Once again the team of Sarah Millstein & Eric Ries has created a weeklong conference – the Lean Startup Conference – that hits it out of the ballpark!
If you didn’t see my updates from last year’s conference, I must reiterate that this is the most useful of all the tech/business conferences I have attended. And this year they took it to a new level of excellence in several different areas.
There were two very notable differences from previous years, firstly, the larger contingent and programming for enterprise organizations and government (intrapreneurship), and secondly, the significant inclusion of women and minorities in the speaker and mentor lineup.
One would think that for a startup conference, having a large portion of programming dedicated to mature and large organizations would be a distraction or departure from the core values and intent of the conference.
However, the way in which they developed the programming, it became a learning experience for aspiring entrepreneurs of how to not only grow their companies, but also for how to keep their companies vital and vibrant as they became larger.
Several of my conversations with people who came from large organizations and governments, both nationally and from far flung destinations like Norway and Portugal, displayed a tremendous optimism that the Lean Startup methodology had potential to revitalize their organizations and how they serve their customers/constituents.
The second important difference from previous years is that the conference was characterized by the diversity of speakers and mentors.
In terms of gender, age, racial background and experience, the conference was replete with different perspectives that give us the knowledge that Lean Startup is good execution regardless of whether I am a diminutive woman from India or a large, bearded white male.
This made the conference much more interesting than any other I’ve attended and the networking was exceptional as a result.
Clearly the conference organizers thought carefully of how they could provide both a learning experience in business and a culturally expanding perspective.
Thank you Sarah and Eric for both a superb learning experience, as well as a personally expanding event – truly exceptional!
It was especially interesting to listen to Mikkel Svane’s talk about Zendesk’s story, because I had read a pre-publication copy of his book Startup Land.
The book was the basis of the talk, I found Mr. Svane to be enlightening, honest and real and all that carried over in his book.
Startup Land was an enjoyable read from a strong entrepreneur, with real stories about the struggle of starting, moving and growing a technology company.
The fact that they started as entrepreneurs in Denmark and moved an embryonic company to the US only increased the complexity and challenges that the three founders had to traverse in making the company a success.
Not only were the founders outside the normal Silicon Valley entrepreneurial eco-system, but they were also in a different country with little access to the information or thinking patterns common in the US. It is a testament to the tenacity and determination, and even more so to the “hustling mentality” of the founders – they were willing to take significant risks and stay completely focused on two things — building a great product and getting immediate revenue on this product.
The author rightly credits the Scandinavian social system for their ability to take some of the risks that they were able to assume — they knew they would never end up on the street homeless, but could suffer a temporary reduction in living standards if they failed. This is radically different than the case in the US and many other countries where startup failure can lead to destitution.
Regardless, the ingenuity and determination displayed during the process of bringing Zendesk from birth to maturity was an inspiration. I’m a serial entrepreneur with international background myself, and I know how much effort is required to make that kind of move.
The major challenge, however, comes with adjusting to the new mindset and culture in your host country. Startup Land discusses this to some extent, but it would have been interesting to get some more insight about it.
Mr. Svane does a good job of synthesizing his experience into practical advice, summarized in special sections at the end of each chapter. As such, the book can be a practical guide to such things as what to consider when hiring team members or how to think about particular aspects of the business.
Also, some of the most interesting, and sometimes funny, parts of the book are found in how the three founders interacted based on their particular personalities and proclivities.
Considering that founder dynamics is one of the most prevalent reasons for startup failure, this information should be studied closely. The difficulties and required tolerance for navigating these issues is core, especially the sensitivity required by the Founder/CEO.
In short, the book is well worth reading — it’s a quick and easy read with practical insights and a good dose of humor.
The first day at the Lean Startup Conference 2014 has been excellent! I’ve been at an all-day seminar by Alistair Croll – the author of the book Lean Analytics. A very boring sounding name, but really the essence of how to create a sustainable product market fit and scalable business. How do I know that I’m on the right path with my products? How do I know that the pricing is correct? How do I find the factors that are influencing the growth of the company? Etc.
I must say that every minute spent in the seminar (from 10 am to 5:30 pm) was worthwhile, even the time spent on the larger organizations, as he made it very useful by comparing to startups in every single part of the process. Even for a startup guy from a tech startup, the part of the session that focused on innovation within large enterprise companies was fascinating. Understanding the difficulties those intrapreneurs experience almost made the travails startups go through seem simple. Alistair’s suggestions and advice for how to think around these issues and attain success.
The room was filled all day and I noticed that I wasn’t the only participant with rapt attention on the presentation – everyone else was very focused on what he was saying. The sessions were very interactive with people feeling comfortable to ask questions and Alistair encouraging discussion. Everyone I spoke with during lunch said they were captivated and that his lectures were transforming their thinking.
