Lean Coffee: Fast and Focused

Adil at My City Lives hosted today's Lean Coffee about being "fast and focused".

Ironically, the topic drifted a bit, but there was a lot of great insight to be had, including:

• Common Problem: Doing all parts in parallel - not a nice linear flow
• There's a tendency to not do true customer development -- instead only validating the parts you've already built
• Lean makes a startups a science -- takes away some of the romance
• Question: Is Lean a "true science"? Premise: Fail faster
• If you find out an idea is not valid, the learning from the failure is a success
• Big Bang example: For Retrievr -- Spent $5-6K instead of $50-100K
• Repositioning: Can be creative -- example: instagr.am
• Figuring out behaviour is the hardest part
• Example: People don't actually spend time with their photos after they take them
• Medical software: 6-9 months to fail -- 1 customer validated
• Everyone wants to be the next Steve Jobs
• Be careful of being "married to your idea" -- not willing to change
• Do you want one "at bat" -- where you need a home run -- or a full career?
• What is the shortest amount of time you need to get actionable data?
• Lean really helps with you have a "hunch" -- within a few interviews, have a good idea
• Do you focus on one industry? Good to have a "beachhead"
• Too broad of an idea dilutes the MVP
• Focus is key -- don't be afraid to focus on one segment
• Much more compelling message if you reduce the scope
• Messaging and positioning needs to be unique
• Analogy: getting on a busy subway -- make yourself small and squeeze in

Great commentary from everyone today. Looking forward to the next!

How to fail successfully

Today I attended Lean Coffee Toronto's 15th Meetup. What a great group of people and amazing discussions.

We talked about the concept of "failing successfully". Here are a few notes I took:

• Don't put all your eggs in one basket
• "Parallel prototyping" helps -- better results with the same overall effort
• Make sure you learn lessons for future projects
• Admit your mistakes frankly
• When do you stop?
• Sometimes it's very hard to let go of an idea
• Always get external feedback -- advisory boards, etc.
• Example of successful failure: the production of Iron Giant
• Metrics and measurement:
• Define success and define failure
• Did you make money? Did you build your brand?
• Tie your metrics back to goals
• Always do a port-mortem

... and some thoughts of my own on the topic:

• WGMGD -- What gets measured gets done
• My biggest take from a Services Marketing class I took a while back
• Don't be "stealthy"
• Get your product out there as early as possible and get feedback
• "First to market" and "stolen ideas" are myths
• "Failure is always an option"
• Mythbusters and Adam Savage are awesome :)

Thanks again everyone for a great meetup!