Class 7, Week 4 – Customer Channels
Moving into week 4, the teams are now one third of the way through their time to build. Week ten, July 23rd, is demo day! To match the urgency and the nature of the accelerator, I’ve asked that each...
View ArticleClass 8, Week 4 – Pitching!
This week, the teams asked to go over their pitches. My major teaching point for pitches is that they should include as much data from the team’s experiments at possible (facts being more interesting...
View ArticleClass 9, Week 5 – Customer Relationships
Picking up some initial traction We are half way through the accelerator now (!!) and are starting to see some progress. Driven Analytics made their first sales to car dealerships to run a pilot of...
View ArticleClass 11, Week 6 – Revenue Streams
News After 6 weeks, I wanted to meet with each team one on one to get a deeper progress report, check on the current status of the business model canvas assumptions (meaning can the company make money...
View ArticleClass 13, Week 7 – Partners
Partners Partners is the first box on the left side of the business model canvas that we consider and is starting to get a little removed from sales and marketing. I view the right side of the business...
View ArticleClass 14, Week 7 – Writing for the web
We’re seven weeks into the program now and it is a good moment to look back and see how far two months of work can take you. When the teams came in, they were a mix of ideas and business planning, with...
View ArticleMVP examples from the real world
I get asked all the time – what are some MVP examples (or experiments) that I can get inspiration from? What’s an MVP? First and foremost, the biggest problem I see when developing a MVP is that MVP...
View ArticleClass 15, Week 8 – Resources, Activities and Costs
The seventh “Lean Launchpad” class is the last one of curriculum. It looks at the key activities and resources, and how much they’ll cost, to make the product the business sells. Being on the left side...
View ArticleFrom Launch Pad to Demo Day
In between class 15 (Resources and Costs) and demo day, the students have three classes and two dinners left on the schedule. The first dinner we spent BBQ’s at Jeff Moore’s house. I invited Danny from...
View ArticleThe pre-commitment mechanism for accountability in Lean Startup
Verbal contracts Pre-commitment means deciding ahead of time what you’ll do if the results of a lean experiment turn out one way or the other. It was one of the most effective tools I used this summer...
View ArticleVideos from the OU Accelerator: Lessons Learned and Demo Day
This is a collection of videos of the final presentations of the summer 2014 OU Accelerator class. Lessons Learned Driven Analytics video Driven Analytics presentation XiP Technologies video XiP...
View ArticleCritique of a lean test and ideas on when to kill it and move on
The following is my critique of a proposed lean test, as well as some ideas on when to kill a lean test off if it isn’t working. The proposed lean test The entrepreneur wants to convert their company’s...
View ArticleTracking Lean Startup experiments
Here are a few tools you can check out for tracking Lean Startup experiments. This is a very common question from both my work with startups through the Lean Accelerator as well as from big companies...
View ArticleHeat Mapping to Register Preferences
Heat mapping, in the context of generating user feedback, is very similar to a survey where the respondent is asked to rank a number of options in order of preference. However, heat mapping allows the...
View ArticleLean Product Development: Schedule for one week General Assembly & 500...
General Assembly recently partnered with 500 Startups to provide a pre-accelerator prep program for new graduates of of GA immersion programs. During the four week program, the startups will spend one...
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