On Intrapreneurship: Lean Startup & MVP's
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1) The document discusses lean startup methodology and customer development frameworks. It provides examples of how companies like Dropbox and Leonid Systems used minimum viable products (MVPs) and hypothesis-driven experimentation to validate business ideas. 2) Different types of MVPs are described, such as "Wizard of Oz" prototypes and "pre-sales" validation of topics. The document also outlines four types of hypotheses to test - related to personas, problems, value propositions, and customer creation. 3) Frameworks and best practices for hypothesis testing and product development are laid out, including developing an understanding of customer personas, defining problems and alternatives, designing MVPs, and using discovery and experimentation to iterate the business model
![Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing
PRIORITIZING AND FOCUSING
Priority Key Assumption Needs Proving? Experimentation
1
[A key assumption about the
business]
[Whether it needs
proving!
[Experiment to !
prove or disprove]
1
Hiring managers would
prefer a lightweight quiz app
over calling references and
ad hoc probing.
Yes
* Customer interviews on problem
scenario!
* Value testing through ‘minimum
viable product’
2
Managers want to be able to
add their questions as well
Yes
* Show prototypes with choices
* Test in beta
2 Parents have smart phones No n/a
Focus on strategic,
pivotal assumptions](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lean-startup-mvp-for-foresight-140605201023-phpapp02/85/On-Intrapreneurship-Lean-Startup-MVP-s-6-320.jpg)
On Intrapreneurship: Lean Startup & MVP's
- 1. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing MVP’s and Intrapreurship
- 2. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing STRATEGY & TACTICS Where are things headed? What do we do when they get there? Strategy & Foresight Tactics & Intrapreneurship
- 3. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing EVIDENCE-BASED INNOVATION VIA ‘LEAN STARTUP’ Do I have real evidence from my buyer that this is compelling? 01 IDEA! What are the key assumptions required to make this business work? 02 HYPOTHESIS How do I definitely prove or disprove the assumptions with a minimum of time and effort? 03 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN 04 EXPERIMENTATIONAm I reacting or am I focused on validating my pivotal assumptions? ‘Pivot or persevere?’
- 4. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF X ! ? YOUR VALUE PROPOSITIONS ALTERNATIVE(S) PROBLEM SCENARIO CREATING A TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS
- 5. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing … and they have a certain PROBLEMS(S) … … where they’re currently using certain ALTERNATIVE(S) … … and I have a VALUE PROPOSITION that’s better enough than the alternatives to cause the persona to act (purchase, use, etc.). A certain PERSONA exists… CREATING A TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS ! ? X
- 6. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing PRIORITIZING AND FOCUSING Priority Key Assumption Needs Proving? Experimentation 1 [A key assumption about the business] [Whether it needs proving! [Experiment to ! prove or disprove] 1 Hiring managers would prefer a lightweight quiz app over calling references and ad hoc probing. Yes * Customer interviews on problem scenario! * Value testing through ‘minimum viable product’ 2 Managers want to be able to add their questions as well Yes * Show prototypes with choices * Test in beta 2 Parents have smart phones No n/a Focus on strategic, pivotal assumptions
- 7. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESIS VIA ‘MVP’ M V P inimum What is the fastest, cheapest way to validate or invalidate this option so we give ourselves more options on future success?!
- 8. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESIS VIA ‘MVP’ M V P iable inimum Will it give us a definitive result? What are the actionable metrics?
- 9. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESIS VIA ‘MVP’ M V P iable roduct Does it really require actual product? Can we use alternative brands, channels? inimum
- 10. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing CASE STUDY: DROPBOX OPPORTUNITY! Underlying demand and supporting infrastructure ready for a great file sharing app. ! ! CHALLENGE! Building a great cross-platform app. required VC funding. VC’s saw a space with lots of existing competitors struggling to get traction.!
- 11. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing CASE STUDY: DROPBOX Persona Tom the Techie- early adopter who works on projects that require swapping a lot of files between a shifting network of collaborators. Problem Scenario It’s difficult to share files between a network of collaborators, particularly if they’re: big or numerous or change a lot. Alternatives Many existing products, but none of them super compelling and widely adopted.! Also, custom setup’s which work but are cumbersome to set up and maintain. Value Prop. A file sharing service that truly feels transparent to the user across all major platforms- OSX, iOS, Windows, etc. What Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? ! ! That you can bootstrap?! ! That doesn’t require software at all?
- 12. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing THE ‘WIZARD OF OZ’ MVP Result: Excellent traction and conversion to sign-up’s. ! Strong validation signal. Created a synthetic demo tailored for early market (techies), promoted it, and measured email sign-up’s.
- 13. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing CASE STUDY: LEONID SYSTEMS OPPORTUNITY! Major disruption and new product opportunities among telecom providers with introduction of voice-over-IP and cloud communications. ! ! IT systems need to be rethought. ! ! CHALLENGE! As a one-person startup, Leonid had actionable ideas but not enough resources to execute an end-to-end solution.!
