Podcasts about lean start

Bio   David is known for his ability to deliver inspiring and thought-provoking presentations that challenge audiences to think differently about innovation and product development. His keynotes and workshops are engaging and interactive, with a focus on real-world examples and case studies. David's message is relevant for entrepreneurs, executives, and organizations of all sizes and industries, and he illustrates concepts live on stage to leave attendees with concrete tools and techniques they can use to drive innovation and growth in their own business.   Interview Highlights 02:00 Early Startups 02:45 Dealing with uncertainty 04:25 Testing Business Ideas 07:35 Shifting mindsets 11:00 Transformational leadership 13:00 Desirable, viable, feasible 14:50 Sustainability 17:00 AI 22:50 Jobs, pains and gains 26:30 Extracting your assumptions 27:30 Mapping and prioritisation 28:10 Running experiments   Social Media   LinkedIn:  David Bland on LinkedIn Website:  davidjbland.com Company Website: Precoil YouTube: David Bland on YouTube     Books & Resources   ·         Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation (The Strategyzer Series): David J. Bland, Alex Osterwalder ·         Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals Course: https://precoil.teachable.com/p/assumptions-mapping-fundamentals/ ·         The Invincible Company: How to Constantly Reinvent Your Organization with Inspiration From the World's Best Business Models (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, Frederic Etiemble ·         Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos ·         The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses: Eric Ries ·         Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights- 2nd Edition, Steve Portigal ·         The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You, Rob Fitzpatrick ·         Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur ·         The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win: Steve Blank   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku   Hello everyone. I'm really honoured and pleased to introduce David Bland as my guest for this episode. He is the best-selling author of the book, Testing Business Ideas, and he's also the Founder of Precoil, an organisation that's focused on helping companies to find product market fits using Lean Start-up, Design Thinking and Business Model Innovation. He's not a newcomer to the world of Agile as well. So, David, it's an honour to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Thank you so much for making the time. David Bland   Yeah, thanks for inviting me on, I'm excited to be here. Ula Ojiaku   Right. So, where I usually start with all my guests, because personally, I am interested in the story behind the person - are there any happenings or experiences that have shaped you into who you are today? David Bland   Yeah, I think through childhood, dealing with a lot of uncertainty and then ended up going to school for design. I thought I was going to go a different career path and then at the last moment I was like, I want to really dig into design and I think people were sort of shocked by that, with the people around me, and so I really dove into that and then I came out of school thinking, oh, I might join a startup and retire in my mid 20s, because this is a .com craze, everyone was making all this money. Obviously, that didn't happen, but I learned a lot at the startups and I was introduced to Agile really early on in my career at startups because we had to go really fast and we were in a heavily regulated industry so we couldn't break stuff and we had to have kind of processes and everything. I did that for a while and then I realised, wow, there were some people that could learn from my mistakes, and so we kind of switched coasts. So we were near Washington DC for a while, and then we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and I started working with companies there, and I was like, well, let me see if I can just really dig in, help people learn how to apply stuff and coach them through it, and that was around 2010 or 2011 or so, and I've been doing it ever since, and I think why I love it so much is that it kind of helps people deal with uncertainty, gives them a process to deal with uncertainty, and at the same time, I have a hard time with uncertainty. So maybe it's kind of a little bit therapeutic for me to help others deal with uncertainty as well. So yeah, I just love what I do. Ula Ojiaku   And so you mentioned you don't like uncertainty, but helping other people deal with uncertainty helps you, that's interesting. Do you want to expand on that? David Bland   I mean, I very much like my routines and everything, and I feel like I come at it from a process point of view. So when I'm dealing with uncertainties, like, oh, what kind of process can I apply to that? So I feel a little better about things, even though there's a lot of stuff outside my control, at least I can have kind of a process. So I feel as if, when I'm dealing with people, I feel all of this anxiety, they're working on a new idea, they're not sure if it's going to be any good or not, giving them a process to work through it together, I don't really tell them if their idea is going to be good or not because who am I to judge their ideas most of the time? It's more about, well, here's a process you can apply to all that stuff you're working through and maybe you can come up to some sort of investment decision on whether or not you should go forward with that idea. So I feel as if my demeanour and everything comes off as someone that you're like, oh, I can talk to this guy and he's actually going to respect me, and so I feel like my style plus the uncertainty bit fits together really well. So I have a style where I come into orgs and say, you have a lot of uncertainty, here's a process, you're going to be fine, we're going to work through it together and it tends to work out pretty well. Ula Ojiaku   What comes across to me is that you give them tools or a process to help them hopefully come to an evidence-based conclusion without you having to share your opinion, or hopefully they don't have to have personal opinions imposing on whatever conclusion that is.   David Bland   Yeah, it's just a process.   