To add to Dave's comment above - this isn't so much a course as it is simply the complete video of the Lean Startup track from SXSW 2012. We asked every speaker to provide a case study with concrete examples of what worked and what didn't work.
I think the lean startup is over-hyped. Every person in the startup scene is just constantly talking about Lean, but when you actually get into the nitty gritty is nowhere near as straightforward as Eric makes it sound
I was invited to be a mentor for Lean Startup Machine Austin this past April and I have to say that it was fantastic.
The A/B test crap is just that.. crap.
Where Lean does make sense is applying the scientific method to the startup process. If you can identify your assumptions, figure out a way to test them, and then adjust accordingly, that is a fantastic thing. Every assumption is a risk, this is just a process for addressing/mitigating them to determine which are "good enough."
That said, every time I hear the word "pivot," I want to hit someone. It's been so misused and abused that it's lost most of the meaning. :(
Can you please help me understand the real meaning of "pivot". As you said nowadays everybody is using that term for very different things. What does pivoting mean, why people are misusing it, any case studies that i can read? Thanks!
Colloquial use: "We were working on an enterprise database solution, then pivoted to a social network for toddlers."
Intended use: "We were working on a time tracking application for freelance designers, and pivoted to making it for lawyers instead."
There are lots of kinds of pivots (customer segment, platform, channel, value capture, engine of growth etc) - in essence, it's about taking what you've learned so far, and using that knowledge to tweak your approach to solving the problem you're working on.
Eric Ries' 'The Lean Startup' is the canonical reference for this stuff.
I hear you. But I think it's really the bandwagoners who give Lean a bad name. It's hilarious when all of these wanna be mark zuckbergs talk about how they just ran these 8 sick A/B tests on what shade of purple button converts the best.
Point of Lean is to think in a structured and rigorous way about problems. Not just to look at A/b results but to always be aware of the hypothesis that underlies any decision.
Just doing it. I think that's really the key here. Love watching a few courses like this but at the end of the day you just gotta do it. Test some sh*t, realize that you're in a local maxima and that testing more button variations won't do shit, try other stuff. But again always keeping the main idea of Lean alive - identify hypothesis and understand the why not just the what.
if you listen to the conversation between me & eric in the first talk of the conf, i think you'll find we discuss the issues mentioned below like:
- is lean startup really a "proven" discipline?
- are there "wantrepreneurs" getting cultish around lean?
- does this shit really work?
the answers to which are probably:
- no, not just yet, but we hope it's useful
- definitely
- maybe, and we'd love your help figuring it out :)
in other words, it's a work in progress with some very likely positive benefits, but by no means a perfect science (yet, anyway).
I know a lot of people that are reading countless books, watching countless courses, getting entrepreneurship degrees, yet they can't create a single successful business. I am not saying that this 6-hour course is useless, but you may choose to spend your time actually working on your startup and produce something valuable at the end of the day.
To see a complete list of speakers (with bios), the old website is here: http://leanstartupsxsw.co/speakers/