#lean launchpad

The Lean LaunchPad methodology is changing the way we think about entrepreneurship and innovation around the world. It has been adopted by universities, accelerators/incubators, government institutions, and corporations.

Many of our customers rely on the How to Build a Startup videos from Udacity to implement a “flipped classroom”, where teams watch the videos on their own time. This allows instructors and facilitators to spend more time applying the concepts to their teams case, rather than lecturing. While this worked, the #1 pain point we heard from instructors and facilitators was: who is watching the video lectures?

As practitioners of this methodology, we decided to solve this major pain point by launching the new Flipped Classroom module within LaunchPad Central.

  Users on the LaunchPad Central platform no longer need to view the lectures on Udacity. They can now watch the How to Build a Startup videos in addition to the newer Customer Discovery series directly within the platform. LPC generates a real time / on-demand report on the progress of everyone in the program.

If you either teach or implement the Lean LaunchPad, you’ve come to appreciate that LaunchPad Central drastically reduces the “bubble gum and duct tape” approach of cobbling together disparate tools. The release of the Flipped Classroom module reduces that number even further, and provides insights into team learnings that were never possible before.

Now get out of the building,

Happy New Year!

2013 was filled with major milestones for LPC. There are now over 50 universities and 30 accelerators worldwide using LPC to scale their Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship™ initiatives. And over 2,300 startups have conducted nearly 60,000 customer interviews, collectively to test over 65,000 business model hypotheses leading to nearly 12,000 pivots.

Instead of being satisfied with these accomplishments, we decided to spend the holiday season working hard for our customers and users who inspire us, to deliver a special surprise.

We have been actively listening to teams, mentors, instructors, and admins across all of our segments via our customer support channel and proactively reaching out to many of you. While we are still quite far from where we need to be, but our goal to kick off 2014 was simple:

Everything you know and love about about LPC remains the same, just easier to navigate and use.

We are a learning organism, and nothing excites us more than continuing to learn from you and addressing your pain points.

Now get out of the building,

The LPC Team

--

Time.now - As I'm writing this I'm thinking...

"I'm looking left and right, and hearing that the current presenting team is led by a PHD/MD. Damn... There are really intelligent and driven people here... PHDs? at least five, MDs? probably fifteen, MBAs? a handful people in this program... and then there is me..."

Flash back a bit...

So a last minute email from a Dev Bootcamp Jay Connolly asked me to join in with him for a Lean Launchpad application of his startup concept "Lift Hero". https://www.lifthero.com/ We've been planning and meeting over a business model canvas and thinking critically over the value proposition that we could provide in transporting seniors. I'm not a person that is easy to quantify on paper and I hope I can earn my team's.

Time.now

What followed is the most intense, interruption filled, and honest presentations of business canvasses that I've seen in a long time. Steve Blank and a "A" (seriously experienced) list of mentors grilled us.

The class is intense on "doing", much like my time through dev bootcamp. I'm looking forward to killing it, there are no grades, our learning is driven by our own will to want to learn and more importantly win.

Cheers to pushing hard and doing what you love in your free-time!

def launchpad_end_date(timenow)   timenow + 7.88923e6 end

launchpad_end_date(Time.now)

We talk a lot about the importance of Customer Development, but not too many dive into the 'how'. Many first time entrepreneurs (or sometimes seasoned ones) do not understand the process of actually doing a customer interview. Below are the three key areas that we have learned need to be addressed for a successful interview. 

1) What do you believe?

Everyone has a set of hypotheses, and usually they are mapped out on your business model canvas. You need to be going into every interview with which hypotheses you are testing, and specific experiments on how to test them (measurably). 

2) What did you learn?

This is typically the only thing people actually document. In order to refine your learning though, do not just mindlessly jot down notes. Tie your notes back to your business model hypotheses to drive them towards validation or invalidation. Creating this relationship is crucial down the road after you have conducted hundreds of interviews to see where the feedback is leading you. We do this internally using LaunchPad Central, which keeps our eyes open to shifting trends and our product focused on actual customer needs. 

