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For those who know me personally, real football (i.e. soccer) is a passion of mine.  I grew up playing competitively and the game took me many places – the sport became a way of life to me.  Soccer put me through college and this time period in my life became a defining moment for who I am and what I’m about today.

After breaking my ankle twice in college and struggling to get back to match fitness the second time was an extremely trying time in my life.  My college team was consistently a top 10 ranked team in the country that attend the National Championship every year I was there and not having the opportunity to participate half the time was really difficult after working so hard to reach that level. Add to that trying to compete for a starting position on a stacked squad after coming back from ankle surgery after the 2nd break and almost a year in cast, rehab and a blow to your mental confidence – I struggled and it was really, really hard to get back.

So, what does this have to do with Lean?

What Being Lean Means To Me?

Determination To Find A Way!  Entrepreneurship is hard and you have to be a tenacious creature in order to make it work.  You will fail and you will learn from the failures but what you learn from each experience is very important.  My college soccer career taught me a lot about determination and being mentally tough.  Shit, when you are physically broken like I was and you want something so bad you have to be determined to climb back to the top.  But, sometimes you have to climb to the top in a different direction.

Lean Startup to me is about finding that direction and being determined in that process to find the best path fast.  I just wish Lean was around for me to practice in previous startups I was involved in that did not make it.  Today, I’m involved in a couple and doing what I can to evangelize the importance of the methodology.

What’s StuckIn.TV & How’s It Lean?

From a business model perspective, StuckIn is a multi-sided online video platform for the world’s largest sports marketplace – FOOTBALL.  The primary purpose of the platform is to allow talented players to showcase their skills to the world and for teams and clubs to manage the process of finding them (amateur to pros).  Now, its taken my business partner, Steve Arters, and I two iterations to come to this business model conclusion as a bootstrapped side project.

Recently we brought in a 3rd partner our CTO, Jamil Walker, who is a former Major League Soccer player and hybrid UI designer & PHP developer – a needle in a haystack if you asked me.  My search was long and hard to find and convince him to work for sweat equity but like I said above, determination to find a way is important.  But, now practicing Lean we are trying to validate our business model and are working on a MVP (screen shots below).

Running Lean (shameless plug for a friend click me)

Here’s our current Lean business model canvas that we continue to reflect on and simplify – click image to enlarge:

StuckIn.TV Lean Canvas

Lots Of Customer Discovery

For some time we’ve been qualitatively talking to customers; face-to-face, through email, forums, on soccer fields and a conferences.  And, we just recently returned from an international soccer coaches convention where we walked around with an iPad showing coaches wireframes our proposed product and listening to their reactions.  We proved our assumption that, “we believed 80% of this target customer segment would agree with the problem of needing better management tools to promote and track talent”.  We showed these potential customers a view from a recruiters and a promoting coaches perspective plus what an individual player and team video channel might look like.  Below is a recruiters management view – it’s pretty cool and there’s some slick monetization aspects we’d like to experiment with in the future similar to Pay-Per-Click but for video placement:

StuckIn.TV Recruiters Dashboard

Working On Our An MVP

To learn more from customers we are currently building a marketing site to bring in more folks to learn from.  However, if you personally know any soccer players, coaches or scouts or recruiters feel free to share this post and link to StuckIn.TV where they can sign up to receive more info if they want to be part of our development process.  And, if you are reading this from the SXSW Lean Startup event and want to vote for us to get some of that prize cash and more importantly advice from the panel just tell the community in the comments below or Tweet everyone on the Lean Challenge panel of mentors that we are lean and mean and deserve a shot to build a cool company

Ciao for now.

I’m looking for ideas on ways that we can influence our country’s leaders to recognize the power of and teach Lean Startup to young and new entrepreneurs.  Below are a few suggestions to get things started:

1. Organize an annual meeting of Lean Startup Circles in Austin @ SXSW to discuss how we can help facilitate entrepreneur education.
2. Form a group(s) that can activate business startup activity in middle and high schools with lean startup entrepreneurs as mentors and advisors.
3. Host Lean Startup camps @ Disney World and other fun places.
4. Get local companies to sponsor a Lean Startup week where they adopt a group of entrepreneurs to help with resources and bring the startup in to foster and help the company grow.
5. Form a Lean Startup membership group that provides founders Costco like buying power for their businesses.

These are just a few thoughts I had – what ideas do you have?

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Do you know how so many startups (new businesses or executives building new business divisions) set out to tackle the market with a comprehensive business plan that they’ve poured hours, days, if not weeks into building that 50 page document but have never spoken to one single customer they plan to market to?  Well, unfortunately this is the norm that for the most part ends in either complete business failure or a complete shift in the business model once customers get involved.

