Entrepreneurship: Lean Startup and Customer Development

Lana BachmanBUS 527

Special Topics in Entrepreneurial Management (Creativity and Innovation in Business and IT)

May 22, 2014

IMVU Case Study: Eric Ries Lean Startup approachSnaptaxt story: Lean Startup from a big corporation Intuit

IMVU: Lean Startup

• 1 million VC• Team centered• Beta• Culture- Transparency

There: Traditional • 40 million VC• Hierarchical• Baked• Culture- “information-

hiding”

Eric Ries & Will Harvey

Design Thinking: Creativity & Innovation- 5© Minder Chen, 2012-2014

What Is Pivot?

• Pivot: A change to business model component based on customer feedbacks. A pivot is not a failure.

• Pivot is a structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy, engine of growth, etc.– Eric Ries, The Lean Startup, 2013.

• Pivots are vision driven.

The Customer Development Process

1. Try many times before you get it right. 2. It is OK to fail so plan to learn from it.3. Only move to the next stage when you learn

enough and reach the “escape velocity”http://www.ctinnovations.com/images/resources/Startup%20Owners%20Manual%20-%20BlankDorf.pdf

More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development

The Lean Start-Up

Steve Blank, "Why The Lean Start-up Change Everything," HBR, May 2013. (link)

Design Thinking: Creativity & Innovation- 8© Minder Chen, 2012-2014

IMVU Today

Snaptaxt Story: Lean Startup from a big corporation Intuit- by Charin Storm

http://prezi.com/7hpok6sousw4/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Sources:

• Minder Chen, Ph.D. Professor of MIS, Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics California State University Channel Islands. Minder.chen@csuci.edu, Jan. 15, 2014

• IMVU Case Study (Eric Ries was the CTO and it was where he learned the Lean Startup approach

• http://prezi.com/7hpok6sousw4/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

• <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/technology/personaltech/15phone.html?_r=0>

• http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/13/lockwood-publishing-will-debut-3d-avatars-in-its-avakin-poker-mobile-game-exclusive/