Why isn’t there a box for Competition on the Lean Canvas? Someone asked me this question recently, and it’s a good one. Understanding your competition is important, but ultimately it should have very little impact on what you do. For starters, your biggest competitor is likely not another company, but in fact the most difficult […]
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Digging Deeper into Lean Business Model Canvases
I’m a big fan of Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas. I was also very impressed with Steve Blank’s new initiative Lean Launch Lab, which combines a canvas business model tool and a blogging tool for startups to use and share information regularly with investors. If you haven’t seen it, check out his recent presentation: When the […]
Lean Startup Resources
I’m a big fan of Lean Startup. A good portion of my blog is about Lean Startup and my experience implementing its practices and recommendations. I ran Year One Labs, a Lean Startup accelerator program and currently I’m VP Product at GoInstant. Here is a collection of my posts on Lean Startup (along with Lean […]
Running Lean by Ash Maurya
Seems these days I start almost every blog post talking about Lean Canvas. I’ve seen the Lean Canvas work effectively – as a planning, strategy and communication tool – and encourage any startup I’m working with to give it a try. Ultimately it’s about focus. Focus is incredibly elusive in a startup. A lack of […]
Lean Startup and Big Vision Are Not Diametrically Opposed
Recently, I presented Lean Canvas and an extended Problem-Solution Canvas (that we created at Year One Labs) to FounderFuel’s second startup cohort. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully useful for the teams. (If you’re curious, FounderFuel is a Montreal-based accelerator program that runs twice per year.) I’m always concerned when presenting anything related […]
Lessons Learned Launching a Lean Startup Accelerator
Year One Labs is a Lean Startup accelerator. I believe it’s one of the first of its kind, with a very heavy focus on customer development and a rigorous Lean Startup process. I co-founded Year One Labs with three partners (Raymond Luk, Alistair Croll and Ian Rae) in April 2010 and launched officially in September […]
When is it Time to Pivot or Quit?
Entrepreneurs aren’t quitters. To succeed you need to be resilient, thick skinned and borderline crazy. You need to have just the right amount of delusion to believe you can succeed, spurring you on despite the absurd odds. But sometimes, you have to quit. On the other hand, sometimes you need to pivot. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs […]
Why I Blog
I’ve been blogging for a long time. I’m not as prolific as some, but I try and post weekly, and occasionally I do better than that. I’ve had long droughts too. Every once in awhile I ask myself, “Why do I blog, anyway?” As I’ve pointed out in the past, I can trace almost every […]
How I Try to Mentor Startups (And Hopefully Add Value)
Fred Destin wrote a fantastic blog post recently on how to be a good startup mentor. It made me think a great deal about how I mentor startups, where I’m effective, and where I could improve. As Fred notes, “good mentoring is hard.” He’s absolutely right. I’m currently mentoring a number of companies inside of […]
There’s No “Shitty” in MVP
Lean Startup isn’t responsible for the deluge of crappy products being released by mediocre startups. Erick Schonfeld makes that suggestion in his recent post Details Matter. I’d argue that the mainstream usage of things like Twitter and Facebook (along with social media’s ability to create incredible influencers), lower costs and barriers to entry (development is […]
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