The Lean Startup method: this is how you quickly learn what doesn't work

You're bringing an innovative product or service to market. Terribly exciting and uncertain. In fact, many brand-new startups don't make it to their first anniversary, usually due to a mismatch with the market.

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But what if you could get a preview of what is and isn't successful beforehand? What if you could test your offering with your target audience and quickly make adjustments? We do this at MakerLab constantly. Thanks to the Lean Startup method, that process is accelerated. 

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With the Lean Startup method, you quickly (in)validate assumptions while maintaining the team's energy. So one week you focus entirely on the building process and the next week you work out various business cases and scenarios to discover whether the concept has sufficient potential. In short: it's a walhalla for generalists like us.

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Lean Startup method 

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Lean Startup is a method for creating a successful business at a rapid pace. It accelerates the product development process and you quickly discover if your business model is viable. 

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Lean Startup is usually deployed after our Concept Accelerator. The Concept Accelerator can be seen as the preliminary phase of Lean Startup, in which we breathe life into our clients' innovation plan or idea. The concept is then created through thorough user research and brainstorming sessions with experts. And when we think we've found the solution, we test it using the Lean Startup method. 

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The starting point of Lean Startup is a list of critical assumptions and experiments we want to do with and for the first prototype. In this phase, we work with a researcher, experiment designer and business designer.

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The feedback loop of the Lean Startup method

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Once our Lean Startup team is mobilized, we deploy multiple experiments to validate critical assumptions. This process consists of a build, measure and learn feedback loop. In other words, we build a prototype, measure how customers react to it, learn from the result and adjust the experiment or prototype accordingly. As a result, we may conclude within two days that an experiment is not working, in which case we make quick adjustments. 

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We consider it crucial that we do not get bogged down in all sorts of details and perfectionism. In combination with Lean Startup, we also apply the 80/20 rule. This means that we primarily invest time in changes that have a quick and significant impact. We intentionally leave the rest untouched. 

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Experimenting with a test brand 

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Within our projects, it was sometimes quite a challenge to work with the Lean Startup method in the past. For instance, we communicated a lot with the customer about the brand identity or encountered legal restrictions. This hindered our innovation process.

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Of course, corporate identity is important and in some cases necessary. But as far as we are concerned, the focus at the beginning should be on proving the critical assumptions. We now prefer to check with the customer first so that we can meet the requirements wherever possible, but at the same time use the Lean Startup method.

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One of our solutions is to develop a test brand for the experiments, so that we have more freedom to make rapid adjustments. We are accelerating our critical assumptions, building the prototype, measuring the results, and drawing lessons from them. Subsequently, we adapt the plan for the next build phase. We apply the learnings to the client's brand in a later stage.

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Lean Startup in practice

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At the moment, I am testing together with the team whether there is a market for a legal document generator. We are doing this using the Lean Startup method, and we are experimenting with our own test brand and website. Our advertisements are driving a stream of visitors to the website, and then we analyze what happens. What makes them convert, and where do they drop off? Subsequently, we carry out various iterations to determine how we can improve the user flow to achieve an ideal customer journey.

We have already taken many steps on the website and the purchase process. We have also engaged in conversations with interested parties. By continuously making adjustments, we have demonstrated that there is interest in the service: there is an opportunity in the market to offer and automate legal documents. The next step is to actually set a price for it. Once we have everything well-documented, we will apply the results to the real brand. 

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The Lean Startup method has worked well in this process. If we hadn't applied this, we would have wasted a lot of time on stakeholder management and ticking checkboxes. And, more importantly, thanks to Lean Startup, we work in small chunks, making experiments and adjustments manageable. 

Learn, quickly, what works (and what doesn't)

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With the Lean Startup method, you determine in a short period of time whether it is wise to invest in the concept or whether we need to go back to the drawing board. In some cases, this even means that we completely stop and move another concept to the Concept Accelerator phase.

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The initial phases of Lean Startup, in my view, are a strict requirement for building a solid foundation for a new product. That is precisely what we are doing now for our experiments. Once the foundation is established, we shift towards the customer's brand and adapt our pace and approach as necessary.  

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With the Lean Startup method, marketing an innovative service or product is less exciting and uncertain. In a magically short period of time, you get a better idea of the chances of success for a concept.

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