When the startup finally does get to market with their finely tunned financial performa and beautifully baked product, the end result is mostly spending a lot more time and money to figure out what does not work in their business plan.  More importantly, the business still has few if any revenue generating customers and is now in a higher risk situation than it began in.

As a marketer and advisor to several businesses, I am constantly looking for more efficient ways to help the entrepreneurs I work with to be more effective marketing their products and services to the right customers.  So what’s the best and most efficient way?  I wish I knew the answer years ago but, here’s what I know now.

Talk To People

I know, duh?  Well, why aren’t we doing it?  Because everyone has always told us that you need to write a business plan.

Unfortunetly, most business plans are just detailed assumptions about current reality of a known and well researched market.  By the time a real business model is discovered most business plans will have gone through multiple iterations and look nothing like its original.

Instead of spending time crafting that glorious plan, spend more time identifying why you are creating the company 1st and identify the problems or opportunities that exist by talking to customers.  By spending time talking to real world customers you will begin to really understand their true pain points and uncover new opportunities that you did not think about.  But, how exactly should you be talking to the customers and what should you be looking for?

Look For Patterns & Take Notes

Recently, I’ve been working with small business owner who runs a flower shop and she is looking for a way to be really different.  So, we’ve come up with a few ideas to test.

During the course of talking to a specific segment of customers — “men” ages 35 – 65 — we have learned that 1) they really procrastinate when gift shopping 2) they want to be reminded when they need to get a gift and 3) they’d love to have some options to choose from.  Otherwise, they’ll wait until the last minute and run to a store hurried, pace around and pick out a blender or ThighMaster and end up in the proverbial doghouse like these guys.

Now that you’ve had a laugh, how would you help these guys?

Well, because Shelly and I discovered a pattern she is making email marketing part of her regular business practice that serves as reminders with gift ideas.  Further, she is also considering creating a concierge service catered to men that helps them identify the important people in their lives that they don’t want to forget; have pre-planned gift purchases set-up to be delivered to them with recommended ideas of what they could get; plus have access to a gift consultant to talk with to make sure they stay out of the doghouse.  Doesn’t that sound cool guys?

If you really think so express your thoughts in the comments or contact me directly – I’d like to hear what you’d pay for this service and how you’d want to interact with it.  We’re trying to see if she can really build a business model off this idea by documenting what we learn and testing pricing, messaging channels, and means of service delivery and several other criteria according to business model generation practices.

It’s important to note that Shelly bought her business from another business owner that wanted out.  She’d always wanted a flower shop and began with a developing a business plan but her plan has not seemed to work.  Now, we are trying to figure out with real customers how to build a better business model.

Start Discovering A Model – Don’t Build A Plan

Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn this the hard way.  I’ve created those masterful 50 page plans with data to no end that makes the performa seem like child’s play.  However, customers in the market are more important to spend time with and learning from.  They’ll tell you how to sell them your widget but, the widget you plan to sell most likely may not be what they want until you ask them.

With several startups I’m involved with we have embraced lean startup and customer development this past year.  Beginning at a very high level, we are organizing our thoughts and assumptions first into one page business models { check out Lean Canvas for a guide }.  Then, we start talking to folks about why we’d like to do what we want to do and how we think we can achieve it all with the understanding that we need to learn from the customer in order to develop a business model and a plan.

This is an honest plug for Ash Maurya because I believe he’s really earned it and I think you should really consider getting his book if you are in the process of building a company, especially a web based software company.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend Ash’s Running Lean Workshop in Austin.  As an entrepreneur that’s had fits and starts with a couple of startups of my own and others I am involved with, I can really relate to Ash’s real-world experience.  With scar tissue and all, Ash has demonstrated, documented and successfully proven a systematic way to test a business model concept before you go down the road of building the wrong thing that ultimately customers don’t want.

I’ve known Ash a few years as a fellow Bootstrapper and feel he has truly uncovered through his own means of survival a battle tested formula that could help many other entrepreneurs in their quest to build great companies. Like Ash has, I’ve slammed my head against the proverbial wall a few times, failed, pivoted, and went looking for new ways to do things, and others to learn from.  Unfortunately, I only discovered Steve Blank’s work and the Lean Startup movement earlier this year but, I’m sure glad I did as I have been devouring Lean Startup content since Craig Daniel @ Visible Gains introduced me to it.

