Is your startup a vitamin or a painkiller? Better yet, how do you know?
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The “Fallacy” of a Literal Interpretation
Ash Maurya recently published a post entitled a bit controversially, The Fallacy of Customer Development. As the title indicates, he attempts to describe what he feels is a fallacy implicit in Customer Development. There may be a fallacy (or many fallacies, for that matter) in Customer Development (and if there is, let’s find it and [...]
Accidental Minimum Viable Products
A fantastic and very interesting blog post by Denny Miu. I have excerpted one portion wherein he describes how he accidentally (and ironically) stumbled onto what is a de facto a Minimum Viable Product. … So we spend the next six months architecting a product that would allow IDS to become IPS by letting an [...]
Graham, Blank and Ries on MVPs
Three very smart people talking about the same thing from three slightly different angles: A Quantum of Utility We advise startups to launch when they’ve added a quantum of utility: when there is at least some set of users who would be excited to hear about it, because they can now do something they couldn’t [...]
Minimal Viable Products and Gall’s Law
Swapping out the word “system” for “product” in Gall’s Law gets us: A complex product that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple product that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex product designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start [...]
Bill Gates’ Minimal Viable Product
Inspired by the recent post on Atari as the original Lean Startup — I thought I would point out a great anecdote about Minimal Viable Products. So, in case you were wondering, Bill Gates knows exactly what a Minimal Viable Product is. He started Microsoft based on one. Via Tim Ferris and Rick Smith: In [...]
AppSumo Lean Startups Bundle: The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything
Unlikely that you haven’t already seen the Ultimate Lean Startup Bundle on AppSumo. But in case you haven’t, I suggest you go take a look at the bundle Chief Sumo Noah Kagan put together. With the bundle priced at $42, which includes: Eric Ries’ upcoming Lean Startups book, The Venture Hacks Bible by Nivi, Hacker [...]
Hacking CustDev: The Open Source Playbook
I need your help. I am collecting and curating all of the best tactical CustDev hacks in one evolving and growing open-source ‘playbook’. I am not talking theory of Customer Development. I am talking boots-on-the-ground, stormin’-the-beach-with-bayonets-fixed CustDev warfightin’ hacks that get the job done. These hacks run the gamut from finding people to talk with [...]
Distribution and Pricing Hypotheses with LOIs
Update: Manu has updated his post with an excerpt from mine as well as some additional thoughts. I think we’re on the exact same page. – I just came across a post by Manu Kumar wherein he, riffing on Customer Development, writes about the importance of and need for what he calls: Revenue Development. He [...]
If you’re not Getting out of the Building, you’re not doing Customer Development and Lean Startups
If you are pre-Product/Market Fit and you aren’t actually “Getting out of the Building” (actually talking to your customers), you aren’t doing Customer Development, and your startup isn’t a Lean Startup. Let me repeat that: If you aren’t actually talking to your customers, you aren’t doing Customer Development. And by talking, I mean speaking. With [...]
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