LEAN STARTUP
WORKSHOP
Practical ways to turn
your idea into a
successful product

WHO ARE WE
Stuart Eccles
Charlotte Hillenbrand
Cath Richardson
Salim Virani
Rob Fitzpatrick

EXPLOITING
DISRUPTIVE
INNOVATION

MAKING STUFF

THE LEAN STARTUP MOVEMENT

• Rapid prototyping to test hypotheses
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Nail it then scale it
• Customer obsession
• THE LEAN STARTUP MOVEMENT
Iterative, metrics-driven & Agile
• Learn fast, don’t fail fast

SCIENTIFIC
APPROACH TO
STARTUP/
PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT

ITS ABOUT
RUNNING
EXPERIMENTS

BEFORE SCALING
TO UNIVERSE
DENTING
PROPORTIONS

HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE
MAKING PROGRESS?
The unit of success we use is
measure in “validated learning”

BREAKING
GROUND
ON AN IDEA

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR
IDEA IS WORTH YOUR
TIME, MONEY, EFFORT?

“We always have a vision
that is clearly articulated, big
enough to matter & shared
by the whole team.
“Our goal is always to
discover which aspects of
this vision are grounded in
reality & adapt those
aspects that are not.”

BY TESTING YOUR IDEA ON YOUR
POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS YOU WILL
LEARN IF YOU ARE ON TO
SOMETHING

DO THEY HAVE WILL THEY PAY
THIS YOU FOR YOUR
PROBLEM? SOLUTION?

CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
An active approach to engaging
with users which tests our
assumptions
And builds customer intimacy
with potential customers

GET OUT
OF THE
BUILDING

THIS IS WHAT WE WILL
CONCENTRATE ON TODAY
Biggest barriers to realising the
value of Lean Startup:
Talking to people
Giving over your ideas to
examined in broad daylight

BUILDING AN
MVP

THE MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
The minimal set of features that
solves the problem and provides
value
Something that can be measured and
tuned
Doesn’t have to have the same form
as the final product

EXPERIMENTING
AND
OPTIMISING

INNOVATION ACCOUNTING
Measure what is actionable,
track every input and change
Run split experiments to prove
your hypothesis on your product

+152%

OPTIMISING THROUGH METRICS
AND CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS WORK
IN TANDEM

SKYPE IN THE
CLASSROOM

SKYPE CAME TO US WITH A
COMMS BRIEF
They’d noticed that teachers all over the
world were using Skype in extraordinary
ways.
They wanted us to collect these stories
and use them to promote the service &
inspire other teachers.

WE RESPONDED WITH SOME
NON-MARKETING IDEAS
Layer a new service on top of the basic
free communication service
Use a customer-centric and test-driven
way of working out what that service
would be

OUR INITIAL ASSUMPTIONS WERE
THAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT A LESSON
PLANNING TOOL WITH EXAMPLES,
IDEAS AND TIPS ON INTEGRATING
SKYPE INTO LEARNING

We discovered immediately that their biggest obstacle was
actually finding other teachers who also used Skype

They also told us that teachers don’t have time to read lots
of lesson plans - video clips would be much more helpful

BRAINSTORM SKETCHING USE CASES PROTOTYPES
USER JOURNEY
SKETCHES
INTERVIEWS
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGNS
SERVICE MODELS

ONLINE SURVEYS

PIVOT OR
PERSEVERE

AN
INTUITIVE
LEAP
LOCAL
MAXIMA

“Our goal is always to
discover which
aspects of this vision
are grounded in
reality & adapt those
aspects that are not.”

PIVOT: ONE FOOT STAYS WHILE
THE OTHER MOVES
In course correction to a new
strategy to test a new fundamental
hypothesis
A human decision assisted by
metrics and customer intimacy
Should be hard and fast with a new
strategy already defined

TYPES OF
PIVOT

ZOOM-IN PIVOT
What was considered a single
feature becomes the entire
product.

ZOOM-OUT PIVOT
What was considered the entire
product becomes a feature(s) of
the new product.

CUSTOMER SEGMENT PIVOT
The product is valuable but not
to its intended customers so a
new customer segment is
defined.
CUSTOMER ZOOM-IN
CUSTOMER ZOOM-OUT

CUSTOMER NEED PIVOT
The problem solved is not very
important, or money isn’t
available to buy. This requires
repositioning, or a new product,
to find a problem worth solving.

PLATFORM PIVOT
From an application/solution to
a platform or vice versa

BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE PIVOT
From low margin/high volume to
high margin/low volume or vice
versa

ENGINE OF GROWTH PIVOT
Sticky
Viral
Paid

WRAP UP

LEAN STARTUP ISN’T THAT HARD
Find a culture of testing,
experimenting and iterating.
Make Test Learn
Build an MVP

http://leanca.mp
http://blog.thestartuptoolkit.com
http://madebymany.com/signals/
the-lean-startup-movement
@robfitz
@crashtherocks @saintsal
@ohrworm @stueccles

LEAN STARTUP
MEETING AT
UCL TONIGHT!