Since I am involved in a few different companies and projects right now, I am championing Running Lean primarily for 3 reasons:

Mitigate Risk & Uncertainty

I believe too many businesses are going about company and product building today the wrong way.  There is a better path and following the path of Running Lean can actually help to mitigate serious risk and uncertainty through successive market testing with real customers that would actual use the product or service.  It seems ludicrous to me now to spend anytime developing a product with out 1st testing if the problem(s) you propose to solve are really worth solving.  Not to mention, the knowledge you’ll gain from customers about what to build and how to market to customers is actually refreshing and almost too simplistic.

Prove Business Assumptions With Facts

If you fully adopt and practice the principles of Running Lean, you can qualitatively and quantitatively prove and disprove your assumptions with real data instead of guessing and hoping for product/market fit.  I think this is a critical point that Ash makes in that you need to formulate “falsifiable hypotheses” that can absolutely proved or disproved.  It’s very easy to color coat what someone has really stated or how someone has reacted to a product/service when there is an emotional investment of an entrepreneur involved.  Leaps of Faith as Ash refers to cannot provide you with statistical relevancy in order to make sound decisions.

Increase Your Probability of Success

From my vantage point, when you adopt the practice of Running Lean, you will immediately improve your chances for success no matter what you are working on.  However, success can sometimes mean that you don’t move forward on a proposed project and may mean that you move on to other things.  Just imagine working for months or even years on a project only to uncover in the end that what you were building had no perceived value in the market.  I bet you’d be crushed and be thinking about all the other things you could have been doing instead.

By following the principles of Running Lean, you can quickly validate if you are headed in the right direction, need to turn the business left, right, or just turn around and go in a different direction altogether.

Why not consider Running Lean?

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I just came in from a 3 mile run with Nike+ on my iPhone while listening to Led Zeplin on Pandora.  Man, running is such an experience today compared to just a decade ago.  I think I could have been in even better shape in college if I would have had access to the tools I do today for fitness training.  It’s kinda amazing if you stop and think about it. The three products I just mentioned did not exist until the dawn of the decade (Pandora, 2000; Nike+, 2006; iPhone, 2007).  All 3 of these products are innovative in their own right but, I have a few questions for you.

Are You Building A Company For Profit Or People?

As an entrepreneur, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in building for the successful exit – I have.  And, I’m pretty sure you do too however; the above mentioned companies I believe are going to be around for a while and at least 2 are really not looking for an exit.  I also suspect that Tim @ Pandora will be involved with the company for some time even if he does get a offer he can’t refuse since he’s a passionate musician.

The reason I am raising my hand on this question is because I know how easy it is to lose focus on what the heart of creating a great company should be all about – creating value that truly impacts people lives.  Sure, some entrepreneurs have and will continue to capitalize on short-term opportunities but, if you are one of those entrepreneurs that wants to leave a legacy and have a positive impact on the world then stay focused on the people.

Just last night, I was reflecting on how my company will be able to create long term value for the people that use our product.  As I was writing out our user personas, attaching pictures to the profiles and writing out who these people are and how they will use our product I began to stretch my thinking on what truly created value for them.  Writing personas is a great exercise to tap into the mind of your users and if have not done so I recommend doing it even if you are in a more advanced company stage.  Knowing who your users are and what you think they are about and value needs to be validated regularly to confirm your assumptions.  Build for people and profit will come, I think…still working on it.

What About Sustainable Value & Innovation?

What product or service can you think of that is truly innovative and has long-term sustainable value with out benefiting people?  I’m sure there may be a few but for the most part every product that has become a fabric of our lives has the value expressed in Lean Startup as, “something the user does not want to live without or be highly disappointed the product/service went away”.  I’m sure for a lot of people such products include; a phone, computer, car, that app or service that makes you 10X’s more productive, etc.

I find it interesting that the video phone is back after multiple failed attempts by AT&T years ago but then, they just could not communicate the value to people and the impact it could have on their lives.  It was innovative several decades ago but communicating the value to people was not understood therefore it failed.  Will it succed now with Apple and AT&T?  Hmmm, I think Apple understands and communicates value better to people but we’ll see.

What About Impacting The Value Of A Better Life?

Does your company aspire to achieve this benefit for its users/customers?  Maybe it should?  Selfishly, it may make your company more valuable.

Let’s dig a little deeper as this is where emotional brand connection comes from.  It’s one of the reasons Nike is such a popular brand because of its brand attitude, but also because the brand stands for creating value in your life by making you healthier by equipping you to get fit.

What if you could be part of positively changing lives with your company?  This is something that people like Richard Branson and Tony Heish set out to do.  Both are inspiring individuals and both are creating better lives for the people whom they serve – their employees and customers.

How Can You Create Value For People With Your Company?