3) What are you going to do next?

Fantastic, you finished the interview and potentially learned a few things. You need to have an action plan on how this affects your next steps. For example, you might learn about a Key Partner that is a gatekeeper to your entrance - time to find someone that can help you navigate those waters. 

Although this post is still topical, it should provide a good framework for approaching your next customer interview. We plan on diving deeper into each of these in future posts. 

Now get out of the building!

Yesterday we released a new landing page, with a fresh look. 

Over the past few months, we have been hard at work learning from thought leaders and pioneers in the entrepreneurship space. 

We were able to sit down with Steve Blank and Jim Hornthal to get their opinions on the changing landscape in venture capital, entrepreneurship, and education. The result being two amazing videos describing how LaunchPad Central fits at the forefront of these shifts. 

We had the pleasure of interviewing two of our incredibly inspiring customers to produce wonderful showcase videos. 

Northwestern University is scaling their entrepreneurship initiatives at an unparalleled pace using LaunchPad Central as their standard platform for tracking and managing these efforts. 

Vetransfer is at the forefront of Customer Development driven accelerators, and is using LaunchPad Central to scale their reach and reduce mentor fatigue for their geographically dispersed network. 

There are some rich resources available on our landing page now, and we hope they help bring the message of Customer Development to more people. 

Now get out of the building, 

The LaunchPad Central Team

When not busy building SCALEit, I study my master in Digital Innovation & Management at the Danish IT University - this last semester I took three classes, one of them being Digital Entrepreneurship.

Usually (traditionally), entrepreneurship classes has been about business plans at an MBA styled approach. I hate that. To me, there is nothing worse than writing a uni project, which will not actually be used for anything - it's a bad use of everyones time! Instead of 'the-plan-approach', my group with Kamma Louise Rodian and Thor Underbjerg decided that we wanted to go Lean, build a product, validate some of our hypothesis - and built something of value. As Steve Blank would say it: "get out of the building (classroom), and start talking to customers!" - and so we did.

By following the free online udacity class the Lean LaunchPad, using Alexander Osterwalders framework the Business Model Canvas and implementing Ben Mappens product LeanLaunchLab.com for keeping track of our validation process, we managed to build a site in a very short time. The original idea was born after reading The Sunday Startup on Quora - a fascinating story about how Aravind Chandrasekaran build a startup in one day.

What: a simple children clothes search engine. Why: It's hard to find the right products online - there is to much content. Where: Test it in Denmark. Small market. 5m inhabitants. $$$: Affiliate transactions How: Build danbits.com When: now!

To explain the process (which is the important part), this video will explain how we did it in 10 weeks. The product may or may not be good, but the important part is the learnings, testing and validation.

Some highlights of testing and validating this:

Survey 1: 9 people were in person interviewed in Copenhagen Survey 2: 125 people e-surveyed Survey 3: 10 personal webshop interviews 

After an alpha launch, and just before our exam, we AB tested the site in two tests with about 100 users in each. By doing this, we improved search with more than 1400% and time spend on the site with 76%! At the exam we pitched this story:

What we learned:

 - Validated learning is the best method to build and test a startup  - Following lean principles is a process - customer development is key  - Product Market Fit takes time. Nail it to scale it!  - A niche vertical is easier to target  - Google Docs are awesome to build small tests in!!  - The Internet is a great place (but we already knew that.....)

The important resources:

Free Lean LaunchPad Udacity class The Startup Owners manual Lean LaunchLab The Sunday Startup Google Custom Search Themeforest Google Forms

Final note:

A personal hero of mine and the godfather of customer development, Eric Ries' (Lean Startup) personal mentor, Steve Blank, gave our process his endorsement. Coming from him, this means everything!

How to build a web site in 7 minutes using Lean. Unbelievable. by @sorenrt https://t.co/YrKEIQGU45

— steve blank (@sgblank)

On Customer Development

I’m currently in Silicon Valley, invited to receive the Lean Launchpad Instructors class with Steve…