iGap 2013, Assumptions & Experiments Workshop

Assumptions,
Experiments and MVPs
CORE SKILLS FOR LEAN STARTUPS

iGap 2012
Dublin, Ireland

© LUXR.CO February 2013

Ask yourself:
What 3 assumptions about your customers
do you have that, if you are wrong, your
business will fail.

Write down 3.


Who’s in the room?
LIGHTNING FAST!
Context (startup, enterprise, consultancy)
Role (biz/product, developer, design)

Stand up
Say your name
Weird/Awesome


LUXr is the trusted coach that helps
company founders through their hardest
business problems.

The LUXr Core Curriculum helps startups
deliver products that customers want, need
and love to buy.

info@luxr.co • http://luxr.co
twitter: @luxrco • www.facebook.com/LUXrInc


TWEET!
Janice Fraser

@LUXRCO
@clevergirl

www.luxr.co


This is not...

A class on how to produce (How do you know itʼs awesome?)
an awesome UI

A session on making (How do you know these arenʼt
production wireframes or a waste of valuable time?)
photoshop comps

A “perfect approach” or a (1000s of entrepreneurs have
rigid point of view on what used these techniques to
makes “Great UX.” discover an ideal UX.)


This is not...

dogma


Business Model Canvas?
Lean Canvas?
Sure, either one.

Disclaimer
I am not an expert in your business.

Only you can be the expert in your business.

My job is:
• to ask the unasked questions;
• to challenge assumptions;
• and give you tools to succeed.


Today...
My perspective on Lean Startup & UX
3 Workshops
Assumptions
Experiments
“Smalliﬁcation”
And if we have time…
MVP
Pivot Practice!


Lean Startup
(in 15 min)


Lean Startup is NOT

Cheap Startup

Fast Startup

Shortcut Startup

Lean Startup is NOT

Low-Ambition


Lean Startup is NOT

THE OPPOSITE OF
FAT STARTUP


Lean Startup is...

An approach for building companies that are
creating new products and services in
situations of extreme uncertainty.

The approach advocates creating small
products that test the entrepreneurʼs
assumptions, and using customer feedback to
evolve the product, thereby reducing waste.


THE NEW CLASSICS
1. List your assumptions.
2. Understand your customers.
3. Experiment.
4. Adjust direction based on evidence.


Get out
of the
building


CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT

1. Validate the market for your idea and build a
product that solves customersʼ needs.

2. Find a repeatable, cost-effective model for
acquiring customers.

3. Acquire customers.

4. Deploy the right organization for scaling.


A pitch is not customer
development

The Inﬂuence of Agile

“The courage to speak truths,
pleasant or unpleasant, fosters
communication and trust.

“The courage to discard failing
solutions and seek new ones
encourages simplicity.

“The courage to seek real,
concrete answers creates
feedback.”
—Kent Beck


Build
measure
learn!


Lean Startup advocates experiments & learning


Victory is
measured in
learning.


This will change
how you think
about your role,
your work, your
team, your process.


Risk (unvalidated effort)
Plot the difference

MAKE
release
MAKE
release
MAKE release

THINK

time


Risk (unvalidated effort)
Lots of little wiggles

time


Each wiggle is a learning cycle.
unvalidated effort

MAKE
MAKE MAKE
release

THINK THINK

time
CHECK

How will you learn?
Quantitative Qualitative

Generative Surveys Interviews

Evaluative Metrics Usability


Not an MVP
for lemonade


User Experience


User Experience is...

A personʼs perceptions and responses that
result from the use or anticipated use of a
product, service or system.

product UI UX

via Ed Lea: http://design.org/blog/difference-between-ux-and-ui-subtleties-explained-cereal


UX cycles = Lean Startup learning loops

THINK

MAKE

Reduc
cycle e
time,
not
build
time
CHECK

Generative Research • Ideation • Mental models • Participatory Design • Contextual Inquiry • Concept Maps •
THINK Behavior Models • Test Results • Competitive Analysis

MAKE Personas • Sketches • Prototypes • Wireframes • Value Prop • Landing View • Hypotheses • Comps • Deployed Code

CHECK Evaluative Research • A/B Testing • Site Analytics • Usability Testing • Funnel Analysis • Interruptive Surveys


Design > UI THINK

MAKE
CHECK

Users
1. I need...
Needs 2. I want...
3. My goal is...
why
what
how
Mary can...
Business thinking goes here BUILD
Uses MEASURE

LEARN

Features
Sketches, wireframes, pixels
This Week
Prototypes
User Stories
Themed Releases


UX brings 10* years
of experience, methods, and
patterns of work.

*20, 30, 50 years


UX people are EXPERTS at “getting out of the building”


The setup.


The job.