Well, I’d love to tell you I have all the answers but, I don’t.  I’m still working on it myself however; I can share with you some tips I recently came across by reading Tony Dungy’s book, “The Mentor Leader”.  Here are 8 action steps you can take or consider to reflect upon the value you may or may not be creating for the people you serve.

8 Value Creation Action Steps:

1. Evaluate your focus:  Is it centered on benefiting others?
2. Evaluate your influence:  Are you focused on developing your “coaching tree” – building leaders who build leaders, generation after generation.
3. Evaluate your audience:  Are you able to preserve a long-term focus on growing others while at times appropriately exercising more direct control and involvement?
4. Look ahead:  Know your vision, mission, and values, but remember that life is about the journey, too.
5. Focus on the present:  What can you do today to build into the lives of the people around you?  Don’t miss the now.  Remember, tomorrow may never come.
6. Evaluate your vision:  What do you hope the future will look like as you proceed?
7. Evaluate your personal and organizational mission:  Does it clearly tell you and the world what you’re about, why you’re here, and why you have chosen these goals?
8. Evaluate your values:  Are your “rules of behavior” consistent with your principles?  Does your “rudder” steer you in a good direction for how you will behave and treat others?

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As I was sitting down thinking about what to write about that could help other would be entrepreneurs (you), what came to mind was the mistakes I’ve made trying to build businesses.  And, since I’m still at it I can only really share what I’ve learned in the process.  When I finally do succeed, then I’ll write another article.

The following are the mistakes I’ve made or spent too much time on when my focus should have been on other more important things.  This is not new or groundbreaking adivce but, I figure that if you and others have or have not received it and see it consistently enough maybe it will sink in.  Here’s my list of to do’s:

Get Customers 1st

I’ve worried about many other things but, you don’t need to worry about anything else but going out and getting a few customers first.  You don’t need a logo, a website, brochure, LLC, etc., to do this depending on the business you are planning to build.  You can put most of the other stuff aside until after you have committed people who have either written you a check, signed a contract or are ready to hand you a credit card for your product or service.

Even if your vision is to build a web application or service – you can find customers in your neighborhood or personal network that you can test your business idea/service/product on.  If you can’t get money for what you’re trying to sell something’s wrong and I would highly advise following the customer development process.  When you have positioned your product/service appropriately and have validated some initial assumptions, then, you can go get a DBA and open a bank account.

If what you’re offering is a high enough dollar amount then you can leverage the revenue to create a simple logo and website, etc., but it might not even be the right time to do that.  If you need to show a prospect something in person, there are programs like Keynote, Pages, PowerPoint, etc., that you can use to  create-mock ups.  The process I first learned from my Bootstrap entrepreneur friend (Bijoy) was Demo – Sell – Build.   Now, the more scientific process I’m really getting into is Customer Development which still encompasses Demo – Sell – Build but, there is more of a synthesized system and focus on measuring a hypothesis.  All of this can be done with out spending any money and having a little creativity.

Find A Partner That Can Do Everything You Can’t

This has probably been my biggest hangup with 2 ventures that have failed because we did not have the right mix of talent on the team.  Don’t get me wrong, the founders in these ventures were all very smart guys but, we had too many similar skill sets and needed much more diversity of talent.  It’s great to start businesses with friends but even though they are friends their skills need to really fill the gaps where you cannot.

No matter what, if you have complimentary skill sets to your partner(s) I would highly advise that you have a couple of advisors that you can turn to when you as founders need help getting through tough decisions.  It will happen no matter what.  I would also highly advise that you read How To Pick A Co-Founder on Venture Hacks – it is one of the best articles I’ve read advising founding teams.

Focus, Focus, Focus

If you’re like me I see problems that need to be fixed daily and am always assessing potential opportunities.  My problem, unfortunately, is I want to do so many things but you can only so much and you have to create enough momentum and climb many mountains to make things work.  If you’re doing too many things – it’s difficult to do them all really well unless you are Richard Branson.  Still Sir Richard, had to struggle early on and now he is able to build his enterprise through others.

Don’t Be Afraid To Fail

This was one of my biggest fears, “what will other people think”?  Well, it does not matter what others think that’s important – what matters is what you learn.  In fact, you need to fail as the title of this article suggests because failed attempts are hypothesis proven wrong.  Find out how to fail faster earlier on so you know how to adapt quicker and don’t wind up pouring more energy into something that ultimately is not going to work.  I’m personally enlightened by the process of what customer development can do for us as entrepreneurs.  In fact, it is a process to mitigate your risk as an entrepreneur.

Well, that’s all I’ve got in me that I think is important for now.  Stay in the game, think, listen and be determined – passion, purpose and determination are your greatest assets.

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