Story: Masterpiece for startup
I believe that everyone who starts a business reads this book, The Lean Startup. Even you are not a startup, The Lean Startup influences your side hustle a lot. My client is a small business and startup, not many SaaS. They sometimes have a website, but they feel a website does not indicate who they are. They know they have to do something to modify it, but they don’t know what’s wrong, how to do it. In this situation, I can provide value to these clients.
We, as web/graphic designers, have to align with clients, talk about business through the meeting. We have to speak a client’s language. I failed a lot. I am improving, but I still fail. Keep let’s learn the business of design.
Validate your business idea: THE LEAN STARTUP by Eric Ries
©Productivity Game
– Spent 6 months more on development
– Confirmed what customer wants after launch
– Don’t focus on a perfect product
– Validate assumption ✓✓✓ (← it does not mean you are failed)
– MVP= Minimum Valuable Product
Validate your idea
– User experience vision
– Identify critical assumption
– Concierge MVP or smokescreen MVP(Pre-order) ✓✓✓
– MVP
– Release and measure
– pivot or persevere
Venture Capital – Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup”
©This Week in Startups
Some discussions
– The real entrepreneurs come out during a down economy
– How did you decide to go with either shrinkwrap or a web-only product?
– What was the root cause of the failure of your first company?
– The vital function of a startup is to learn how to build a sustainable business
– Have a hypothesis! What do you do better, different, or what do you want to achieve?
– Starting points for business should be a problem
Rich conversation with their own startup experience. What Eric Ries great is that he analyzed the failure, clearly articulated the reason, and wrote a book.
Listening is easy. Real decisions will be much much harder. I don’t know I will face the situation in the future.
Lean Startup Meets Design Thinking
©Google for Startups
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup), Tim Brown, (CEO of IDEO), and Google Ventures Design Sprint Jake Knapp. Looks like all star of design thinking.
The Lean Startup | Eric Ries | Talks at Google
©Talks at Google
– Management of measure, validate, learning, rather than making stuff
– Entrepreneur = management and accounting
– Entrepreneur = job title
– Startup is an experiment
– If we do not know who the customer is, we do not know what quality is.
– How do you evaluate/prioritize a customr feedback
This is an interesting situation. Eric is talking about the learn startup at the pioneer of an internet startup, Google. I don’t see the reaction of the audience, but he is a great speaker.
I don’t mind the design, but no SSL and looks dated. I am not sure this is active or not.
*Update: February 13, 2022
I bought The Lean Startup on Audible. The method related to Design Sprint which I also bought it 2 days ago. I will write what I learned from the book. It takes 8+h.
1. Start
– Startup is not like a just do it
– Startup failure = wasting time, passion, skilled people
– The lean startup, the name comes from the lean manufacturing
– Validated learning ✓✓✓
– Method of measure progress
– The product is the end result of the strategy
– Learning is intangible
– The goal of a startup is to figure out develop the right things ✓
– Build → measure → learn ✓
– Startup vision = true north
2. Define
– Startup = human institution, develop new product or service under the extreme uncertainty
3. Learn
– Must learn what customers really want ✓
– Validated learning
– How to make a priority, features or fix bugs
– Clear revenue target
– Customer cannot tell us what they want
– Talk with customer ✓
– Does assumption really correct? ✓
– Which effort has value and waste?
– Collect purely data from real customer ✓
– Align vision and what a customer accepts
– Figure out the reason why the customer uses
4. Experiment
– Which customer opinion should I listen to
– Prioritize many features
– Which feature is essential for success
– What can we change safely
– If you cannot fail, you cannot success ✓
– Hypothesis and prediction ✓
– Think big start small
– Absorb a real customer behavior ✓
– Interact with real customer ✓
– Customer’s complaint = on the right track
– Success is learning how to solve a customer’s problem
5. Leap
– Success is the result of an experiment
– Build → measure → learn ✓
– MVP ✓
– Innovation accounting ✓
– Pivot
6. Test
– MVP = fastest way to build, measure, learn at a minimum amount of effort
7. Measure
– Gap of projection, expense, revenue
– Real measure/assessment, an experiment of a real number to ideal
– Account is the key of startup success
– How do we know the result comes from the change?
– A good design is one that changes customer behavior for the better
8. Pivot
– Progress or change
– Innovation accounting
– Get each pivot faster,
– Validate learning, a lower amount of cost, shorter time
– Pivot(change) needs courage
– Willing to fail = essential feedback
– MVP for an early adopter, need to care mainstream customer once certain succeed
– Pivot = New fundamental/strategic hypothesis
– Pivots are a permanent fact of life for any growing business
9. Batch
– Startup = learn how to build a sustainable business
– continuous deployment
– Hardware becomes software
– Fast production changes
– 3D printing and rapid prototyping tools
– Small batch reduces work
– Just in time production method
– Work in progress
10. Grow
– New customers come from the action of past customer
– Word of month
– As a side effect of product usage
– Ads
– Repeat purchase
– Sticky engine, viral engine and paid engine
– Customer lifetime value
– Product-market fit
11. Adapt
– 5 whys
– To the prevention of the most problematic symptoms
– Mutual trust and empowerment
– Be tolerant of all mistakes for the first time
– Never allow the same mistake to be made twice
12. Innovate
– Financial reward as well as a credit
Conclusion: Small business and startup
I am working with small businesses and startups. Some clients are trying to make sustainable products, real startups. I involve their project as a UX/UI designer. The situation is that client has a developer, but a client does not have a designer in the team and doesn’t need a designer at the moment. However, a client knows they have to improve UX for customer acquisition. Therefore, I am hired by them.
I don’t have a clear product idea as well as a co-founder right now. Life and this moment is only one time. I am going to do side hustle in 2022.
