Lean Startup Lessons: Test Before you Build

How to go about testing before a product is ever created is the topic of discussion for Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, and Intuit founder Scott Cook in this Lean Startup Lesson.

[taylorseely]

Second venture devil from ASU here! This is such a simple concept that so many people fail to think about. When I began my startup project about a year ago, my director told me to read Ries' The Lean Startup book. It could not have been more helpful. I began my process with interviewing people and asking them before I even spent money on a website. Now I'm in the building process, and I truly can't wait to launch my minimum viable product and start learning from my customers. I love that in this video Ries says the numbers constituting as success cannot be absolute. It's all about how those number plug into your business model prediction. For example, if I'm looking into launching a very niche publication, I won't be looking for millions of customers because it's a niche subject. I should expect a smaller number of customers. The hope, however, is that they're more loyal than typical customers.

[irmasanchez]

I've read his book and I'm really impressed by the way he clarified and made it easy to understand every step to build a successful startup. the Lean Startup methodology is a practice for developing products and businesses based on ‘validated learning’, getting customer feedback quickly and often. Instead of building in isolation from users, startups regularly expose the product to customers throughout the development cycle. In doing so, teams are able to make more informed decisions about what to build, from core product functions to what colour a button should be.

[ryanhobbs]

ASU Venture Devil here. The Lean Startup Lessons are valuable to all new businesses. It trains me to innovate as I build and rebuild my concept and delve deeper into my value proposition. The key aspect, I've learned, is that the actual product is not as important as the system to develop that product into a viable business. Tesla was another electric vehicle company, like hundreds before. It was actually a joke of a product, as their first models were AA Li-Ions packed into aluminum and jammed into the door panels of a lotus body for $200, 000 to be put on a waiting list. However, the company hung in there until some key partnerships were forged and the CEOs changed a few times to pivot their product. And now, the product is one of the world's most important industries.