http://www.wordle.net/
20. Choose an apt metaphor
• There are lots of metaphors for Startups
• Rock stars – too “bratty” for me
• Gurus – how impractical is that?
• Wizards – works for me
– Specialised
– Skilled
– Practical
– Team Players
– Magical
21. WoW as metaphor for Startup
• Embark on Epic Quests
• Recruit a Guild
• Form Powerful Alliances
• Engage an ever-changing
World
• Explore Environments
• Different Classes / Abilities
• Customise your talents to
create a unique Hero
(c) Blizzard Entertainment
…sounds like a Startup to me
22. Inspired by De Bono’s Hats
“Just give me the facts” “Got a feeling about this”
“What can go wrong?” “What can we gain?”
“Look at it another way” “Think of it like this”
• No thinking style is best; a time when each works
25. Forming Abilities
• Making New Things
– Ideas for improvement or cost reduction
– Teams
– Networks of investors, contacts, advisors
– Business models
– Concepts
– Culture
• Research
26. Forming & the Lean Startup
• Invent a succession of short customer pitches.
For each pitch, do a Business Model Canvas
• Build your MVP plan – treat it like a Product
Backlog, look at Agile PM tools to assist
• How do you research your competition?
– Research is the precursor to Experiment – look at
company and market data using tools
29. Transforming Abilities
• Alchemy side of a Startup – turning the ideas
into something tangible
• “Software is the nearest thing to magic that
we've yet invented” (John Naughton, 2011)
30. Transforming & the Lean Startup
• Build User and Buyer Persona(s) and devise a strategy
for UX testing
• Development teams: choose tools to support
Agile, Scrum or Kanban process
• Create a development process around Continuous
Integration (CI) and Automated Testing tools
• What does Continuous Deployment mean for your
product / market? Implement the answer
33. Projecting Abilities
• Promotion? All about Broadcast now
• Thought leadership, content is king, etc
• Gimmicks, stunts, and other diversions
• Blogs & NoFollow links
• Killer Website
• Campfire Stories
• Tight Verticals / Niche
• Lateral Thoughts
– Stack Overflow
34. Projecting & the Lean Startup
• Build your Lean Marketing Plan – it should
contain a market launch plan
• Are you SEO-ready to collect and analyse
metrics?
• Plan ahead by preparing some marketing
content
• Streamline the content publishing process
without losing QA
• Be media-savvy to the extent necessary – you
are not a mega-Corporation needing spin
37. Persuading Abilities
• Projection gathers the audience, now you
must persuade them
• Keeping track is harder than it sounds
• Building a sales pipeline model
• Suspects or Prospects?
• Answering questions
• Opportunities
• Conversations
38. Persuading & the Lean Startup
• Keep track of everything customer-related
• Refine Buyer Persona(s) when necessary
• Plan a Conversion Rate Optimization process
and test it
• Decide your Technical Support methodology
• How much of a Knowledge Base can you build
as early as possible?
• Integrate user voice tools into your testing
41. Collecting Abilities
• Cash flow management and Lean Burn
• Nothing can help you get paid on time
• Reduce friction points in the sales cycle
• Sure Revenue and a sensitivity analysis
• Avoiding late payment penalties
42. Collecting & the Lean Startup
• Business Model must co-
exist with Business Plan
• MVP your Revenue profit
engine
• Maybe two chasms to
cross: Getting Users Vs
Getting Customers
• Free/Premium pricing
seems to cause more
fallout than any other
topic
45. Protecting Abilities
• “Be your own Lawyer” – Discuss
• Software Patents (are Evil)
• How will your IPR defend your revenue growth?
• Grab that domain name, protect that Trademark
• Avoid Dark Patterns
• Security nightmares
• E-commerce
• Data protection
46. Protecting & the Lean Startup
• Lean is all about adding customer value but
you must operate within a protected and legal
framework:
• Domain, Trademark, Copyright, EULA, ToS
• If you want to start a fight with your user
base, study and use Dark Patterns
• http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Home