#leanstart.ch

Four years ago, I took the Clifton's StrengthsFinder personality test from Gallup.

Here is my signature theme, which I think it provides a good outlook of my professional and interpersonal skills. As I am supposed to do coaching and mentoring, I believe my current and future coachees/mentees will find it useful. 

Activator

You can see how ideas can be turned into action.

You want to do things now, rather than simply talk about doing them.

You can be very powerful in making things happen and getting people to take action.

Other people may criticize you for being impatient and seeming to “run over” them. You will probably struggle with people who try to control you.

Activator talents are valuable because they generate the energy to get things going and then done. This theme brings innovation and creative approaches to problem solving.

Communicator

You like to talk, and you are good at it.

You can explain things and make them clear.

You may have an ability to tell particularly captivating stories by constructing mental images in the minds of others.

You may have been criticized because you like to talk a lot.

Communication talents are valuable because your abilities in this area enable you to reach out and connect with people. Your storytelling ability builds images in the minds of others and makes you a powerful person as you connect and bond with people.

Learner

You want to continuously learn and improve.

You enjoy the process of learning as much as what you actually learn.

You get a thrill out of learning new facts, beginning a new subject, and mastering an important skill. Learning builds your confidence.

You can get frustrated about wanting to learn so many different things because you fear you’ll never be an expert.

Learner talents are valuable because they propel you to thrive in a dynamic world where learning is a necessity. You can learn a lot in a short period of time.

Self-Assurance

You are confident about your ability to manage your life.

You can “bounce back” from disappointments and crises.

You believe that your decisions are right and that your perspective is unique and distinct.

Other people may see your self-assurance as a type of pride or arrogance.

Some people may criticize you when they wish that they had your confidence. Sometimes people want to get close to you because they hope that some of your confidence will rub off on them. But other people will keep you away because they don’t have your confidence and are afraid that you will see through them.

Self-Assurance talents are valuable because they keep you strong as you withstand many pressures, as you stay on your course, and as you willingly claim the authority to form conclusions, make decisions, and act.

Winning Others Over

You have the capacity to quickly connect with people and generate positive responses from them.

You can enter a crowd of people and easily know what to do and what to say.

You see no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.

Because you know so many people, some may believe that you form only shallow relationships. Others, however, will envy the way you make friends.

(Picture take from this blog post)

Facebook announced the launch of Social Graph search where you can query, for instance, who likes wine in Switzerland. If you are starting up a company in the wine sector in Switzerland, this tool would help you in finding enthusiast wine tasters who could potentially become your early adopters.

When I advise my startups, one of the big issues is actually this: where do I find early adopters for a given customers segment.

Sometimes this is just an excuse to not getting out of the building and do reality check. But often it is a real issue because the founders don't know where to search.

Early adopters are present in every market but in a small proportion (estimated as of 13.5%). But the good news is that they are so proud of being pioneers that they tend to talk about their early experiences with their communities. Therefore, it is crucial to enter those communities and listen to what happens there. This might be a surrogate for "getting out of the building" strategy by "getting at least out of your favorite community on the Internet".

Going back to Facebook, social graph search might become the essential tool for customer discovery. Another way is to join groups, but this might require a greater effort than just doing a search. Besides, with a search you might find out which groups you might want to focus to.

From Eric Ries words, the term "Lean" in Lean Startup stems from "lean manufacturing" with the obvious meaning of reducing waste and continuous improvement of processes.

While this is a relevant and foundational meaning, I propose an alternative one.

Lean in the sense of "leaning towards or on" someone else.

If a startup wants to learn how to build successful business, it must lend its hears to customers. It has to "lean towards" them and listen to their voice.

This seems to be the meaning of Lean which is more endorsed by Steve Blank in his Customer Development model.

Open development, crowd sourcing, crowd funding and user-centered design go all towards this sense of Lean.

The language purist would notice that "lean" as an adjective does not have that sense and that the right adjective would be "leaning" as in the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Aside this, my point here is that startups should avoid the "stealth mode" approach and be brave enough to face the customers as soon as possible, i.e. when they are able to craft a Minimum Viable Product. 

They should be also ready to:

1. Setup the relevant Actionable Metrics in order to get the necessary insights for learning.

2. Pivoting: change the MVP (and possibly the Business Model) if targeted customers don't convert (i.e. ignore you).