Workshop

Assumptions

My assumption:
You donʼt want to waste your time, your career,
your patience, or your friendship building
something that has no chance of success.


Workshop

Assumptions
Use a sharpie, work independently, write one idea per sticky.

Write down 10 assumptions that you & your team must validate
in order to be sure the business idea is a good one.

Underline the one word or phrase that summarizes each
assumption.

Post the teams assumptions on the wall, do a quiet read.

Discuss to understand. Stack any duplicates.

Divide into 2 piles: Will it kill the company if weʼre wrong?

Stack Rank the top pile.

Choose the top assumption to move forward into the next step.


Examples
1. Many people will pay to have someone get dogfood or have
odd jobs done.
2. People want to run errands like getting dogfood.
3. We believe it is legal in the country of operation
4. This service is useful for disorganized people.
5. This service is useful to time-poor people.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.


Things To Note
Broad ideation helps us find the best thoughts.

For fast ideation have a specific prompt, work independently, use
paper and pen, set a time limit, and define a number of ideas to
create.

Ideation applies to many logical thought processes, not just
identifying features.

Ideation must be followed by efficient decision-making.

Arbitrary decisions are necessary when you have little or no data.

For best results, do ideation with multiple people.

Multi-person ideation relieves pressure for anyone to be a “genius”.

Independent ideation, followed by group understanding, followed by
fast decision-making is a uniquely efficient pattern of work.

Workshop

Experiments
Work independently, use a sharpie and white paper.

At the top of the paper, state the assumption as hypothesis
that can be proved or disproved.

Design an experiment to learn if this is true. Brieﬂy describe it.

State how you will know if the hypothesis is valid or invalid.
This can be quantitative evidence or qualitative.

How much time/money/effort will it take?

Tape them all to the walls.

Discuss as a group.


Experiment Framework
Every experiment has three parts:

1. A hypothesis that is provable/disprovable
2. The experiment itself; the thing you build
3. An indicator of result

For Example:

We believe people like [customer type] have a need for [need/action/
behavior].

The smallest thing we can do to prove that need is [experiment].

We will know we have succeeded when [quantitative/measurable
outcome] or [qualitative/observable outcome].


Example Experiments

measurable/
assumption experiment
observable outcome

Prevail upon friend who runs 300-
5% of employees will make a
busy people need a service to person company
hire. 1 repeat booking
help them get menial stuff done Set up a “shop” in reception and
2 wks
see if we can get jobs.

ad in 10 different ofﬁces, diff
same 2 weeks.
types of companies


Workshop

Smallification
Take an experiment that was not your own.

On a fresh sheet of paper, redesign the experiment:

WHAT would you do to get approximately the same learning...

...IN 2 DAYS?

...IN 2 WEEKS?

...IN 2 MONTHS?

[each person on the team chooses one time scale]

Present your experiment proposal to your team.

Decide which experiment to run.

More Things To Note
Progress not a function of the quality, size, or # of releases.

Smallification can be done by adjusting scope or fidelity.

Smaller/faster experiments are usually better.
Behavioral experiments are usually better.
Small, behavioral experiments are usually best.

Founders must balance size/quality and speed of learning.

The best option is often not obvious.

There is usually insufficient data to make a rational decision
The decision-maker is therefore often going to be wrong.
Wrong decisions are expected and usually not fatal.

Progress is measured in sequential cycles of learning.


Workshop

MV P
Work independently, with a sharpie write one idea per sticky.
Write 10 stickies that represent what your customer needs.
Divide them into 2 piles — 5 that matter more, 5 that matter less.
Stack-rank the top pile and set the others aside.
On stickies, write 10 product features that support that top need.
Working at the wall, make a 2x2: Important/Not and Hard/Easy.
Place your stickies individually.
Remove the stickies below the line.
Together, stack rank the stickies on the left.
Decide where to cut off the MVP.


Things To Note (last one)
Product roadmaps are worse than useless in a startup.

On-time, on-budget delivery isnʼt helpful if you built the wrong thing.

Build the smallest possible release to deliver on the use.

Smallifying a product release is easier when you approach the
question incrementally and stepwise.

Focusing on a small, single-use product makes it easier to get right.

Weʼre not rejecting the big vision. Put your imagined, full-featured
solution out on paper, set it aside. You will understand it more
rationally after making the small thing.


And now the big ﬁnish.


7 Habits of Highly Effective
Entrepreneurs
1. Ideate with friends.
2. Go broad.
3. Say “Tell me about this one.”
4. Ask “who has the D?”
5. Make informed but arbitrary decisions.
6. Prove it.
7. Question perfection.

4 Power Tools for Entrepreneurs
1. Dump & Sort
2. Working at the Wall
3. Blue-tape 2x2
4. Dot-Voting


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