Lean Startup for Developers University

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Lean Startup for Developers
Sébastien Arbogast
Take Eat Easy

Who are you people?
• How many of you are not developers?
• How many of you thought of creating their own startup one
day?
• How many of you went through and did create a startup?
• How many of you are still working in your startup?
• How many of you are working in a startup right now?
• How many of you are familiar with Lean Startup?
• How many of you are fed up with me saying the word
"startup" at this point already?

Who am I?
• Java developer for 10+ years
• iOS developer for 5 years
• Agile methodology advocate for 8 years
• Freelancer for 5 years
• Lean Startup practitioner for 4 years
• Startup coach for NEST'up
• VP of Engineering for Take Eat Easy

Why create your own startup?

It's cool to be an entrepreneur!

The (real) entrepreneur lifestyle

Your unique million-dollar idea

There is no such thing

You want to be your own boss

Power comes with responsibility

Your product will be so much better

Think business model

Somebody told you...

Scratch your own itch

Tired of being a consultant?

Beware of the pimps

Obsessed about building a product

Startup is not the best environment

You've got the skills

The perfect triangle

Use your favorite technologies

Over design will kill you

Something out of your pet projects

You will have to keep focus

You want to improve everyone's life

Niche strategy is key

Market research shows you the way

Quality over quantity

Good reasons to do it

Invest in yourself

Find your own solutions

Unique opportunities and expertise

Grow as a human being

Be a part of the solution

Choose the people you work with

Why you would NOT do it

You know what you have...

Not enough money set aside

You miss some business skills

You need to pay the bills

You don't have enough time

Startups are for youngsters

Your ideas are not good enough

You are not in the right place

What if I fail?

Why you are uniquely
positioned to do it?

The power to execute

You already know about lean

You are surrounded by problems

You can easily go freelance

Let's create this startup
together

Market study
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Market reports
• Quantitative only
• Takes time and money
• Only valid if you want to verify a strong hypothesis
• Very long iteration cycles
• Tends to conﬁrm what you want to hear

Business plan
• Takes time to write
• Long iteration cycle
• Very cumbersome to
update
• Who will read it?
• 3-year projections are
for existing business
models

Incorporate
• In Belgium, you need to set aside 6000€
• It takes about a month
• Once you are in you need an accountant and an ofﬁce
address
• It costs 3000 to 4000€ to shut down
• You'd better be pretty sure it's gonna be worth it

The infamous prototype
• You guess what people are going to need
• You guess what they are familiar with
• You include as many features as you possibly can
• Very few of those features will actually be used
• A lot of wasted time and effort
• DO NOT consider that as "free effort": opportunity cost
• When do you stop?

Non-disclosure agreement
• You are afraid that somebody with more money will steal
your great idea before you have the time to realize it but…
• Good and original ideas don't exist
• AWFUL IDEA = -1
• WEAK IDEA = 1
• SO-SO IDEA = 5
• GOOD IDEA = 10
• GREAT IDEA = 15
• BRILLIANT IDEA = 20
• NO EXECUTION= $1
• WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
• SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
• GOOD EXECUTION =
$100,000
• GREAT EXECUTION= $1,000,000
• BRILLIANT EXECUTION =
$10,000,000
X
Source: Derek Sivers

Raise angel funding
• Angel investors are interested in
• Quality, passion, commitment, integrity
• Market opportunity and potential
• Business plan AND initial traction
• Technology and intellectual property
• An appropriate valuation
• Exit strategies
• You need: an elevator pitch, a pitch deck, a prototype…
• But more importantly, you need introductions!

Start testing on real customers
• Build it and they will come
• How do you measure what work and what doesn't?
• What's your launching strategy and marketing budget?
• How will you cut through all the noise?
• What if it doesn't work at all?

Become rich!

Doesn't that ring a bell?

Lean Startup to the Rescue

You know nothing Jon Snow…

Let's upgrade your software

A startup is a learning organization

How not to lose yourself spinning?
• Values: who are you?
• Mission: why do you want to do it?
• Vision: what do you bring into the world?

The goal is to find a business model
• Customer
• Problem
• Solution

Generic process
1. Find a customer with a problem
2. Find a solution that solves this problem for this customer to
the point he's ready to pay
3. Reach product-market ﬁt
4. Scale up

Elevator Pitch
My company [company name]
is developing [deﬁned offering]
to help [target customers]
solve [problem]
with [secret sauce]

Company name
• Don't spend too much time on that
• Start with a code name
• Be pragmatic
• Find a name that is available
• Beware of cultural bias
• Think ahead, think big
• Something easy to remember
• domainr.com

Defined Offering
• A platform is not a deﬁned offering
• Think beyond mobile apps and websites (hammers and nails)
• "Concierge mode" is an excellent way to learn
• Because you can doesn't mean you should
• Mailing lists, phone numbers, forums, blogs, brick-and-mortar
• Pen and paper
• Minimum Testable Product
• then MinimumViable Product

Target Audience
• The world is the worst starting
point
• Quality over quantity
• Think growth strategy
• Early-vangelists
• Start with a niche
• Customers != Users
• Criteria priority: pain level, ease
of reach, price, market size

Problem
• Customers won't pay for a nice-to-have, only for a must-have
• Shark-bite versus mosquito-bite
• Entertainment is the only exception
• Facebook is not an exception
VS

Secret Sauce
• Not necessarily a secret
• Difference for the sake of difference doesn't matter
• Unique combination of ingredients
• Unique connection to its cook

Information radiator
The Lean Canvas

How to model a business?

1- Customer segments
Name
Behaviors
Needs  
& goals
Facts

2- Problem
3 most 
pressing 
problems
Existing 
alternatives 
for each 
problem

3- Unique Value Proposition
Tagline for 
your 
marketing 
website
X forY

4- Solution
One key 
feature 
for each 
problem

5- Channels
Awareness
Acquisition
Distribution

6- Revenue Streams
Subscriptions
One-time

7- Cost Structure
Variable vs ﬁxed
How many customer to
offset costs

8- Key Metrics
How will
you
measure
success?

9- Unfair Advantage
Can't be
easily
copied or
bought

Customer-Problem
Experiments

Example process
• Brainstorm all potential niches
• Cherry pick 3 of them based on gut feeling
• Draft a lean canvas for each niche
• Sort them by
• Customer pain level
• Ease of reach
• Price
• Market size

Choose the first one…
• and list your hypotheses
• in terms of
• who your target is
• what his problems are
• how they are ordered
• what his alternatives are

Reach out…
• Find at least 5 people to interview
• Schedule interviews

Problem interviews
• Do not sell anything
• Watch verbal and non-verbal answers
• Always ask for referrals

Validate hypotheses
• Every 10 interviews
• Adapt and iterate
• Update your canvas

Don't stop until
• At least 10 persons interviewed
• Well-deﬁned demographics
• Must-have problem
• Understand how customers solve problem today

Problem-Solution
Experiments

Draft a solution
• 3 key features with pen and paper
• Pricing proposition

Go back to your first customers
• And their referrals
• See how they react to your features
• Analyze their reaction to your pricing proposition

Learn and adapt
• Update your canvas
• Don't write any code!
• Landing pages are good too
• Coffee shop interviews

Now you can start coding…

Words to the wise
• Don't quit your job until you really have to (customer/
problem)
• Don't incorporate before you have a real business
• Find yourself at least one cofounder
• Agile methodologies are a perfect ﬁt
• Do not give shares for advice/contacts
• Beware of bad investment deals
• Take all this with a grain of salt

Questions?

Lean Startup for Developers University

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