Category Archives: Lean Startup

Education, Lean Startup

Lean Startup Bootcamp, Baghdad Iraq

Skyping in to Baghdad

Today I was honored to be invited to share from my startup mistakes and coach participants at a Lean Startup Bootcamp for developers in Baghdad, Iraq.

One of the most interesting things I learned was that solving the last mile problem, buying groceries online to have them delivered is also a startup thing in Iraq – and a particular problem with the logistic is that popular exotic fruits are sold at separate shops often far removed from the supermarkets, which leaves the fulfilment and delivery process doubly complex.

 

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Education, entrepreneurship, innovation, Lean Startup, startup

Working with USAID in Moldova

Lean Startup Crash Course @ iHUB Moldova

Recently I was honored and delighted to be invited by USAID to help companies and startups in Moldova.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the United States Government agency which is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid.

I knew where the country of Moldova (not Moldavia – that’s the name of a region) was on the map (Hint: It’s just east of Romania), but I had never previously visited. I was surprised to find a small but capable startup community and a lot of familiar faces in the capital of Chisinau.

The entrance to the cool new iHUB Chisinau

First up, I had two workshops with Moldovan companies and their management about how corporations engage with startups and why; One at Starnet (the primary telco in Moldova)  and one at the coworking space and startup center iHUB (also supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs among others).

The topic of innovation and growth is especially interesting in Moldova because one of the leading industries is outsourcing; building apps, websites and software for other western companies. This is a good business model for now – but for how long? What happens when other markets will outcompete them on price? So I talked a lot about the importance in experimenting with developing new products and how, before their business model may become obsolete and also how and why they could be reinvesting in local startups as a part of their innovation portfolio.

Back to back, I was also honored to be invited to speak about my startup experiences at the Startup Grind Chisinau in the evening.

At Startup Grind Chisinau, I spoke a bit about my startup experiences

And a day later I held my popular Lean Startup Crash Course for existing startups and people considering founding one.

In between everything there was also time to sit down with an Estonian startup delegation to learn more about the ecosystem there

My guide and help on the ground was Traian Chivriga of UnArtOras that I already knew from Cologne’s own Pirate Summit – And in the evening there was time for socializing… ;)

Lots of familiar faces…

I met this guy that I also knew from Cologne’s Pirate Summit already; Riccardo Fedeli

And Vlad Calus of planable.io – that I too knew from the Pirate Summit in Cologne already

And Livia Ţurcanu that I already knew from my work at University of Maastricht

These were the slides for my Lean Startup Crash Course:

These were the slides for the talk about why and how corporations engage with startups:

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Education, Lean Startup

Lean Startup – Am I doing it right?

Image credit: http://popkey.co/u/GykpX

One question I get all the time is how to do Lean Startup right, so I thought I’d take a minute and share a somewhat canonical answer.

The shortest 5 step description I can give goes as follows:

  1. Articulate your hypotheses (guesses about the unknowns) using the Business Model Canvas (BMC).
  2. Get out of the building and test these hypotheses using Customer Development.
  3. Validate learnings by building Minimum Viable Products and getting them in front of customers.
  4. Iterate (small variation, no real change in BMC) or Pivot (something changed in the BMC) as needed.
  5. Build – Measure – Learn (aka rinse, lather, repeat – because this is an iterative process, you have to get out of the building more than once to talk to customers)

By now, getting the the Lean Startup methodology right should not be a problem.

The hard part is still going to be creating a product people love. 

To learn more in-depth about the Lean Startup and how to do it right, I recommend taking the canonical free course ” How to Build a Startup” from the father of the movement himself, Steve Blank.

This text was originally posted on LinkedIn.

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