You'll find a lot more on these topics at: www.steveblank.com & www.startuplessonslearned.com and you'll find an incredibly engaged community at:

2. Founder of Blueleaf.com
Board Member oneforty
Who am I?
One of the first Boston Chicken Franchisees
Product Mangement at a series of startups
Investment Banker for Tech Cos

4. I am not . . .

5. Nor . . .

6. . . . and they are not . . .

7. Methodology Can’t
Replace Judgement

8. Lean Startups

9. Source: Eric Ries

10. Most Startups Fail
Source: Eric Ries

11. It doesn’t need to be that way . . .

12. Why do Startups Fail?

13. Lack of Customers

14. Why do we have product
development process ... Source: Steve Blank

15. ... but a not a Customer
Development Process?

16. Steve Blank Hypotheses
• Entrepreneurs and Investors are generally executing on guesses
• Startups aren’t small versions of large organizations
• They are about learning/discovery, not execution
• Need to surface hypotheses/assumptions and test against facts
• However, the Facts Live Outside of the Building

17. Surface Hypotheses & Test

18. Facts Live Outside of the Building

19. Led to Customer
Development Model
Source: Steve Blank

20. Customer Development is at the
Heart of Lean Startups

22. Eric Ries Extended Model
• Steve realized the Problem was unknown,
• Eric’s Insights
• Eric observed the the Solution is also unknown
• Agile development needed to match Customer development speed

23. CD + Agile + Commodity=Lean
Source: Eric Ries

24. Changes Context of Progress

25. Progress = Validated Learning
About Customers

26. Built To Learn
IDEAS
LEARN BUILD
DATA
CODE
MEASURE

27. John Boyd’s Insight
IDEAS
OODA Loop
• Observe, Orient, Decide, Act LEARN BUILD
• Depends on accurate external data
DATA
CODE
• Speed through the loop beats quality of
MEASURE
iteration

28. Leaning/Iteration vs Execution
The Search for a The Growth of a
Business Business
Product/Market Fit

29. Product / Market Fit
“Do whatever is required to get to product/market fit. Including:
changing out people,
rewriting your product,
moving into a different market,
telling customers no when you don’t want to,
telling customers yes when you don’t want to,
raising that fourth round of highly dilutive venture capital
—whatever is required.”
— Marc Andreessen
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-2.html

30. Where are you?
ID scalable,
Turn hypothesis
repeatable
into facts
sales model

31. Learning Can Be Scary

32. Great Startups Adjust To Facts

33. The Pivot
• What do successful startups have in common?
• They started out as digital cash for PDAs, but evolved into online
payments for eBay.
• They started building BASIC interpreters, but evolved into the
world's largest operating systems monopoly.
• They were shocked to discover their online games company was
actually a photo-sharing site.
• Pivot: change directions but stay grounded in what we’ve learned.
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/06/pivot-dont-jump-to-new-vision.html

34. Get Out Of The Building

35. Separate Vision from Delusion

36. Customer Discovery - Step 1
• Stop Selling - Start Listening
• Test your hypothesis
• 2 are critical - Problem and Product - Start with problem

37. The Full Monty
Source: Ash Maurya