In startup land, we all make leaps of faith. I think it’s part of being an entrepreneur – you need to have just enough confidence, startup swagger and insanity to jump … and figure it out before you crash. And I don’t think leaps of faith ever completely go away, even if you follow a […]
Customer Validation Really Starts with In-Person Interviews
When you have a startup idea, the first instinct is to pitch it to friends and colleagues. This can be somewhat helpful, because they may provide insight that you hadn’t thought of yet, or quickly validate some of your concerns based on their questions. They may be familiar with a competitor worth looking at, or […]
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 […]
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 […]
Don’t Code What You Can Mechanical Turk
Mechanical Turk is a great system for outsourcing repetitive, tedious tasks. People use it (and other similar services) for all sorts of things: filling out surveys, getting research done, data analysis & acquisition, etc. You submit your task, indicate how many times you want it done and how much you’ll pay, and people do the […]
How to Structure Good Hypotheses for Your Lean Startup
Crafting good hypotheses for your startup is hard. Most people focus on solutions rather than problems. That leads to a ton of products getting launched with zero traction.; the all-too-common “solutions looking for problems.” A good hypothesis is important because it leads to good experimental design. Good experimental design is important because you need it […]
A Day in the Life of Your Customer
To sell something effectively you really need to understand your customer. You need to understand who they are, what makes them tick, their motivations, fears, influencers, etc. You can look into customer profiling and personas as mechanisms for understanding your customers better. Another tactic is to create a “day in the life” storyboard. Assuming you […]
The Risks and Rewards of Delighting Users (or Attempting To)
Delighting users is incredibly hard. Most startups don’t even try. That results in boring (although occasionally effective and useful) web applications. Some startups try too hard and end up overloading their applications with flashy funkiness that doesn’t add any real value. They might get an A for effort, but they won’t keep users happy through […]
Before You Start-Up Ask Yourself This Question
“Is it REALLY worth building?” Too few entrepreneurs really ask themselves this question before starting up their business. In some cases, entrepreneurs don’t even think to ask themselves the question. Sometimes, entrepreneurs just lie to themselves. Regardless of why entrepreneurs don’t ask the question it’s often a fatal mistake. A lot of people are starting […]
The Challenging Pace of Lean Startup
Some people think of startups as sprints. Some think of startups as marathons. My take: They’re marathons that you have to sprint through. Most successful startups take a long time; the truth about “overnight success” is that it’s never really accomplished overnight (or even over a few nights.) We’re seeing a lot of early exits, […]
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