Photo by SpaceX courtesy of Unsplash.com
Launching a business or a project has become legendary in the entrepreneurial community. In fact, stories of such launches have become as epic as those tall tales that gave birth to such legends as Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan! Even though these stories of launches are the things that are both told with vigor and admiration in the public, the real stories were being created much earlier in the process of developing the business or project.
The Process of Entrepreneurship
In fact, how the business or project was created is the real story. So what is the “how” that I’m talking about? I’m actually talking about the “process” that an entrepreneur used to create that new business or project.
Interestingly enough, within the past decade we’ve been enjoying a transformation in how businesses, products and projects are created.
That transformation has now taken on many different monikers but the one that I believe is the most deserving is the “The Lean Startup” coined by Eric Ries. (In fact, Eric Ries not only coined the term “The Lean Startup”, he wrote the seminal book by the same name which is a must read!)
The Lean Startup
The concept of the “Lean Startup” is that it is more desirable to put out a basic version, or Minimal Viable Product or MVP, of the product or service in order to get customer feedback than it is to spend additional time and resources refining the offering prior to getting customer feedback. In a sense, by using the MVP method an entrepreneur is leveraging his/her ideal customer by getting their valuable input on the virtues of the product or service before spending additional resources which may not add value.
To that point, if you’re able to offer a MVP to your customers you’re less likely to run the risk of spending time and money developing features or benefits that your customers may not value, or worse, feel may detract from the product or service.
In his book, Ries gives an example of spending hours and hours on a feature within his company’s product IMVU that his customers didn’t value at all. In fact, when he was able to interact with his customers regarding that feature they actually preferred a much less tech-intensive and simplistic approach, which if initially followed, would have avoided the expenditure of hours and hours on useless computer code.
Taking this concept to the extreme, the entrepreneur now has the advantage of not necessarily having to know their EXACT customer’s needs, desires or concerns before launching a product or service. In a sense, you and I are getting the advantage of potentially testing the market with a less than perfect offering that allows us to get actual market tested customer responses, versus plans based on our assumptions and hopes.
The real value of the Lean Startup methodology perhaps is the opportunity to incrementally learn valuable customer input incrementally so as to refine the offering “after” the feedback is being provided.
“Build It and They Will Come” is not Entrepreneurship
So why is this such a profound approach? Although The Lean Startup has now become the prevailing standard of entrepreneurship, prior to this methodology being fully embraced the previous standard was more about trying to validate customer interest ahead of time based on research and building out the product and service to what is assumed to be the optimum offering, with all the bells and whistles intact.
As an example, think about the Model T where you could have it in any color as long as it was black! This previous approach relied primarily on the “build it and they will come” concept. The problem with this approach is that customer feedback is more theoretical.
More specifically, customers are being asked prior to seeing, feeling or using the product/service what they like about it. To a degree, in this manner a business is being held hostage to the fickleness of how customers react to questionnaires or even the dynamics of focus groups or bias in customer research.
The Build-Measure-Learn Loop
Using the Lean Startup method an entrepreneur gets the best customer feedback possible; sales or no sales with the least developed product or service. Remember, the only thing that really counts is revenue…not some elaborate business plan that details multiple scenarios on possible customer behavior! So to that end, why not get the best feedback…sales or no sales…within the quickest timeframe possible? Of course that’s what we all want!
Conclusion
So what are the takeaways of the Lean Startup methodology? Ries would suggest that it is the Build-Measure-Learn loop. Build as Minimal Viable Product (MVP) as possible; Measure the success of your offering from your customer’s feedback through “sales or no sales”; and Learn what iterations or modifications need to be made from that feedback.
This should keep the entrepreneur from spending needless time and money on features that aren’t wanted and more clearly refine who the customer is to begin with. This is truly the definition of a “win-win”!
So even though the “Launch” is the glamorous debutante, it’s less known but more formidable sister is “The Lean Startup”.