I am lucky to have been able to participate in this seminar – it is clear that it will have a strong effect on how I execute within my startup as we begin interacting with customers on a broader scale.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Have you defined your market?
Do you know what it takes to reach your market?
Who do you talk to when your market doesn’t respond?
That’s the problem that edX, a consortium started by MIT and Harvard University to develop free online courses, faced and here is what they found.
Though edX aimed to reach the world, its initial courses were designed for the people professors at MIT and Ivy-caliber partners know best—the ultraqualified students they’re accustomed to teaching in their hallowed halls.
edX needed to learn why they weren’t reaching their target market, since it there was no question of the need.
And learn they did, but not from the brainpower already involved in the project.
They learned from a 15 year-old user from Mongolia who aced the course in spite of the way the experts designed it (it’s been changed).
The edX team and contributors show the error in looking to ‘stars’ and assuming what they say/do is the best approach.
While Battushig Myanganbayar is a genius, one of the best skills I offer clients is my ignorance of their project, but they will literally fight to forcibly educate me about it.
But it is ignorance that allows me to ask the question-sans-assumptions that light up inconsistencies, missing pieces, and other customer turnoffs.
The Lean approach pushes founders to talk to their market early and often, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the main market.
Often you can learn more talking to outliers, both inside and outside the company, than you can from the majority and the experts.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Yet again Sarah Milstein and her crew at Lean Startup have knocked it out of the ball park. The first time I experienced it was at their Lean Startup Conference last year. With the new Office Optional Conference, they have tapped into a motherload of issues that affect the Future of Knowledge Work and Workers. Companies both large and small are struggling with attracting, growing, retaining and managing distributed teams, just like an increasing portion of the workforce is enticed by the ability to work from home (or anywhere).
I attended with Galina Landes who leads our engineering team, and one of the great experiences was to see how differently she and I experienced distributed work and strategies for improving what we’re doing. But then, engineers have always had a more logical approach to most things than those of us working in management or other functions in a company. Combining our perspectives and discussing strategies was interesting and very productive.
This conference on distributed teams dealt with collaboration, communication and the tools necessary for achieving goals as a team and creating a positive work environment. I’ve personally struggled with this in my previous company and now as we are building a new one. Our small team is fully distributed, although several of us are in the San Francisco Bay Area and can meet face to face when necessary. But it’s still challenging to build a company culture, have good communication and trust without which we can’t achieve our strategic goals.
Personally, I got a lot of ideas for tools and strategies to enhance our collaboration and communication. In addition, many of the speakers spoke about the need to create an environment where “water cooler talk” and informal communication (and interruptions) was acceptable. Just like in a normal office environment. After all, we human beings are (mostly) social creatures and need to create bonds and trust with those with whom we work to achieve goals.
It was a pleasure to see that so many people from large organizations such as GE to small startups like EMANIO, and everything in-between, dealing with the issues around an increasingly distributed workforce. In interacting with fellow participants, it was clear that we were all neophytes in the area and even those organizations that successfully had deployed a distributed model were still learning and adjusting their strategies and methods. Office Optional was a great learning experience and I’d exhort anyone dealing with these issues to participate next time they put it on. It was invaluable for us.
My only negative feedback would be that toward the latter part, the speakers became a bit repetitive. However, for a first conference small issues like this should be expected and judging from my prior experience with the Lean Startup team the next one will excellent.
The day ended with a conversation between Eric Ries, who wrote The Lean Startup, and Stanford’s Bob Sutton, who penned the No Asshole Rule, and more recently, Scaling Up Excellence. Though the conference would have been very good on its own, this was the crowning part of my experience. Professor Sutton is an engaged and charismatic speaker with deep knowledge of how organizations work. Excellence is what we’re all striving for and he provided a captivating roadmap for how to achieve it.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Well, actually, it was a shared 1st place with the Garage.com conference I went to in 2000 and met Guy Kawasaki and Bill Reichert who funded my company based on the impromptu pitch I did to them at the conference.
However, I am writing now about the last day of the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco. A fantastic last day.
It completely reinforced what I wrote yesterday, that this has been the most practical and useful conference I’ve been to as a startup founder.
Even though I’ve done several startups and had successful exits on three, and been on the other side of the table as an institutional investor in startups, it was astounding how much I learned that was useful.
I really wish that this conference had existed 15 years ago when I got started in the startup business!
In addition to Ash being a good presenter, every minute and every slide he went through was deep learning in how to get the operational aspects of a startup up and running around a new product.
In fact, it was a systematic methodology of building new products that I wish had been available for my past ventures. Everyone who is in the process of creating a new product, especially a software product, should read Ash’ book and participate in one of his practical seminars.
I have yet to experience a more dynamic, fun and practical seminar leader. In building a startup or product, one of the core challenges is how to price the product to get maximum conversions to sales at the highest possible price.
