How can you use the Lean start-up methodology to create a long-term growth strategy?

1 What is the Lean start-up methodology?

The Lean start-up methodology is a set of principles and practices that aim to reduce the risk and uncertainty of starting a new business. It is based on the idea that you should build a minimum viable product (MVP), a version of your product or service that has enough features to satisfy early adopters, and then validate it with real customers. By collecting feedback and data from your customers, you can learn what they want, what they are willing to pay for, and what problems they have. This way, you can avoid wasting time and money on building something that nobody wants.

2 How to create a long-term vision?

Before you start building your MVP, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your business. A vision is a statement that describes the ultimate goal and purpose of your business, and how it will make a positive impact on the world. A vision helps you to align your actions with your values, and to communicate your idea to your team, your customers, and your investors. To create a vision, you can ask yourself questions like: What problem are you solving? Who are you serving? How are you different from your competitors? What value are you creating?

3 How to define your assumptions?

Once you have a vision, you need to identify the assumptions that underlie your business idea. Assumptions are the beliefs or hypotheses that you have about your customers, your market, your product, and your business model. Assumptions are not facts, but rather educated guesses that need to be tested and validated. Some examples of assumptions are: Who are your target customers? What are their needs and pains? How will they find and use your product? How will you make money from your product? How will you acquire and retain customers?

4 How to test your assumptions?

The next step is to test your assumptions with experiments. Experiments are ways of gathering evidence and data that support or refute your assumptions. Experiments can be qualitative or quantitative, and can range from simple interviews or surveys to more complex prototypes or landing pages. The goal of experiments is to measure the customer behavior and feedback that matter most for your business, such as customer satisfaction, retention, engagement, conversion, or revenue. By testing your assumptions, you can learn what works and what doesn't, and make informed decisions based on data.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?