- 14. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing CASE STUDY: LEONID SYSTEMS Persona Chris the CTO- has funding and mandate to transition the business towards hosted services; many bases to cover Problem Scenario IT is the most expensive, most risky area when making changes to the business. Alternatives 1) Place large, risky bets on major new system upgrades. 2) Make small incremental updates (but risk not keeping pace). Value Prop. Leonid will offer modular, integration-friendly applications in two critical areas: 1) services provisioning and 2) end user self-service portals. What Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? ! ! That you can bootstrap?! ! That doesn’t require software at all?
- 15. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing LEONID MVP #3: SOFTWARE PRODUCTS CONSULTING ‘PRODUCTIZED’ CONSULTING PRODUCTS Started with consulting as a ‘concierge’ vehicle to create tactical solutions, evolving to full-fledged product. Result: Steady step-wise growth with consistently better understanding of key customer problem scenarios.
- 16. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing EXAMPLE: ENABLE QUIZ OPPORTUNITY! Hiring quality technical talent is critical for many companies, but screening for skill sets is time consuming and awkward. ! ! CHALLENGE! The founding team wants to bootstrap without external funding so they need to focus on a specific technical domain, one that will get them strong early traction.!
- 17. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing EXAMPLE: ENABLE QUIZ Persona(s) Helen the HR Manager- responsible for sourcing and screening job candidates! Frank the Functional Manager- hiring manager responsible for acquiring and managing talent Problem Scenario Helen: hard to screen for technical skills! Frank: never has enough time for recruiting and doesn’t want to be a jerk during interviews Alternatives Helen: call references, take their word for it (on skills)! Frank: ask a few probing questions Value Prop. A lightweight quizzing app that has Helen can use to do quick, effective screening. What Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for deciding on the right first topics? ! ! That you can bootstrap?! ! That doesn’t require software at all?
- 18. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing THE ‘PRE-SALES’ MVP Target Outcome: Informed selection of starter topics (and baseline on initial conversions). Ran Google AdWord campaigns across top ranking technical topics, measuring click through rate and landing page sign-up’s.
- 19. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing 4 TYPES OF LEAN HYPOTHESES PERSONA HYPOTHESIS PROBLEM HYPOTHESIS VALUE HYPOTHESIS CUSTOMER CREATION HYPOTHESIS
- 20. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing PERSONA HYPOTHESIS ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF Does this person exist? ! Can you identify them?! Do you understand them really well?! What do they think-see-feel-do in your area?
- 21. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing PROBLEM HYPOTHESIS ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF Have you identified a discrete problem/need?! How important is it to the target persona(s)?! What alternatives do they use today? How?
- 22. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing VALUE HYPOTHESIS ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF How much better than the best alternative is your product? ! How obvious is that to the customer?
- 23. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing CUSTOMER CREATION HYPOTHESIS ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF How will you get the customer’s: attention, interest, desire, action, onboarding, retention?! How will you know if it’s working?
- 24. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing APPENDIX AFTER THIS, ! APPENDIX
- 25. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing OLD SCHOOL VS. NEW SCHOOL OLD SCHOOL NEW SCHOOL $ !? ? ! ? ? ?
- 26. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing ALEX COWAN! AlexanderCowan.com! @cowanSF THE FULL STACK PRODUCT PERSON Specialties DESIGN&UX UNIXSYSADMIN RUBY PYTON JAVA PHP ... ENTERPRISESALES ... SEO ANALYTICS ... ... ... Technical Literacy ARCHITECTURE FUNDAMENTALS! App. & Platform Integration ROLES & SYSTEMS! In a Technical Team Foundation Concepts LEAN DESIGN! THINKING CUSTOMER! DEV. AGILE SOFTWARE FUNDAMENTALS! Model-View- Controller
- 27. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK MVP Product-Market Fit(?) PIVOTAL ASSUMPTIONS PRODUCT ORG. PARTNERS, CHANNELS Nascent Founders N/A Probably too soon Test, revise, test... MVP Customer dev. team Probably too soon Validated- now tactical Focus: efficiency, extension Full functional organization Yeah, maybe? Scale Validated- now tactical What would a startup do?? Scalable organization Yeah, definitely!
- 28. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing THINK SEE FEEL DO PERSONAS Who? X PROBLEM! SCENARIOS & ALTERNATIVES What? VALUE PROPOSITIONS & ASSUMPTIONS What if? ! USER STORIES & PROTOTYPES How? Scale? Pivot? PRODUCT & PROMOTION / CUSTOMER DISCOVERY & EXPERIMENTS Tell me…? FULL CIRCLE
- 29. Copyright 2014 Cowan Publishing FULL CIRCLE (IN REVERSE) ! PRODUCT & PROMOTION USER STORIES & PROTOTYPES Did the implementation deliver on the story? / CUSTOMER DISCOVERY & EXPERIMENT How did the customer/user react? VALUE PROPOSITIONS & ASSUMPTIONS ! Was the implemented story relevant to the proposition? X PROBLEM! SCENARIOS & ALTERNATIVES Is problem relevant? Is the proposition better vs. alternatives? THINK SEE FEEL DO PERSONAS Do we understand this person? What makes them tick?