Lean Startups & Customer Development

First: a little bit of “Color”

Raised $41M without a product

“Color Looks To Reinvent Social Interaction With Its Mobile Photo

App” TechCrunch

“This is a potentially huge opportunity that will likely be worth

many billions if it works out.” Business Insider

“Color May Be The Next Twitter.” Readwrite.com

So what happened?

“An obscene, expensive pixel

farce”

“Nobody’s using the app”

“Epic flop”

Now, Instagram…

Started as ‘Burbn’,

but users were using it differently

Co-founders listened & tweaked

100K users in a few days

Sold to Facebook for $1 billion

Most startups fail because they fail to

find customers

Typical startup scenario

On the other hand…

Extremely simple file-sharing tool

Is file syncing a major problem?

Founders did a video: 75,000 sign ups

Currently valued at $4 billion

Does anyone actually need

your product?

Good product development but

Bad customer development

A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under

conditions of extreme uncertainty by Eric Ries

A startup is an organization formed to

search for a repeatable and scalable business model

by Steve Blank

A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under

conditions of extreme uncertainty by Eric Ries

A startup is an organization formed to

search for a repeatable and scalable business model

by Steve Blank

Nordstrom Innovation Lab (video)

You must get out of

the building

Lean Startup:

Build, Measure,

Learn.

(Repeat)

build

Minimum Viable Products and

Pivot until

Product/Market Fit.

At first we launched a crowdfunding platform; little did we know that the market was more interested in the ticket sales part. Walid Singer, Presella.com co-founder

What does Product/Market Fit look like?

Work with Early Adopters i.e. extreme users

Measuring Progress: Business Model Canvas

Customer Development in Action (video)

In summary: Admit your uncertainties

Methodically iterate to reduce them Seek validation from the real world

Stay lean until it clicks

And once it clicks,

raise $$

Insights

Thank You