Ula Ojiaku   And so what put you on the path to writing the book Testing Business Ideas, I was one of your students at the masterclass you and Alex Osterwalder ran during the covid lockdown, and you mentioned during that session, I don't know if you remember, that you probably went for a retreat somewhere, or you went on a hike as part of the writing process and that Alex gave you a hard time or something, so can you share your version of the story? David Bland   Oh yeah, I mean it was a joy writing with him. I think one of the difficult times for me writing that book…So first Alex approached me writing it and eventually, I mean initially it was just going to be me and then I mean he needed to be involved and so he played a big role strategically in helping me kind of think about the book writing process because I've never written a book like this and then also had it published and also did the whole four colour landscape style, very visual book. It's not that you just write an outline and then you start putting in words, it's a very different process. So yeah, he pushed me a little bit during that process, I would say, he would challenge some of my ideas and say like, are you explaining this in a way that where people can understand, you know? And so I feel as if it was a very productive process writing the book with him. It took about a year I would say. I think the way it came about was it was pretty much from my coaching, born out of my coaching, because I was helping companies with a lot of uncertainty, early stage ideas and they would say well we're now going to have interviews and we're going to do surveys and we're to build the whole thing. And it's like, well, there's other things you could do that are beyond interviews and surveys. And so he and I were continuously talking about this, and it's like, well, if people are only comfortable doing interviews and surveys they're not going to address all their risk, they're going to address a part of their risk, but not, you know, there's so much more they can do. And so, we started thinking about, well, is there a book that we could put that together and give people a resource guide? So, it's more like a textbook or almost something you would read in a university. My editor, I just spoke to him a couple weeks ago, he's like, this is required reading at Stanford now, and some other places in the university programs. And so it's very much like a textbook, you know, but the reason we wrote it was, you know, to help people find a path forward, to find a way to go and de-risk what they're working on. And so I felt it was very ambitious to put that all into a book, and of course, it has some flaws, but I think for the most part, it does the job, and that's why it's been really successful.   Ula Ojiaku   It is, in my experience, very well laid out. It takes a lot of work to distill these ideas into something that seems simple and easy to follow. So I do concur, it's been very helpful to me as well and the ideas. In your book, in the flap, it says, okay, the number one job as an innovator, entrepreneur, a corporation, is to test your business ideas to reduce the risk of failure. And I think you've alluded it, you've kind of touched on that in explaining how your career has gotten you where you are today. But what, in your experience, do you find leaders and organisations missing the most when it comes to testing ideas? David Bland   I think it's hard to unwind it all, because it goes back to how do you become a leader. And so, at least in Western, in the United States anyway, where I do some of my work, I feel as if it's very egocentric, it's very about what I can do and what I know. So there's a progression of becoming a leader where you grow up in an organisation because you have the answers, or at least you're able to convince people you know the answers, and then you're promoted and keep being promoted. And so when I'm coming in and saying, well, we might not know the answers, or we might need to test our way through and find the answers, it almost goes against that whole kind of almost like worldview you've built up or someone has built up over the years where it's about me. It has to be more than just about you as a person. It's like how do you enable leaders around you and how do you create more leaders around you and all that. And so I think where there's contradiction is this idea of, okay, I'm promoted to where I am because I have the answers, but now I want to enable people to test their way through things and find answers, and you almost need a feedback loop there of somebody that's willing to say, look, do you understand how you've unravelled some of this or how you've undermined things by saying, well, I know this is a good idea, so build it anyway. Or, that's not the test I would have ran, I would have done this other thing. You give people almost the benefit of your opinion, but they take it as marching orders, whether you realise it or not, and then it becomes this core of, why am I running tests at all because my leader is essentially going to tell me what to build. And so I think there's just some unpacking a bit of, well, I searched for the right answer in school and I was rewarded for that, and I went into business and I was rewarded for the right answer, and now we're telling you, there might not be a right answer, there are multiple right answers, and different paths and choices. And I think sometimes leaders have a hard time with that because it almost contradicts everything they've done in the past to be successful. Ula Ojiaku   So, what I'm hearing you say David is that in terms of, even before we get testing the ideas, please correct me if I'm wrong, it's that there needs to be a mindset shift, a paradigm shift of, you know, what leadership is all about, it's no longer going to be about the person who knows the way, who knows all the answers and tells people what to do, but moving from that to saying, hey, I recognise I have limits and I may not have all the answers and I empower you all for us to work together to test our way to find what the right path or direction would be. David Bland   Yeah, it's more about your leadership style and accountability. I think you severely limit what an organisation could do if everyone's relying on you for the answers. It's going to be really tough to scale that because if all answers have to come through you, then how do you scale? But also, it goes from transactional to transformational in a way. So transactional is, it's very much