Program Email for Eric's List - 10.19

Speaker Highlights From the 2015 Lean Startup Conference

Guest post by Kirsten Cluthe and Ritika Puri of The Lean Startup Conference

We’re four weeks out from this year’s Lean Startup Conference, and we couldn’t be more excited about the program. Simply put, we’ve built an experience intended to help you learn and apply the Lean Startup methodology no matter what business you’re in, while you spend a few days with us in November.We want you to bring your business challenges, your questions, and your ideas with you.Because we know that everyone learns differently, we’ve got several different session formats for you to choose from: Powerful keynote presentations (featuring Business Model Canvas’ Alexander Osterwalder and Dropbox’s Aditya Agarwal), fresh faces at our Ignite lightning talks (like Food Network’s Amanda Cowan and Kollecto’s Tara Reed), hands-on workshops (led by gurus Alistair Croll and David Binetti), and interactive breakout sessions (care of Google’s Tomer Sharon and Techstars’ Zach Nies).Our Lean Startup experts will be available to share 1:1 advice with you during Office Hours. And to top things off, we're offering Startup Tours to close out the conference week. Participants will get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the hottest companies in the area, and have the chance to meet the founders. We’re still adding a few speakers and nailing down session details, but we’ve rounded up some of our favorite sessions to give you a preview of who you’ll meet at the conference. (If you want to skip this email and see our stellar lineup of 100+ speakers and mentors more depth, check it out here.)FoundersYoung startups have been the core of the Lean Startup movement, and we’ve built a conference track that speaks to real-word, battle-tested startup stories:

• Prerna Gupta, founder at Telepathic, believes that there’s a billion-dollar opportunity in bringing “Lean” principles to the development and distribution of mass-market fiction, and in presenting stories as a mobile-first experience. Her goal? She wants to disrupt Hollywood with the Lean Startup method. Learn how experimentation is helping her drive her company’s vision forward.

• Ryan Hoover, founder at Product Hunt, transformed an email list experiment into a venture-funded startup community with tens of thousands of active members. A fast and steady process of learning helped him test his way into building a product that his community loves.

• Laura Klein, principal at UsersKnow, and Christina Wotdke, principal at Wodtke Consulting will host a hands-on workshop to guide startups through early product development. The duo will teach Design Thinking techniques like storyboarding, empathy mapping, and generative research that will help early stage companies develop a stronger product/market fit.

Corporate InnovatorsIntrapreneurs are challenged with growth in a way that young startups aren’t; it can be a tough road. We’ve chosen a few visionaries who have implemented Lean Startup inside their organizations to share their stories and best practices with the community.

• Cindy Alvarez, director of user experience at Microsoft Yammer, will talk about driving change in the enterprise, with actionable tips for how to put philosophy into practice. She’ll share case studies for how teams at Microsoft have become more lean and experimental.

• Janice Semper, cultural transformation leader at GE, will share her experiences leading a cultural transformation. After three decades, GE killed their onerous annual performance reviews, and the result has empowered cross-functional teams and collaboration.

• Patricia Korth-McDonnell, partner and managing director at digital agency HUGE, will walk through tips for creating products that anticipate people’s needs. She’ll share how strategic automation can help free up brain-power in enterprise.

Government, Nonprofit, and EducationDid you know that Lean Startup is sweeping the federal government and other mission-driven institutions? They’ve figured out their biggest barriers to innovation. Check out how:

• Erica Swallow, VP of Product at education non-profit Noble Impact, will share how high school across the United States are implementing Lean Startup methodology in entrepreneurship, business, and marketing courses.

• Andrea Schneider, government analyst at the IRS, and Lauren Gilchrist, product manager at Pivotal Labs, are helping the IRS evolve beyond its reputation as a slow-moving organization. The duo are working on an MVP to make the 2016 filing season more streamlined, creating a system that will allow taxpayers to access basic tax information online, including their balance, tax records, and payment histories, as well as make payments.

• Leon Pals, chairman at Startup Foundation, is on a quest to build a global startup community, but this vision wasn’t always the plan. The group has been using the Lean Startup method to uncover new sources of growth, which has resulted in a more focused mission and vision. In his talk, he’ll share his methods for vetting new directions.

Final ThoughtsWe hope you’ll join us--and 2,000 other community members--at this year’s conference, November 16-19 in San Francisco. Learn more about the conference here.If you’ve already registered for the conference, we’ll be providing plenty of opportunities for you to connect with each other both online and off, before and after the conference. Want some recommendations about sessions to attend or speakers to check out? Tweet your question to @leanstartup--we’re excited to help.

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