My talk at Lean India Summit, Bangalore, Nov 15-16

1. Dude, where is my
Customer???
Picture: http://www.news.com.au/travel/holiday-ideas/inside-china8217s-ghost-cities/story-e6frfqd9-1226716277487
Tathagat Varma
VP, Strategic Process Innovations,
[24]7 Innovation Labs

2. What do you need to create
successful products?

4. Tech Startups
FAIL…!!!

5. http://inspiredmagz.com/infographic-why-startups-fail/

6. “Build and they will come” is not a strategy,
it’s a prayer. – Steve Blank
http://blog.amplifiedanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/New-product-failure-rate.png

7. Isn’t execution
enough?
Necessary, but not
sufficient…

8. Meet the most ferocious lion in
Sweden…
build
without
customer
inputs…

9. Internet Hall of Shame…
http://themyndset.com/2013/05/catch-the-wave-right-mindset-digital-iq/
http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html

10. Google’s Hall of Shame
4.85yrs to pull out???
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/46028291791/digging-around-in-the-google-graveyard

11. …and in ROTW

12. rd
who succeed, drastically change
their plans along the way!

13. “So what is it that makes some startups successful
and leaves others selling off their furniture? Simply
this:
startups that survive the first few tough years do not
follow the traditional product-centric launch model
espoused by product managers or the venture
capital community.
Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful
startups all invent a parallel process to Product
Development. In particular, the winners invent and
live by a process of customer learning and discovery.
I call this process "Customer Development,” a sibling
to "Product Development” and each and every
startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or

14. “In large companies, the mistakes just have
additional zeroes in them”. – Steve Blank
http://steveblank.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/two-assumptions.jpg

15. So what works then?
“Not a better Plan A but a
path to a plan that works
before running out of
resources”
- Ash Maurya, Running Lean

16. Guess them?

17. http://www.capgemini.com/blog/capping-it-off/2011/06/paving-the-path-of-scrum-adoption-2-product-people

18. Innovation =
+ Discover
Business Model
+ Commercialize
+
Productize
Ideate

19. “A startup is not a smaller version
of a large company” – Steve Blank

20. http://newentrepreneurship.nl/business-model-canvas/

21. http://torgronsund.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Slide1.jpg

22. “GET OUT OF THE BUILDING”

23. http://steveblank.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/pivot-the-model.jpg

25. BuildMeasur
e-Learn
Loop

26. Running Lean

27. So, what is your product?
From: Running Lean – Ash Maurya

30. Case Study: Ash Maurya’s Running
Lean book
From: Running Lean – Ash Maurya

31. Recap
• Don’t build
something no
one wants!
Discover
customers first
Validate your
assumptions
• Search for the
business model
• Build, measure
and learn
iteratively
Build products
iteratively
Scale-up for
execution
• Aggressively
execute
business plan
and optimize

32. “I never perfected an invention that I did not
think about in terms of the service it might
give others... I find out what the world
needs, then I proceed to invent....”- Thomas
Edison

33. References
• www.steveblank.com
• http://blog.startupcompass.co/
• http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/06/
24/steve-blank-the-6-types-of-startups-2/
• Running Lean – Ash Maurya
• The Startup Owners Manual – Steve Blank
• Four Steps to Ephphany – Steve Blank
• The Lean Startup – Eric Ries

34. Q&A
• http://managewell.net
• http://slideshare.net/managewell