like, well, I want you to do something by this date on time, on budget, and on scope, and then basically hold you accountable to doing that, and then there's a very transactional level of leadership there. It's like, I asked you to do this thing, or told you to do this thing, you did this thing, so therefore I trust you. Where I'm trying get a bit deeper is, you know, well can you say, well, how do I empower a team to go find out what needs to be built, or if there's a real problem there, and then have them give me an account of, oh, we're making progress towards that, or you know what, we shouldn't go forward with this because this isn't worth pursuing, nobody has this problem, et cetera, and respecting their wishes or at least having a conversation about that. And so I think it does require a little bit of leadership. Looking at your style, looking at the words you use, looking at how you lead teams through uncertainty, which could be a little different than ‘I need this thing by this date and keep it under this cost and this scope' It's more about, well, we have an idea, we're not sure there's a market for it, can we go test that and see if there is and if it's viable for us and if we can actually do it? And it's a little different leadership style, and I think if you apply a transactional leadership style to trying to lead people through uncertainty, it just backfires, because it's very much like, run these experiments by this date, it doesn't empower the teams to be able to give an account of how they're addressing the risks. It's sort of a learning moment for leaders to say, oh, this leadership style that's worked really well for me in the past may not actually work really well for me here, it may work against me here in trying to drive out the uncertainty of this thing that we're trying to do. Ula Ojiaku   So if I may just build on your response to the question. What, in your experience, has helped, or could help, a leader who's used to, and has been in the past up until now rewarded for that transactional leadership, to make the switch to a transformational leadership? David Bland   I think asking them what they're worried about. I know people try to project confidence like they have the answers, but they don't, and so being able to be open, even if it's just a one-on-one, to say hey we have this thing where we think it might be a new business line or something that we're working on that's relatively new that we haven't done before, which is a lot of my clients, they're trying to do something that they haven't quite done before. It may not be too far away from what they're good at, but far enough away that they're worried, they're worried that it's not going to work. And so I try to get them and talk about what's keeping you up at night, what is worrying you about this, and then usually in the back of my head I'm saying, okay, what can I map that to? So I love the desirable, viable, feasible framing. I use it a lot from design thinking, user centre design. So if they're worried about the customer or there's not enough, you know, there's not really a job to be done there, I map that back to, okay, he's worried about desirability or she's worried about desirability. And if they're talking about, oh, we don't know if people will pay enough for this, or if we can keep costs low enough, you know, that's like I map it back to viability, right? And then if it's more about, I actually don't know if we're organised well enough as a company to do this and really execute on it and I map it back to feasibility. And then from there, it's more like, well how will we go test that since you're worried about it, rather than just build the whole thing and launch and see what happens. And so I try to kind of, I'd be really careful of the words I'm using and I'm trying to coach them into a moment where it's okay, just let's be open and transparent that it's not just about executing a bunch of things and then we're okay. It's more about, you know, what are we worried about and then how do we go address those worries sooner versus later. And so I try not to come at them with a bunch of canvases and a bunch of mapping tools and a bunch of stuff that would make them feel defensive because one, they probably have not had experience with those, and two, it's like, oh, this consultant's more interested in the tools than helping me, you know. So I try to use words that really kind of get at, what are you worried about and then how can we go test that and then kind of back away into the process from there? Ula Ojiaku   Well, it does seem like you apply quite some psychology to the whole approach, because it's really about meeting people where they're at. And I am, just back to your point about viability, desirability and feasibility. There is a school of knowledge, I mean, you are the expert here, so I'm deferring, but there's a school of knowledge that would add also like the sustainability parts to it. Or do you think it's separate from those attributes when you're looking at ideas? David Bland   Yeah. Well, I work on a lot of sustainable projects at the moment. Well, even over the last several years I've been working on companies trying to be more sustainable. So companies are manufacturing phones, they want their phones to be all recyclable materials, they want fully recyclable phones let's say. So I'm working on very cutting edge sustainability projects, but I still don't introduce it as another circle because I'm trying to keep it very simple. And so I know there are different flavours of it. I know some people add sustainability, some people add adaptability, some people add ethics, usability. Before I know it, it's just, you end up with seven circles and different themes, so I really try to keep it very simple. Even Alex and I talk about adaptability, because that was a theme that didn't quite make it into the book, but he talks about it in The Invincible Company, which is the book he wrote immediately after the one we wrote together. So I have ways of addressing those things, but I don't necessarily want to add a bunch of extra themes, because I feel like it's already challenging people with a bunch of ‘ility' words. I noticed they get confused even with the three. No matter how well I explain it, I'll see things like, things that are about building it, and reframed as desirability, and I'm like no, no, that isn't about the customer. I mean yes, of course we have to build what they need, but building it is more about feasibility. So even with the three I see people get confused so I just try to stick to the three as best I can, but basically we go into sustainability projects, still using those three, with sustainability top of mind. So I don't really call it out as a separate theme but I certainly take it into consideration when we're working on those projects.   