Startup — Am I doing it right?

One question I get from startup founders all the time is how to do Lean Startup right, so I thought I’d take a minute and share a canonical answer for reference…

…aka. not ever having to answer again, only pasting this link as a reply.

The shortest 5 step description I can give goes as follows:

1. Articulate your hypotheses (guesses about the unknowns) using the Business Model Canvas (BMC).
2. Get out of the building and test these hypotheses using Customer Development.
3. Validate learnings by building validation experiments, moving you towards building a Minimum Viable Product and getting it in front of real potential customers to get data, test if it solves their problem, test if you can reach more customers with it.
4. Iterate (small variation, no real change in BMC) or Pivot (something changed in the BMC) as needed.
5. Build — Measure — Learn (aka rinse, lather, repeat — because this is an iterative process, and yes you have to get out of the building more than once)

The hard part is creating a product people love — By now, it shouldn’t be too hard getting the the Lean Startup methodology right.

To learn more in-depth about the Lean Startup and how to do it right, I recommend taking the canonical free course “ How to Build a Startup” from the father of the movement himself, Steve Blank.