Lean startup principles are not only useful for entrepreneurs and startups, but also for anyone who wants to create and deliver innovative products or services using technology. In this article, you will learn how to apply the lean startup methodology to drive technological innovation in any context.
Lean startup is a framework for developing and testing new ideas based on customer feedback, experimentation, and iteration. It was popularized by Eric Ries, who wrote the book The Lean Startup in 2011. The main goal of lean startup is to build a minimum viable product (MVP) that solves a real problem for a specific market segment, and then validate it with real customers as quickly and cheaply as possible.
For startups, especially those on very lean budgets, the goal is to create affordable tech solutions – it's like the broke college student diet of entrepreneurship, turning a basic ramen noodle budget into a satisfying meal. Leveraging customer feedback becomes the secret sauce, allowing them to test ideas quickly and modify their tech solutions. It's the learn-as-you-go process, making the most of limited resources to accomplish big goals.
??Lean Start up is a game changer when it comes to budding entrepreneurs . In order for building a product to solve a critical problem and then doing the validation process requires some steps as follows ??: ? Learning cycles like building and measuring should be in rapid progress ? Testing ideas with minimal resources ?Constantly gather insights for enhancement ? Adapting strategy on the basis of market feedback ? Maximizing output by alleviating waste These features and their applications are essential for Lean Startup ??
Lean startup works for large companies too! Building a real, working MVP that is customer validated is so much more impactful for those senior leaders who allocate funds. They have seen the pretty PowerPoints and videos of 'how it could be some day.' These leaders are becoming immune to the fluff. A strong alternative is a Lean Startup based MVP.
The willingness to question and modify your own concepts and assumptions regarding the product and business model based on feedback from actual customers is crucial for success. Interacting with key contributors is essential for the success of a lean startup. There must be no divisions between the sales, marketing, and development teams.
The lean method has three key principles: 1. rather than engaging in months of planning and research, entrepreneurs accept that all they have on day one is a series of untested hypotheses—Founders summarize their hypotheses in a framework called a?business model canvas, this is a diagram of how a company creates value for itself and its customers. 2 Listen to Customer - If customer feedback reveals that its business hypotheses are wrong, it either revises them or “pivots” to new hypotheses. Each stage of customer development is iterative 3. Agile Development - work hand-in-hand with customer development. Agile development eliminates wasted time and resources by developing the product iteratively and incrementally (MVP tests).
Technological innovation is often risky, uncertain, and complex. It involves creating something new or improving something existing that meets a customer need or solves a customer problem using technology. Traditional approaches to product development, such as waterfall or agile, may not be suitable for technological innovation, because they assume that the problem and the solution are well-defined and stable. Lean startup, on the other hand, embraces uncertainty and change, and allows you to learn from your failures and pivot your strategy based on customer feedback.
In my experience I’d understand the merits of a design sprint approach vs the lean start up, both promote a customer/user centric approach, however.. Lean Startup emphasises continuous testing and iteration, allowing businesses to validate assumptions quickly, minimise waste, and adapt to market feedback. Design Sprints compress the product development cycle into a short, focused timeframe, a structured process for ideation and prototyping, enabling rapid validation of ideas, effective for problem-solving and aligning cross-functional teams. Depending on the context and goals, combining elements from both approaches can be a powerful strategy for technology innovation.
You want potential customers to help you understand which product to build. Two reasons: 1) What should be in the product? 2) 'Skin in the game' test: If you do not find those people who put in some time, only, reputation, etc. to co-create an early precursor to the product ... well, your idea might not be so good after all.
In the music industry, the application of Lean Startup to promote technological innovation can be surprising, but it represents an innovative approach. By adopting Lean Startup principles such as agile experimentation and feedback-based iteration, companies can accelerate the development of new technologies, efficiently test product concepts, and quickly adapt to the demands of a constantly changing market. Lean Startup provides a mindset of "fail fast, learn fast," enabling companies in the music sector to experiment with new ideas at reduced cost and risk. This approach allows for the discovery of innovative solutions capable of uniquely and impactfully satisfying the needs of both artists and fans.
