Lean start-up
The principle
When a company, or just one of its teams, sets out to build an innovative product, it faces many uncertainties:
- Which features are essential?
- Who will buy the product?
- At what price?
- What are the technical specifications?
- How can it stand out?
All these questions boil down to a challenge well known to entrepreneurs: finding product / market fit. And even once it is found, many challenges remain to grow the company along with the product: scaling up, profitability, cash flow, HR…
The standard reasoning in this situation is usually to make assumptions, build the offer that seems most likely to succeed commercially, and try to sell it. But success on the first attempt is very rare, because our view from inside the project leads us to make wrong assumptions. Once failure is observed, it is natural to pivot, use what was learned to form a new set of assumptions, and start a new build cycle. And so on, until the objectives are reached, or until resources run out and the activity stops.
The lean start-up approach optimizes this build / test / learn cycle, allowing an organization to run more cycles and improve its chances of reaching its objectives.
The secret
The biggest benefit of a build / test / learn cycle is everything learned along the way, because those lessons are what improve the set of assumptions and bring you closer to your final objectives faster.
As a result, a build / test / learn cycle should not be planned with the idea of developing a marketable product. It should be planned with the goal of testing and validating assumptions, so you can move faster to the next learning cycle.
How to apply it?
The lean start-up approach goes hand in hand with good objective management. During an objective cycle (monthly or quarterly is recommended), team objectives should be to test specific assumptions.
Note that several parts of the company are often affected: development, marketing, sales, finance. The more global the objective management, and the better it enables teams to work together efficiently, the more powerful the assumptions tested and the lessons learned can be.
Need help?
I’m here to support you: discover my offer.