Most Popular
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What are the most common mistakes first-time entrepreneurs make?
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- Not sharing their idea openly.
- Falling in love with the solution versus the problem.
- Taking too long to learn from customers (release Version 1.0)
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What single phase or concept empowers clients and business to adopt a Lean Model?
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Life’s too short to build something nobody wants.
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Should I listen to the hacker news/tech crunch crowd when my product isn't directly aimed at that type?
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No… only listen to your prototypical customer… correction: prototypical early adopter.
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What's the difference between vanity metrics and actionable metrics? Which ones should I be measuring?
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An actionable metric is one that ties specific and repeatable actions to observed results.
The opposite of actionable metrics are vanity metrics (like web hits or number of downloads) which only serve to document the current state of the product but offer no insight into how we got here or what to do next.
You can get drowned with vanity metrics and should only be using a handful of 3-5 actionable macro metrics to identify what needs improving. It is okay to rely on more diagnostic sub-metrics to troubleshoot deeper from there.
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How do I balance between developing a MVP and getting it out the door, and making sure it's a product I can charge for?
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The first step is defining, not building, the MVP. You do that through customer interviews. I recommend two sets of interviews that decouple the problem from the solution.
Your first objective is to articulate the top 1-3 problems you’re trying to solve and really understand how these customers solve them (existing alternatives) and their pain level. Existing alternatives coupled with pain level is usually a good indicator on determining if this is a problem worth solving.
Armed with this knowledge, I then create a demo (mockups/screenshots) which shows how I intend to solve these problems and test pricing at that point. If my read of pain level and understanding of alternatives was correct, the price I present should be anchored reasonably against customer value.
Once I get enough commitments to “buy the demo”, I then start the build process.
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What are the most common misconceptions of LeanStartups these days? What do you wish people would "just get"?
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The early misconception was around Lean Startup being “cheap” and only about “startups” which is still common.
Lately though I’ve felt Lean Startup being used as a badge of honor startups wear because it’s the “cool” thing to do (natural hype cycle).
You are not a Lean Startup if you split-test, practice continuous deployment, or apply some other technique.
Lean Startup is more about building a continuous learning organization than a collection of techniques. It is a meta-process that can and should be applied to itself.
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