A Startup is A

THESIS
Tendayi Viki, PhD
University of Kent
Follow Me: @tendayiviki
Lean Startup Machine Rotterdam

About Me:
Academic: @unikent
4 failed startups: Tasksauce
Currently: Valideation

The Challenge

Most new businesses fail.

In some cases failure rates are
over 90%.

Previous success does not

guarantee future success
(Frankish et al., 2012).
Entrepreneurs dont really learn, they just say they
do!
http://ow.ly/eR6Uh

This can be
problematic:
Because it places too much
emphasis on the value of the
initial idea.

Most new business ideas

suck!
Including the initial ideas within many
companies that are successful
overtime.

Great entrepreneurs are

comfortable with killing
their babies
And pivoting to new ideas.

Startups also fail

because they try to
act like a large
company too early.

Startups are not

smaller versions of
big companies!

(Steve Blank & Bob Dorf, 2012)

Startups are more like

frogs than fish.
Rob Fitzpatrick and Salim Virani (2012)

No two startup
situations are the
same

(Even in the same market as another company)

What do you do,

when you are in a
cargo cult:
And the plane lands?!

Rob Fitzpatrick and Salim Virani

(2012)

Each startup
situation has its own
topography.
And its a great challenge
to business plan for that

A Startup is A
Thesis

A Path for Searching:

For a sustainable and
profitable business
model

A Startup is a Research
Project:
So we dont write a business
plan, we should write a research
proposal

The Startup Team is a

Research Team:
All hands on deck, to learn what
customers want
And a sustainable/profitable way
to deliver that value to them.

A Significant
Contribution:
The significant contribution of a
startup is building something
people want
Upon achieving product-market
fit, a startup graduates

The Lean Startup

approach is not antiplanning!
But the plan is to learn

And use tools that allow

us to learn from
customers quickly

Eric Ries (2011)

The Lean Startup
http://lean.st

This is not the

same as market
research or focus
groups!

Introspection

Market research methods are

based on one major premise:
If you want people to tell you
what they think, just ask them!

Introspection

This premise is based on one

major problematic
assumption:
People are able to introspect
and gain access into how they
feel and communicate it to
researchers.

Introspection
People

often dont know

what drives their thoughts
and actions.

But if you ask them, they often

have something to say.
Psychologists call this
confabulation.

32

To Fully Understand Your

Customers You Have to Go
Beyond the Focus Group

Running Successful
Experiments
Document

your Plan A

Who are the customers?

What problems do they have?
What solution are you
proposing?

Ash Maurya (2012)

Running Lean
http://www.runningleanhq.com /

Alexander Osterwalder (2012)

http://www.businessmodelgeneration.co

Running Successful Experiments

Identify

your riskiest assumptions.

Transform these into falsifiable
hypotheses.
This means you have to
operationalize your assumptions.
Say what exact behaviour you are
assuming your customer will show.

In science, the power

of an experiment is
that:
It controls for potentially
confounding factors and
variables.

Running Successful Experiments

Specify

who you are going to be

talking to from the beginning.
Be specific about your target sample.

If

you talk to anyone who will talk to

you:
It becomes hard to distinguish signal from
noise.

Running Successful Experiments

Specify

exactly what you would

expect to find if your assumptions
are correct.
Set minimum success criteria

Otherwise,

there is no way to know

if you have learned anything.

Running Successful
Experiments

Capture reliable data.

Do not try to fudge the data.
Avoid the confirmation bias.

A Great MVP
Thehypothesis/objectiveyou

are trying to learn.

from thetarget market
segmentyou are trying to learn
about
andthe formit takes to achieve
that learning.
Patrick Vlaskovitz (2012)

http://vlaskovits.com/2012/09/apple-maps-debacle-and-minimum-viab
le-products/

THANK YOU