Mary Carty

I was first introduced to Lean Startup when I participated in Enterprise Ireland’s first ground breaking iGap programme in 2009, with our email marketing platformToddle.com. Since then, lean principles have completly changed the way I do and think about business.

Last night, I went along to the launch of the Dublin Lean Startup group. Keynote speaker was Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup Methodology and author of The Lean Startup. Eric writes an influential blog Startup Lessons Learned and has been Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School.

The term “Lean Startup” coined by Ries, came from lean manufacturing theory as practiced by the Japanese motor industry after the second World War. Lean manufacturing sought to cut out waste and any work that did not produce value for customers. In the same way, Lean Startup seeks to lower development costs, get product to market quicker and cheaper and produce products users actually want.

This is achieved by constantly asking questions;
– testing your business idea regularly, with real people (customers)
– not waiting for the product/website/service/idea to be perfect before launch
– continuously iterating and improving
– learning from real customer data and metrics.

This is how Eric first described Lean startup back in this post in September 2008

The good news is, Lean Startup works just as well for all organisations, technological, cultural and non-profit. At a time of enormous social and business change, coupled with financial uncertainty; Lean Startup is more important than ever in how you manage your business or organisation.

Here are my top 10 takeaways from the event:

1. Stop wasting people’s time

2. Most startups fail. Not because the technology is too difficult

3. A startup is an experiment

4. Build-measure-learn

5. Create a Minimum Viable Product to establish a baseline that is true for your business

6. A pivot is a change in strategy not a change in vision

7. Most companies wish they pivoted earlier

8. Pivot earlier and validate learning, move away from achieving failure by constantly executing a bad plan

9. Get to the pivot or persevere meeting earlier. Schedule this meeting earlier and regularly

10. In companies treat each departments like a startup and use agreed data sets for validation

Get in touch if you would like to apply Lean Startup thinking to benefit your services and organisation. I promise things will never be the same again!