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March 7 - July 21, 2017
understand what value the product brings to which customer, and to understand who will be willing to pay you for your work in developing
Once you have your business concept sketched out, I suggest you invest the time to get prefeedback.
transform your business idea into a business model that shows how you'll create, deliver, and capture value.
print out a large-format version of the Business Model Canvas and post it on a wall or spread it out on a table so that you and your cofounders can work on it together.
businessmodelgeneration.com. An online, interactive version of the Canvas specifically designed for high-growth startups is available at LeanMonitor.com. Another comprehensive online version is available at Strategyzer.com.
the number one differentiator between an aspirant and a real founder is that the former is in love with his product, but the latter is in love with her business model.
A product or service can be cool, or innovative, or beautiful, or even useful, but it only becomes a viable business if the aggregate economics of the value being
created are significantly more than the aggregate economics of the costs of operating the business.
One way to develop the right mind-set is to study the business models that have been employed by other company founders—including both successes and failures.
three characteristics that together make a startup business model truly scalable: You have to be able to start small.
The ideal startup is one that can be bootstrapped from its own early revenues—or at least funded from the founder's personal savings account. Your marginal costs must drop over time so that each additional dollar of revenue costs less than the previous dollar.
Your scalability needs to be built into your business model, rather than relying on any special exogenous factors.
intended for you instead of other people, developed by you instead of other people, and constantly reviewed and updated.
The lean plan is about what is supposed to happen, when it is supposed to happen, who does what, how much it costs, and how much money it generates.
You need to know your market extremely well to run your business. What you do not have to do, however,
is to include everything you know about it in your lean business plan.
business strategy, specific milestones, dates, deadlines, forecasts of sales and expenses, and so forth.
at least once a month.
Lean business planning manages change. It is not threatened by change.
sets clear expectations
follows up on results.
Accounting goes from today backward in time, in exact detail. Planning goes forward into the
future, in ever-increasing summary and aggregation.
strategy at the top, tactics in the middle, and concrete specifics at the base.
The single most important component of any business plan—lean, traditional, or any other kind—is a review schedule.
Identifying assumptions is important for getting real business benefits from your business planning.
highlight product-related and marketing-related assumptions. Keep them in separate groups or separate lists.
between changed assumptions and the difference between planned and actual performance.
Look for a close match between tactics and milestones.
Management often boils down to setting clear expectations and following up on results. Those expectations are the metrics.
The normal lean planning process is what Tim Berry calls the PRRR cycle—“plan, run, review, and revise.”