In contrast to traditional product development, in which each stage occurs in linear order and lasts for months, agile development builds products in short, repeated cycles. A team produces a “minimum viable product”—containing only critical features—gathers feedback on it from customers, and then starts over with a revised minimum viable product, accelerating innovative solutions that are desirable and usable. 1. Hypothesis business model driven 2. New way of product development (low to high fidelity MVP) – interactive 3. Agile Development 4. Consumer-Centric 5. Customer value 6. Operates on good-enough data 7. Pivot when something doesn’t works
Technological innovation is inherently risky and complex, often challenging traditional product development methods like waterfall or agile. The Lean Startup, uniquely suited for this landscape, embraces uncertainty and change. It transforms failures into learning opportunities, allowing businesses to pivot strategies based on dynamic customer feedback in the ever-evolving tech realm.
To apply lean startup principles to technological innovation, you need to follow three steps: build, measure, and learn. In each step, you use different tools and techniques to validate your assumptions and hypotheses, and make data-driven decisions. For the build step, create a MVP that represents your core value proposition and riskiest assumption. Make sure it's simple and fast while not compromising on quality or functionality. When measuring, define and collect metrics that indicate how well your MVP is performing and how much value it is delivering to customers. Use quantitative methods like analytics, surveys, or experiments, or qualitative methods such as interviews, observations, or user testing. When learning from your successes and failures, analyze the data collected from your MVP and customers to draw insights and conclusions. Use tools like the lean canvas, the value proposition canvas, or the business model canvas to document and communicate your findings and assumptions. Then decide whether to persevere, pivot, or stop your innovation project.
I disagree with the LinkedIn text. An MVP is not to be used in public. It is to be used in a controlled environment, for example in demos or in co-creating sessions. Hence there are not tons of metrics. An MVP supports a more qualitative than quantitative customer research. Each version of MVP needs to be done fast, with a clear view on what part of the product you want to test. AN MVP is NOT a prototype of the Minimum Marketable Product. It is a learning tool!
To implement lean startup principles in a tech venture, create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test and validate the business hypothesis efficiently. For example, a fitness app startup might launch an MVP to collect early user feedback, adjusting based on demand before large-scale investment. Measuring engagement and feedback through data analysis and user interviews provides insights for further iteration. Depending on these insights, the startup may choose to continue, pivot, or abandon the project, leading to benefits like reduced risk and costs, product optimization, and greater market adaptability.
Although the Build, Measure and Learn (BML) approach around the MVP is key to avoid the trap of being too subjective and introduces metrics. It’s key to use this learning to further improve the MVP before it becomes the MMP ( Minimum Marketable Product). Whilst several iterations of the MVP should be done through the BML approach it’s important not to be mistaken between of the main difference between MVP and MMP. The MVP is when all test show no failure to perform. It doesn’t mean it’s ready to be put on market.
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. This will involve measurement and learning and must include actionable metrics that can demonstrate cause and effect question - investigative development (to pivot or make a structural course correction to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product or strategy)? 1. Define the Problem 2. Generate Hypothesis (MVP) 3. Test, validate learnings and do it again 4. Check what is your differentiation (innovation) #build #measure #learn
To apply Lean Startup principles to technological innovation, follow the build, measure, and learn steps. Create a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) in the build phase, focusing on your core value proposition. Measure its performance using defined metrics and various tools, from analytics to user testing. Learn from successes and failures by analyzing collected data, utilizing tools like lean canvas, and decide whether to persevere, pivot, or stop the innovation project.
Utilizing lean startup for technological innovation can offer various advantages, such as reducing waste and costs and increasing speed and agility. It can also enhance creativity and collaboration, as well as improve customer satisfaction and loyalty . By building and testing MVPs, you can avoid spending resources on features or products that customers don't want or need. Iterating and validating your ideas quickly and cheaply allows you to adapt to changing customer needs and market conditions. Experimenting and learning from customers generates and tests new ideas and solutions, while solving real customer problems and delivering value creates products or services that customers love.
O Lean Startup, uma abordagem de Eric Ries, revoluciona a inova??o tecnológica ao priorizar a valida??o rápida de hipóteses, itera??o contínua e pivotagem inteligente. Reduzindo riscos, otimizando recursos e mantendo o foco no cliente, empresas podem desenvolver produtos tecnológicos mais alinhados com as demandas do mercado em constante evolu??o.
The lean approach reduces the high cost and long timing of development by helping new launch products that customers actually want, far more quickly and cheaply than traditional methods, and by making development and companies less risky, once you are testing fast, minimum viable/value proposition and learning from your customers for adjustments. After quick rounds of experimentation and feedback reveal a model/ product that works, make customer relief, desirable and usable for a focus on execution of the plan/ deployment. “Fall in love by the problem, not by your solution” Lean make you interact and test different model/ product to solve the problem, not to show that your solution/ innovation is better for your customers!
