Complete the Javelin Board and Speak with Your First Customers

So what’s next after coming up with an awesome minimum viable product (MVP)?

Once you have your MVP all set up, you’re ready to start talking to your potential customers. It’s time to float the idea of your exceptional new product or service. But you want to be able to validate the idea without spending a lot of money or investing time that you can’t afford. When you’re bootstrapping, every cent counts. This is where the Javelin Board – recently rebranded as the Validation Board – comes in. The Javelin Board is a brilliantly simple and economical way to test your startup idea.

What is the Javelin Board?

The Javelin Board is a concept developed by the Lean Startup Machine. The software is basically an interactive process board that you can use to track your MVP’s impact as you experiment with it. To get the best results throughout your testing period, you need to stay focused on your action steps. The Javelin Board helps you plot out each step so that you are on track all the time. The Javelin Board also helps you hone in and focus on the right customers for your business. By finding them early on, you can efficiently launch your startup and more quickly and successfully build out your business.

As a process board, the Javelin Board is a visual representation of your testing plan. By being able to visualize your current and future steps, you can make decisions regarding your product’s or service’s path faster. Speed is, of course, essential to any lean startup, but what about accuracy? The Javelin Board is structured in a way that helps you track accountability within your team at the same time. This way, you can make sure at a glance that everyone is on track with his or her targets.

As you take in the whole process on one board, you will be able to map out the success paths for the product or service and therefore build it better during your test run. The result is a product or service that meets consumer demands before its official launch. What better way to launch than to offer a product or service that consumers are already begging you to take their money for?

How Do I Use the Javelin Board?

Once you have your template, you can get it printed out or use it online. If you have an in-house team that loves to work with pen and paper, printing it out is a great way to encourage productivity. As a 2-foot by 3-foot poster on your conference room wall, imagine how it will work to stimulate action at every step. If you are working with a more tech-savvy team or a team of remote workers, the Javelin Board works just as well. Take advantage of the provided Google Docs template that you and your team can use for online collaboration.

Plus, when you’re ready to show off your findings to your co-founders or maybe make a pitch to gain a bit of outside funding, Javelin Board is ready, too. You can use the presentation templates to create a powerful PowerPoint or Keynote demo that will clearly show them each step taken during your test phase.

If you want to learn how to run the validation process and get a real life example continue reading this column on ConnorGillivan.com.