If you’ve ever thought about becoming an entrepreneur or you work in product you should definitely go to Lean Startup Machine. I had an amazing experience mentoring the teams and witnessing their evolution was amazing.
Thank you to
- Peter, Kevin and Brian for all your hard work to put on the event
- The participants for your enthusiasm, resilience and for putting up with our sometimes conflicted advice
- Shardul, James, Pete, Patrick, Rui and Mariya for the great conversation and mentoring advice
My advice to future LSM participants
- Come with an idea that can be validated on the weekend. The teams who were working on professional services businesses struggled to find people to talk with.
- Come with a idea that is just baked enough. No one wanted to work on a product already in market or close to being in market. They wanted to learn how to validate new businesses.
- Mentally prepare yourself for failure because it’s coming
- Get ready to hustle for user feedback
- Your customer is more than their demographic, think about what defines them. How will you identify them when you are walking down the street?
- Listing assumptions help you align your team when you do interviews
- If your group can’t settle on something, get it down to two and test both
- It’s just a sticky, put it on the board and see what happens.
- Wear comfortable shoes
A plea for potential mentors
- The participants are a fun group that are hungry to learn and their energy is contagious.
- There are great conversations to be had with your fellow mentors
- It’s absolutely worth your time
Hey Nick! We won #leandc! Thx again for encouragement @NickUnsworth @garyvee @TheyMetOnline @Lean_Wash_DC pic.twitter.com/dpY28shH7m
— Michelle Y. Talbert (@MichelleTalbert) June 2, 2014
@JessHallway THANK YOU for your feedback, guidance, & for pushing us to get out of the bldg! Here's a pic. #LeanDC pic.twitter.com/O9krNxp8WA
— Nadia (@DomainSushi) June 2, 2014