El fin del modelo lean startup, durante el desarrollo de productos/funcionalidades, es encontrar un modelo de negocio que funcione. Si los comentarios de los clientes revelan en una etapa temprana que nuestras hipótesis comerciales son incorrectas, lean startup nos "obliga" a revisar o “pivotar” hacia nuevas hipótesis. Una vez que se prueba un modelo, se comienza a ejecutarse y se construye un producto/proceso formal. Cada etapa del desarrollo del cliente es iterativa: probablemente se fracasará varias veces antes de encontrar el enfoque correcto.
O uso do Lean Startup para inova??o tecnológica traz uma série de benefícios significativos. Primeiro, permite uma abordagem ágil e iterativa, reduzindo o risco de investimentos significativos em ideias que n?o s?o validadas pelo mercado. Além disso, enfatiza a importancia do feedback dos usuários desde as fases iniciais do desenvolvimento, o que leva a solu??es mais alinhadas com as necessidades reais do mercado. A itera??o contínua e o aprendizado rápido permitem que as empresas ajustem e melhorem suas solu??es de forma mais eficiente. Por fim, o foco na eficiência e na elimina??o de desperdícios torna o processo de inova??o tecnológica mais econ?mico e escalável, maximizando o potencial de sucesso e impacto das iniciativas inovadoras.
You find out what product the team should build for its customers. This relates to innovation effectiveness and also inefficiencies. You also learn which parts of the product creates the highest value for your customers. This will help you to understand whether a part of the product is a feature or if it should become a product by itself.
Using lean startup for technological innovation can be challenging, such as dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity, managing risk and failure, and balancing exploration and exploitation . Uncertainty and change can make it difficult to make decisions without enough information or evidence. Experimenting and testing ideas may result in failures or negative outcomes that can affect reputation, credibility, or morale. Iterating and validating ideas require a balance between exploring new possibilities and exploiting existing opportunities, as well as satisfying customer needs and creating customer demand.
Lean startup innovation works really well when you have early adopters willing to accept the growing pains of innovative new products. If you're in a heavily regulated industry like finance or a capital-intensive sector like hardware, it's hard to lean (Build, Measurer Learn) because of regulatory compliance issues and manufacturing costs that dictate that you have robust products by the time customers use them. You can not (Build, Measure Learn) your way to a banking license, for instance, but you can determine if there is a market that wants to pay for it. If you're a large corporation, you can make a new brand name for testing the water with lean innovations, reducing the impact on your established brand.
We see a lot of corporates failing to drive lean startup projects inside their organization as they have following barriers for fast innovation: - no space/tolerance to fail and redo - multiple gatekeepers - only people motivated inside the project helps the innovation past first development phase, which makes it impossible to integrate the new technologies inside the organization - to few ressources set aside for the project - not willing to work with high risk tech in projects (test while you develop)
I would add that piloting and trying to sell a product (even pre MVP) is much more insightful than a large number of interviews that ask "would you." Selling allows both to understand real buying behaviours as well as customer requirements. Piloting then tests key elements of the hypotheses required for a product development before launching the MVP.
Getting an MVP right means you limit engineering to the minimum - only so far that you can test customers' reactions. The erst will be mock-ups or demonstrators. For example you might say; "This a data set that will come from..." - At the MVP stage you don't have to care for the integration that the Minimum Marketable Product will have. But some pieces of the Engineering part might be hard to do. With physical products, there might be solutions like 3D printing that could be of help. In process industries, it is hard to come up with 'pieces of Engineering'
While Lean startup principles are easy to apply for digital innovations, it becomes more challenging for hardware technologies. Here, building prototypes, testing and adjusting is often much more complex and expensive. If you use lean startup in traditional technology R&D, you must be especially “creative” to find suitable experiments. some hints: - do not focus on technological feasibility first but on viability and desirability - talk with customers early on based on concepts and ideas before even building sth - try to assess the investmentcosts and potential revenues (price, market) before building to see if its even worth to start building - once you go to technological feasibility, try to build a mvp first
To successfully use lean startup for technological innovation, you should adopt a growth mindset and view uncertainty and failure as opportunities to learn and improve. Additionally, you should build a culture of experimentation that is supportive and safe, and celebrate and reward learning and innovation. Furthermore, leveraging networks and partnerships can help access resources, knowledge, and expertise to validate ideas, as well as collaborate with customers or stakeholders to receive feedback.
