Cauvin

The “Science” of Lean Startup Lean startup practitioners embrace the scientific method, seeking the "truth" about what business model and strategy will lead to product success. We do so by: Formulating hypotheses Crafting and running experiments to test them Learning from the experiments Iteratively feeding our learnings back into revised hypotheses Sounds pretty scientific, at least in spirit, doesn't it? Yet this process actually neglects a key ingredient in the scientists' mode of operation. To identify what’s missing, let’s examine “customer development”. Customer Development Steve Blank is one of the pioneers of the lean startup movement. He introduced into the lean startup lexicon the term “customer development”. Customer development consists of sessions and interactions with customers to test hypotheses. For example, a product manager might interview a prospect, asking if she agrees with the product manager’s hypotheses about the problems she faces or the ...

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri  makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos...

The Context Over the years, various product management and development methods have come into vogue, most notably agile and lean startup methods. Agile methods addressed requirements , architecture, and development risks using frequent iterations. Lean startup methods take it a step further, iterating on the entire product strategy, including the unique value proposition , the target market, revenue and cost structure, and marketing and sales channels. Recently, you may have heard more and more chatter about "design thinking". I certainly have. What is it, and how does it differ from agile and lean startup methods? How can companies leverage it to innovate and develop better products? The Definition If you do some web searches, you'll notice a lot of vague references to design thinking and a diversity of views about what it is. After exploring some definitions, I'll borrow from various descriptions and accounts of design thinking to form what I believe is a ...

The Story When Apple unveiled its iPod digital music player back in October 2001, I dismissed it as a  parity product . I already owned the Cowon iAUDIO CW100 MP3 player, loaded with my favorite tunes. There was Apple, generating great hype over the iPod as if it were a breakthrough product. The idea of a portable digital music player was nothing new. The first mass-produced MP3 players came out in 1998. In late 2001, the concept may have been new to a lot of Apple customers, but it wasn't new to me. I proudly showed my MP3 player to friends when they gushed about the iPod. Thus Apple's iPod was not an innovative product in and of itself. Years later, however, I realized the significance of ecosystem of which the iPod was a part. Apple had released iTunes (with technology purchased from  SoundJam MP ) and created the iTunes Store for finding and downloading music. Unlike Napster , it was a safe and legal way of distributing and acquiring music. The prior way of playing...

Managing a website, whether the target visitors are internal to an organization or are in the public at large, is not merely a matter of slapping together some web pages and linking them together. It's also not merely about design. No, managing a website includes such challenges as: How do you elicit and prioritize the requirements for the website? How do you position and market the website to the target audience? How do you test your assumptions and continuously adjust to the needs of your target audience? Note that those who manage any product face the same challenges. In his recently-published  book,  Website Product Management ,  David Hobbs teaches us how to manage websites as the "products" they are. David was gracious enough to allow me to interview him about website product management and post his answers here. Enjoy! Q. Why is product management important for websites? A. Organizations are usually stuck in the rut of thinking of their web pre...

UPDATE: The presentation won "Best Session" at ProductCamp Austin 13. Check out the slides here . Join me Saturday, August 2nd, 2014 for ProductCamp Austin 13. I think  I missed only one ProductCamp Austin "unconference" since helping to organize the first event. At ProductCamp, product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network. For the upcoming event, I've proposed a session called "Google or search.com? Why We Suck at Naming Products and Companies". What the heck is a hopdoddy? Did you know that scientists have studied what makes a great brand name? The findings may surprise you. Our intuitions about brand names are the opposite of what the science tells us. In the session, we’ll answer: What goals should you strive to achieve when choosing a name for your product or company? What does the science say about what types of names best accomplish these goals? How should you choose a name? Prepare to chal...

The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray. Why Validate? In lean startup circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas: The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market. Indeed, it makes sense to transcend conventional approaches to making product decisions . Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating lean startup concepts , and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach. Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinio...

Join me Saturday, February 15th, 2014 for ProductCamp Austin 12. By now, if you're a product management, marketing, or technology professional, you've probably heard of ProductCamp. ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network. ProductCamp depends on volunteers to organize it, propose and lead sessions, provide lively conversation and debate, set up and tear down the day of the event, and recruit sponsors to keep it free. Participants can propose sessions prior to the event, and participants vote the morning of the event to determine which sessions they will have the opportunity to attend throughout the day. As I write this blog entry, registration for ProductCamp Austin 12 is open. If you're ready to commit to participating in the product management and marketing conversation, I suggest you register  now. The slots usually fill up quickly. If you'd like to present or lead a conversation ...

Why You Need a Competitive Mindshare Map The core of your product strategy lies in your product's positioning and unique value proposition (UVP). It should drive nearly all product decisions, including the roadmap, feature prioritization, marketing messages, and sales approaches. A sound unique value proposition depends on: Value . It should convey the value of your product. Value is rooted in the problems your product solves. Competitive landscape . It should differentiate your product from available alternatives. Perception . It should acknowledge perceived weaknesses of the product and perceived strengths of competing products. Surprisingly, most companies take the value of their products for granted and don't bother to explicitly formulate a unique value proposition. For others, determining a unique value proposition is haphazard, with little or no process guiding the decision. At best, they focus on the value and pay insufficient attention to perceptions a...

Now that you've had a largely buzzword-free introduction to lean startup methods , you may be interested in a bit deeper understanding of the concepts and terminology.  Lean startup methods incorporate scientific methods and principles of agile development to help practitioners learn markets quickly and reliably and deliver successful products.  But lean startup enthusiasts and practitioners throw around a lot of terminology and concepts that may seem alien or not particularly meaningful to you. Let's examine and demystify the basic lean startup terminology with a rich and concise conceptual model . To view the model of lean startup concepts, click the image below: Lean startup concepts fall within four different clusters: hypotheses, learning, market, and product. Hypotheses Forming hypotheses is a component of lean startup methods. The business model represents the strategy driving more tactical product decisions, and it consists of a set of hypothes...

You've probably heard a lot of buzz about "lean startups".  You may wonder if it's mere hype, applies just to tiny bootstrap ventures, or if adopting some lean startup methods might actually benefit your company. One of the top problems companies face as they make product decisions is that the process of learning the market, and learning what makes the product successful, is slow and unreliable . Sometimes they suffer analysis paralysis, swerve from one big deal to the next, allow conventional industry wisdom to stifle innovation, or squabble over uninformed personal opinions. In other cases, they make decisions quickly but fail to learn from their inevitable mistakes until after they've invested exorbitant amounts of time and money. If you find that your organization is facing this problem, it's worthwhile to consider lean startup methods. Just as scientists use the scientific method to learn how the universe works, your product team can apply ...

In the last blog entry, we reviewed the  four problems that companies face, or are trying to overcome, as they make product decisions .  Now we'll look at the ways that most companies make their product decisions. Companies that develop, market, and sell products and solutions make strategic and ongoing tactical decisions.  They decide what features to include in their products, what messages they will use to communicate the value of their products, what marketing tactics they will use, what prospective customers they will target, and many day-to-day choices. Whether or not these decisions are deliberate or ad hoc, most companies use some combination of the following ways of making product decisions. (A downloadable "map" that summarizes the product decision landscape is included at the end of this article.) Customer Wants Product decisions based on feature requests, focus groups, and what prospects and customers say they want. Companies are selling products to ...