Introduction to lean startup and customer development, as presented during the mini XPdays 2012.

1. @vladblagojevic
@nickboucart
@sirris_be

2. Agile Development
is good for…

3. Will agile help them build better
products?

4. Google Wave
Build it, and they will come…
(good products = big bucks)
Right?

5. What do you need for a successful business?

6. 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?

7. Groupon: deal of the day in your inbox.
Get 50%-90% off the best stuff your city has to
offer.
Your own
idea?

8. 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

9. Entrepreneurship as a science

10. began as a MMO game
What happened
here?
began with PDA payment tool

11. Who is the
customer?
What do they
value?
What is our product
anyway?

13. ”Startup is a temporary
organization with purpose to
search for a repeatable and
scalable business model.
S. Blank
Startup ~ research

14. State
Hypotheses
Pivot or
Experiment
persevere

15. State
Hypotheses
Pivot or
Experiment
persevere

16. 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)

17. parkr™
Bootstrapping:
parking scouts SMS
Help find
parking Mobile app Drivers in
GPS producers
cities
Monetize
Near-location unused
notifier + UI parking App store
Community Viral
User credit
cards
Micro
commission
Community
Platform (scouts)

18. 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 buyer,
 Awareness: active vs. latent
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?

19. State
Hypotheses
Pivot or
Experiment
persevere

20. 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

21. 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!

22. Concierge MVP Wizard of Oz

23. Document
Hypotheses
Pivot or Experiment
persevere

24. 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 problem,
a business model 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

25. Parkr™ foursquare for parking spots
Bootstrapping:
parking scouts SMS
Help find
parking Community Drivers in
GPS producers
cities
Monetize
Near-location unused
notifier + UI parking App store
Community Viral Cities
Promoting
User credit public
cards Mobile app
transport
App fee Micro
Building commission
Platform Community City budget
(critical mass)

27. IDEAS
Pivot Continuous
LEARN BUILD
Root-cause deployment
SPEED!
DATA PRODUCT
MEASURE
Metrics Lean startup
Feedback build-measure-learn loop
by Eric Ries

28.  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

29.  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

30.  Lean Startup Circle  Talk to us
Brussels
 ICAB, Beta Group Co-  Vladimir Blagojevic
Working space ▪ vladimir .blagojevic@sirris.be
 www.meetup.com/lean- ▪ launched.be
brussels/ ▪ @vladblagi
 Startup Weekend Brussels
/Eindhoven  Nick Boucart
 Lean Startup Machine ▪ nick.boucart@sirris.be
Rotterdam ▪ Blog.sirris.be
 betagroup.be ▪ @nickboucart
 Founder Institute ▪ Book: The art of software
innovation
& MIC
 westartup .eu
 techbrew.be