Business plans rarely survive first contact with customers!
The Lean Startup approach is based on Steve Blank’s Customer Development methodology and further developed by Eric Reis in his book, The Lean Startup. A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A great overview of the Lean Startup process can be found in Steve Blank’s Harvard Business Review article, found here.
Instead of executing business plans, operating in stealth mode and releasing fully functional prototypes, startups should be testing hypotheses, gathering early and frequent customer feedback and showing “minimum viable products” (MVP’s) to prospects. This process recognizes that searching for a business model (which is the primary task facing a startup) is entirely different from executing against that model (which is what established firms do).
There are two key phases to the successful growth of any organization, SEARCH and EXECUTION.
In the SEARCH phase, startup founders, translate their ideas into hypotheses that can be tested around customer needs and wants. Creating a minimal viable product (MVP) allows them to try their ideas on actual customers. By testing their various hypotheses, they can validate customer interest or “pivot” by changing their hypotheses.
In the EXECUTION phase, the product is refined enough to sell. The startup builds demand by ramping up marketing and sales and begins to scale the business. The business can then transition from startup mode to having functional departments executing its Business Model.
We can help your startup be successful, contact us for a free initial consultation to see how we can assist you in growing your startup.
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Lean Startup
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