The Lean Startup - Eric Ries [120]
10. For more on the Lean UX movement, see http://www.cooper.com/journal/2011/02/lean_ux_product_stewardship_an.html and http://www.slideshare.net/jgothelflean-ux-getting-out-of-the-deliverables-business
Chapter 6. Test
1. http://www.pluggd.in/groupon-story-297/
2. “Groupon’s $6 Billion Gambler,” Wall Street Journal; http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704828104576021481410635432-IMyQjAxMTAwMDEwODExNDgyWj.html
3. The term minimum viable product has been in use since at least 2000 as part of various approaches to product development. For an academic example, see http://www2.cs.uidaho.edu/~billjunk/Publications/DynamicBalance.pdf
See also Frank Robinson of PMDI, who refers to a version of the product that is the smallest needed to sell to potential customers (http://productdevelopment.com/howitworks/mvp.html). This is similar to Steve Blank’s concept of the “minimum feature set” in customer development (http://steveblank.com/2010/03/04/perfection-by-subtraction-the-minimum-feature-set/). My use of the term here has been generalized to any version of a product that can begin the process of learning, using the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. For more, see http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html
4. Many people have written about this phenomenon, using varying terminology. Probably the most widely read is Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm. For more, see Eric Von Hippel’s research into what he termed “lead users”; his book The Sources of Innovation is a great place to start. Steve Blank uses the term earlyvangelist to emphasize the evangelical powers of these early customers.
5. “To the casual observer, the Dropbox demo video looked like a normal product demonstration,” Drew says, “but we put in about a dozen Easter eggs that were tailored for the Digg audience. References to Tay Zonday and ‘Chocolate Rain’ and allusions to Office Space and XKCD. It was a tongue-in-cheek nod to that crowd, and it kicked off a chain reaction. Within 24 hours, the video had more than 10,000 Diggs.” http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/1372-marketing-lessons-from-dropbox-a-qa-with-ceo-drew-houston/. You can see the original video as well as the reaction from the Digg community at http://digg.com/software/Google_Drive_killer_coming_from_MIT_Startup. For more on Dropbox’s success, see “Dropbox: The Hottest Startup You’ve Never Heard Of” at http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/16/cloud-computing-for-the-rest-of-us/
6. This description courtesy of Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5586203/food-on-the-table-builds-menus-and-grocery-lists-based-on-your-familys-preferences
7. This list was compiled by my colleague, Professor Tom Eisenmann at Harvard Business School, Launching Technology Ventures for a case that he authored on Aardvark for his new class. For more, see http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2011/01/launching-tech-ventures-part-i-course.html
8. http://www.robgo.org/post/568227990/product-leadership-series-user-driven-design-at
9. http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/11/confirmed-google-buys-social-search-engine-aardvark-for-50-million/
10. This is the heart of the Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen.
11. For more, see http://bit.ly/DontLaunch
Chapter 7. Measure
1. By contrast, Google’s main competitor Overture (eventually bought by Yahoo) had a minimum account size of $50, which deterred us from signing up, as it was too expensive.
2. For more details about Farb’s entrepreneurial journey, see this Mixergy interview: http://mixergy.com/farbood-nivi-grockit-interview/
Chapter 8. Pivot (or Persevere)
1. http://www.slideshare.net/dbinetti/lean-startup-at-sxsw-votizen-pivot-case-study
2. For more on Path, see http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/google-tried-to-buy-path-for-100-million-path-said-no/ and http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/01kleiner-perkins-leads-