• Agile & Scrum Basics

What is Lean Startup and how does it work?

You don’t have to be a hip startup in a minimalist warehouse to work according to the Lean Startup method. It’s a perfect method for companies that want to learn very quickly what works, as well as what doesn’t. It’s all about creating, doing and experimenting on a small scale.

People around the world cling to the (outdated) idea that you have to work out a good idea to perfection before you can go to market with your product. But rest assured; this doesn’t have to be the case. Lean Startup turns this around and you go to market before your product is even ‘finished’.

What is Lean Startup?

Lean Startup starts by the title of a book published in 2011: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It immediately garners high praise in management land and is immediately adulated and praised on all sides. Why? Because this book explains in great detail how you can grow an organization without an unwieldy, cumbersome (work) environment.

The Lean Startup method assumes that you must first be able to determine with certainty that the product is viable. Only when the answer to that question is a resounding “yes,” does the larger scale come into the picture. When you have developed a product to perfection and you discover that there is no demand for it at all, it is called “waste” when you have done an awful lot of work for nothing.

With the Lean Startup method, you are going to test whether your idea and/or assumption is correct as quickly as possible. The goal is to get a prototype into the hands of your early adopters as quickly as possible. This way you can measure what the effect is and you start working with the principle: building-measuring-learning. With what you build, you can measure and eventually learn or further develop. That way you can innovate quickly.

How does the Lean Startup method work?

Lean Startup takes you from idea to a strong business. To start working with this, there are 5 ground rules or principles, if you will.

1. Dare to fail: making mistakes is allowed uhhh… must. Because you can only learn from this;
2. Assumption testing: bring your prototype to market and test your own assumptions;
3. Build, measure, learn: this circle is essential for learning from your feedback and making the product even better.
4. Keeping small: only when the test results are good does it make sense to start looking at “bigger” and possible large-scale production.
5. Being agile: the constant building, measuring and learning requires flexibility from you and – if you have it – your team/organization.