What Justin did was lead us through a hands-on session of how to accomplish this and got us actually doing a practical test on several products (after dividing us into teams, each testing pricing on one product) focusing on how to price them and pinpoint the optimal price to sales ratio.
Justin and his team are experts well worth consulting with to get this right. It is guaranteed to earn you a lot more money and save you from pain.
To be honest, based on past conferences I’ve attended, I had low expectations arriving at the Lean Startup Conference. And as you have read, I’ve been totally blown away by what I experienced.
If you are an entrepreneur, even an experienced one, you must beg borrow or steal to get the opportunity to go.
Don’t miss this learning opportunity – for me. It would have saved me millions of dollars in cash, several years of time, and lots of sleepless nights and struggles at home and at work.
I have one criticism about the conference – please choose better names for the sessions.
The naming convention was horrible and made it difficult to compare notes with fellow conference participants of what they had experienced since none of us could remember the names of the sessions.
Thank you, Lean Startup Conference – I’ll see you next year!
I am seldom effusive in my praise of any conference I’ve attended.
Most conferences bring in speakers who simply recycle the presentations they’ve done for many other audiences, people clap and get a momentary high from associating with others and hearing engaging speakers. But a few days later, it’s all gone.
This is even truer for conferences dealing with the startup ecosystem.
These are focused on getting already poor (sometimes starving) entrepreneurs to pay hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to go and listen to the same stuff. Often the carrot is meeting angel and VC investors, but very few people I’ve encountered (if any) ever received an investment based on meeting an investor at one of these conferences.
The Lean Startup Conference is very different, in fact, I cannot be more enthusiastic.
This is one of the few conferences I’ve attended as a company founder and serial entrepreneur that has provided practical knowledge that I can use in building my company.
Low bullshit factor, lots and lots of case studies related to company problems and solutions, great strategic insight and golden nuggets strewn through all the speakers’ talks. In addition, the conference was well organized and the logistics worked flawlessly.
The audience was very diverse – race, geographical origin, profession (software engineer, bioengineer, marketing, C-level execs, tech support, etc.), size of company (everything from pre-revenue startups to major companies like GE and Intuit), and industry (pharma, tech, government, automotive…).
It is doubly impressive that they managed to pull off a conference that worked for such diversity.
Maybe there is excellence in the conference business after all.
Are you familiar with Eric Ries’ 2008 conception of lean strategy? Its focus was/is startups, but Scott Cook, Intuit cofounder and current chairman of its Executive Committee, believes it applies to any company looking to innovate, large/old as well as small/young.
A major hallmark of lean is the idea of talking to the target market early to get customer feedback in order to create what the market truly wants,
Lean can be applied to anything—product, service, branding strategy, etc.
Why isn’t it? Why do companies, from Fortune 50 to startups still insist on developing [whatever] and being shocked when customers don’t clamor for it?
Scott’s insight, based on his own experience, provides a telling answer.
“Success is a powerful thing, it tends to make companies stupid, and they become less and less innovative.”
Case in point: Ron Johnson, J. C. Penney’s CEO and the ex head of Apple’s retail ops, who was hired to turn Penney’s around.
Based on his success at Apple, part of Johnson’s strategy was to eliminate sales, coupons and promotions in favor of a steady three-tiered pricing approach.
However, Penney’s isn’t Apple and apparently Johnson didn’t check to see if its customers liked that approach.
They didn’t.
(Even the TV ads didn’t makes sense to me. Remember the kid with the hoop and the dog jumping through it? Hmm, maybe customers don’t identify themselves with trained dogs.)
It’s one thing to stick to your brilliant idea in the face of disagreement from experts, but it’s quite another to do so while ignoring customer input.
As Scott said, “For me it was seeing my brilliant ideas—which I just knew were right—not work.”
The take-away here is to get customer feedback, listen to it and tweak [whatever] accordingly.
And before you say you have no customers and walk away, remember that customers aren’t just the folks who buy a product or service; they are also your people, peers, kids, parents, etc.
Several people I’ve talked with recently have quoted from Eric Ries’s The Lean Start Up with almost the same religious fervor people espouse Guy Kawasaki or Steve Jobs.
I haven’t read it yet, but after reading a brief column in WSJ’s About Tech Europe and watching the video I realized that Ries probably doesn’t appreciate that kind of blind devotion any more than Kawasaki or Jobs and is quick to say so.
Much of what he says is common sense,
“If 10 people in a row hate my product is that statistically significant? It is not conclusive evidence, but it is certainly telling you something.”
If you have 100 customers you can already say what percentage are paying. If it is zero then I can already start to be a bit worried about the model.”
which is often the easiest to rationalize or ignore.
Of course, you ignore it at your peril.
If you have read The Lean Startup please share your thoughts below; I’ll share mine after I’ve read it.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Have you defined your market?
