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Workshop: The Lean Entrepreneur with Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits
Workshop: The Lean Entrepreneur with Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits by Eric Ries
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Workshop: The Lean Entrepreneur with Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits
By sarahm on Sep 17, 2012 05:59 am
Thispost was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of
.
Ever since Eric announced Patrick and Brant's new book The Lean Entrepreneur (with illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK), we've been excited to be part of the book launch. Coming up in just a few short months, you'll have a chance to go in-depth with the authors and their book at an awesome workshop.
As we’ve mentioned here once or tentimes before, this year,
will include a second day, December4, with
from established leaders in ourcommunity.
get you into the workshops, andwe’ve conducted a series of short interviews with the workshop leaders to helpyou better understand how they think and what they’re offering.
If you follow Lean Startupexperts, you’ve probably come across Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits, co-authorsof
and
,
and leadersof our workshop “The Lean Entrepreneur: Embrace the Unknown to Go Big.”
Patrick recentlyanswered a few questions for us.
What aspect of LeanStartup methods most inspires you?
Patrick:
The mostpowerful Lean Startup concept may be the embracing of "I don't know."So instead of believing in what we call The Myth of the Visionary, wherein asuccessful entrepreneur is someone who has seen the future with a fully formed,crystallized product in his or her head and so then locks themselves in agarage until product launch, upon which they achieve overnight success, theLean Startup teaches entrepreneurs to recognize what they don't actually know,and then how to learn what value they can create, for whom, and how to market,sell and deliver that value. This learning comes from interacting withcustomers, running experiments, and using data to help inform decisions. The LeanStartup methodology embraces the unknown, the uncertainty of the market, andteaches entrepreneurs to use small failures to achieve big successes.
What makes ithard for companies to implement this process?
Patrick:
It depends onthe stage of the business. Big businesses need a way to develop an internalecosystem for rapid experimentation on truly innovative product ideas. But theyget stuck when measuring new endeavors against existing, core-business metrics.Combining Horizon Planning with Lean Startup is a path out of this dilemma.
Startupswith some amount of traction tend to think they're "done" with LeanStartup. But often they quickly find themselves on another plateau thatthreatens the business. Where are new customers going to come from? Are webuilding the right features and products? How do we scale? If properly understoodand implemented, you're never done with Lean Startup. As aspects of your businessmodel become known, you transition some activities to full-bore execution, butyou must continue to perform learning and improvement activities to scale andwin.
Early-stagestartups are taught to believe in the vision. Vision is important, but just asimportant is understanding that the market is the final arbiter, and what isnot known will be a greater part of the success or failure than what is known.So it's vitally important for entrepreneurs to have an iterative,experimenting, data-informed process for transforming the unknown to known, fordiscovering and validating the value being created.
What will peopletake away from your workshop?
Patrick:
Marketuncertainty can be described by an innovation spectrum stretching from lessermarket uncertainty when undertaking sustaining innovation to greater marketuncertainty when pursuing truly disruptive innovation. Whether you’re in astartup or in the enterprise, where you sit on the innovation spectrumdetermines how you will apply Lean Startup methods. In this session, peoplewill learn to determine where they fit on the spectrum to help determinestrategy and tactics for the future. They’ll also learn about the Value Streamand what waste looks like in a Lean Startup; the Anti-Segment (those people youdon’t want to listen to) and how to segment your market so you’re not trying tobe all things to all people. Attendees will leave knowing the value they’recreating, for whom, and how to deliver that value.
This video features Cooper and Vlaskovits speaking at UC Irvine about Lean Startup.
If you’re thinking about registering for TheLean Startup Conference, bear in mind that space for the workshops is limited,and that we have a block of early-bird ticketson sale right now. When this block sells out, the price goes up. Register nowfor a Gold orPlatinum Pass to attend the workshops!