Olá, a utiliza??o de técnicas de lean startup em gest?o da inova??o é uma ótima maneira de testar hipóteses e poder demonstrar resultados com impactos em produtividade, custos e qualidade. A utiliza??o do conceito de MPV em pilotos de projetos ou produtos mantém a seguran?a da opera??o e gera aprendizado rápido. Quando o teste é bem sucedido com as métricas apropriadas o passo é demonstrar para os players corporativos no sentido de obter investimentos para a amplia??o, expans?o do mercado etc. :)
Step 1: Train with expertise Step 2: Train again while building an MVP because doing is when it sticks Step 3: Actually learn from MVP failure (because it should partially - otherwise your experiment is rigged) Step 4: Understand that MVP is less than step 1, there is a whole journey to getting things out. Iterative product development means, building while supporting, begging for more funding. Lean is a methodology but it is not enough just to learn the word "Lean". Lean means that executives and decision makers must ensure that their teams are not burning out, that their innovation programs are well funded, expect failure (i.e. ROI is low) and account for hours and months/years spent. Lean is less costly, but it isn't cheap :)
Se n?o aposta na inova??o e feedback continuo, o concorrente o fará e a empresa poderá estar em risco, vendo o seu produto ficar obsoleto. Os riscos e incertezas das tentativas s?o inferiores a um produto ou servi?o n?o evoluir com a necessidade do clientes. Ouvir o cliente é o segredo para manter a inova??o continua, levando a voz do cliente para a prancheta do produto.
Superar desafios no uso do Lean Startup para inova??o tecnológica requer uma gest?o ágil para lidar eficazmente com mudan?as constantes. Encontrar o equilíbrio entre ajustes frequentes e constru??o de bases sólidas é crucial. Realizar investimentos estratégicos evita subinvestimentos em ideias promissoras. Manter comunica??o efetiva garante alinhamento entre as equipes. Essas abordagens ajudam a otimizar os benefícios do Lean Startup, superando desafios e impulsionando o sucesso na inova??o tecnológica.
Es un artículo útil como introducción inicial al concepto Lean Startup. También es importante introducir una visión global y una didáctica de aprendizaje. En una sociedad liquida los vínculos sociales son frágiles y los modelos Lean Startup deben trabajar con herramientas que canalicen, contengan, transformen y devuelvan Valor a la sociedad, maximizando el rendimiento.
Olá, inova??o é ótimo e requisito de continuidade da empresa. Desenvolver novos projetos e produtos deve estar no DNA organizacional. Porém a realidade nem sempre é assim. Inovadores devem buscar patrocinadores internos e recursos iniciais. O Lean Startup ajuda a sensibilizar gestores na medida em que busca os mínimos recursos necessários para um teste piloto. :)
The Lean Startup is an early theory of the best way to manage fast paced technological innovations, especially digital ones. It is a good framework but it’s empirical. The ISO 56002 is worth considering since it is the official global standard for managing innovation. It covers the innovation with a 360 degree approach. It includes the process of innovating, the context of the innovation and the systems to monitor innovations.
Build-Measure-Learn; embrace the risk and understand the failures. Accelerate the feedback loop and communicate often to your team the goals, whilst pivoting when it's needed. That's the takeaway.
Lean startup methods help drive tech innovation by focusing on what users really need. The idea is to quickly create a basic version of a product, called a minimum viable product (MVP) and get it out to users fast. This way, companies can see what works and what doesn't, and make changes quickly. The key part of this method is the 'build-measure-learn' loop, where companies build something, see how it does, and learn from it to make it better.
Agricultural Engineer | Plant Pathology & Microbiology | Innovation in Agronomy
Partindo da minha experiência no mundo das startups e em gest?o de inova??o no setor agrícola, Lean startup fornece um solu??o inicial para obter feedbacks e resolver problemáticas no processo de incuba??o de uma solu??o. A partir disso, podem surgir inova??es secundarias ao passo que o produto/processo proposto inicialmente é melhorado. Apesar destas vantagens, as empresas precisam ficar atentas para uma defini??o precisa dos cronogramas de teste, de modo que fique claro que os testes possuem um início e fim estabelecidos, assim como devem ser pensados a longo prazo, o inicio da fase de experimenta??o e valida??o em estrutura interna e por institutos técnico/científicos, com intuito de obter dados sólidos e cientificamente fiáveis.