What is the Lean Startup?

Lean startup is an approach to business development that is based on the principles of lean production, a manufacturing methodology that values a business’ ability to change quickly.

Minimum Viable Product

In product development, the minimum viable product (MVP) is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk.

It is the sweet spot between products without the required features that fail at sunrise and the products with too many features that cut return and increase risk.

Examples of Startups building a MVP

  • Buffer
  • Dropbox
  • Zappos

Can Enterprises build an MVP?

Yes!

General Electric (GE) is applying MVP to speed up the process of getting prodcuts to market.

Validated Learning

Validated learning is a process in which one learns by trying out an initial idea and then measuring it to validate the effect.

Each test of an idea is a single iteration in a larger process of many iterations whereby something is learnt and then applied to succeeding tests.

Lean Startup Model

A core component of Lean Startup methodology is the build-measure-learn feedback loop.

The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible.

Lean Method

Lean is a customer-centric methodology used to continuously improve any process through the elimination of waste in everything you do.

It is based on the ideas of “Continuous Incremental Improvement” and “Respect for People.”

Your idea probably sucks!

Why? Because you don’t know what you don’t know.

If you launch a fully-featured product without testing your potential customers prior you risk wasting all your valuable capital.

Research indicates and startup ideas fail within the first 1-2 years. Sure you will learn a lot, but the “tuition fees” could cost your business, career, reputation or all of the above.

The Lean Startup by Eric RiesThe Lean Startup small

The five principles of the Lean Start-up from leanstartup.co

  1. Entrepreneurs are everywhere
  2. Entrepreneurship is management
  3. Validated learning
  4. Build-Measure-Learn
  5. Innovation accounting