# Running Lean ## Main Themes This still needs to be organized and summarized. * **Identify a market need and build a product that satisfies the need**: Why is this so hard? Because the market is a source of _uncertainty_. You don’t know what the exact market need is and if your product really solves it. * **Maximize learning (about customers) per unit time** * **Maximize for speed, learning and focus** #### The Essence of Running Lean It can be distilled into three steps: 1. Document your plan A. 2. Identify the riskiest parts of your plan. 3. Systematically test your plan. Note the similarities here with [Ray Dalio's 5 step process](Principles%20Ray%20Dalio.md#5%20Step%20Process). ## Chapter Summaries ### 0. Preface ### 1. Introduction > "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." > -Henry Ford > "It's not the customer's job to know what they want." > -Steve Jobs * In a Lean Startup, we strive to optimize utilization of our scarcest resource, which is time. Specifically, our objective is *maximizing learning (about customers) per unit time.* * Ensure that you find a problem worth solving before defining a solution * Ensure you are building and measuring what customers want * Think about maximizing for speed, learning, and focus * > Principles guide what you do. Tactics show you how. * **Your business model is the product**  #### Three Stages of a Startup 1. **Stage 1: Problem/Solution Fit** * **Key Question**: Do I have a problem worth solving? * While ideas are cheap, acting on them is expensive. * A problem worth solving comes down to three questions: 1. Is it something customers want? (*must have*) 2. Will they pay for it? If not, who will? (viable) 3. Can it be solved? (feasible) * From here, we derive an MVP to address the right set of problems. 2. **Stage 2: Product/Market Fit** * **Key Question**: Have I built something people want? * You must measure this, measure product/market fit. * A sign of hitting this stage is that you are signing up customers, retaining them, and getting paid. 3. **Stage 3: Scale** * **Key Question**: How do I accelerate growth? ## Part 4: Systematically Test Your Plan ### Stage One: Understand Problem Tackle the following risks: 1. **Product Risk**: What are you solving? (Problem) * How do customers rank the top three problems? 2. **Market Risk**: Who is the competition? (Existing Alternatives) * How do customers solve these problems today? 3. **Customer Risk**: Who has the pain? (Customer Segments) * Is this a viable customer segment? ### Stage Two: Define Solution #### Chapter 8: The Solution Interview Tackle the next set of risks: 1. **Customer risk**: Who has the pain? (Early Adopters) * How do you identify early adopters? 2. **Product risk**: How will you solve these problems? (Solution) * What is the minimum feature set needed to launch? 3. **Market risk**: What is the pricing model? (Revenue Streams) * Will customers pay for a solution? * What price will they bear? #### Chapter 9: Get to Release 1.0  --- Date: 20211230 Links to: [Book Reviews MOC](Book%20Reviews%20MOC.md) Tags: References: * []()