Ula Ojiaku   Okay, just keeping it simple. Okay, thanks for that, David. So there are some instances where the people will consider probably are outliers to the known proven principles of design thinking, of product development, customer discovery. And I can't remember, I mean, I would have attributed it to the person, but I was just reading a tweet from someone who is known in the product development world and he was saying that if, he wouldn't have guessed that with the advent of or the popularity of Generative AI, that ChatGPT, according to his books, you know, broke all the rules of products, discovery products, development in the sense that there, and I wasn't aware that they were, Open AI was doing lots of market research to say, hey, what do you want from an AI assistant or Generative AI? But within months of releasing it to the public, they gained millions of users. So what's your thought on this? Would you say it was an outlier or is it that there were some principles working in the background that we are not aware of? David Bland   I imagine there's a lot going on we're not aware of. It reminds me of the older conversations about the iPhone. There was this air of, Steve Jobs had this single brilliant idea about the iPhone and then willed it into being and then everyone, it was wildly successful, right? But I look at, even like the first iPhone as, in a way it was kind of a minimum viable product. I mean, the hardware was pretty solid, but the software, the OS was not. I mean, it didn't have really basic stuff that we would expect that we had on other things like Blackberries at the time. You couldn't copy and paste, there were some things that were missing and people viewed it as a toy and they kind of laughed at it, you know, and then they iterated on it. I would say it was about iPhone three or four, by the time they really started to get market fit with it, and then you see, you know, people you wouldn't expect with iPhones with their iPhone. You're like, wait a second, that person has an iPhone. But that took a while, you know. And I think with Open AI, it's kind of a, we're still in the early stages of a lot of this, I feel, and I'm not really sure how it's going to shake out, but I imagine, you know, they seem to be very iterative about how they're going about it, you know. So I don't know how they went about the creation of it at first, but I feel as if at least now they're taking feedback. They're not just building stuff people are asking for, but they're looking at, well these people are asking for this, but why are they asking for it and what are they trying to achieve and how might we achieve that by releasing something that solves for that. And that's kind of your job, right? It's not just to build what people ask for. It's more about getting to the need behind what they're asking for, and there might be a more elegant way to solve for what they're asking for. But there's also some backlash with AI. So I see some things happening where a lot of my corporate clients have just banned it at the firewall, they don't want their employees even accessing it. They want to keep it within the company walls, so to speak, which is going to be kind of challenging to do, although there are some solutions they're employing to do that. I also see people taking it and, you know, interviewing fake users and saying, I can validate my idea because they asked OpenAI and it said it was a good idea, so I don't have to talk to customers. And it's like, okay, so they're taking some kind of persona from people and kind of building up a thing where you interact with it, and it seems very confident in it. It seems very confident in its statements. Like, that's the thing that I've noticed with OpenAI and a lot of this ChatGPT stuff is that it can be like really confidently wrong, but you find security in that confidence, right? And so I do see people saying, well I don't have to talk to customers, I just typed in ChatGPT and asked them. And I said, this is the kind of customer, what would that customer want? And it can literally generate personas that can generate canvases. It can do a lot that makes you seem like they are good answers. You could also just click regenerate and then it'll come up with really confident, completely different answers. So I think there's still a way where we can use it to augment what we do, I'm still a big believer in that, because I think it's really hard to scale research sometimes, especially if they have a small team, you're in a Startup. I think we can use AI to help scale it in some ways, but I think we just have to be careful about using it as the single source of truth for things because in the end it's still people and we're still, find all the tech problems, still people problems. And so I think we have to be careful of how we use AI in Agile and research and product development in general. Ula Ojiaku   Completely agree, and the thing about being careful, because the AI or the model is still trained at the end of the day by humans who have their blind spots and conscious or unconscious biases. So the output you're going to get is going to be as good as whatever information or data the person or persons who trained the model would have. So what I'm still hearing from you if I may use Steve Blank's words would be still get out of the building and speak to real customers. I mean, that could be a starting point or that could be something you augment with, but the real validation is in the conversation with the people who use or consume your products. David Bland   I think the conversations are still important. I think where it gets misconstrued a bit is that, well people don't know what they want, so we shouldn't talk to them. I think that's an excuse, you should still talk to them. The teams that I work with talk to customers every week quite often, and so we want that constant contact with customers and we want to understand their world, we want to find new insights, we want to find out what they're trying to do and trying to achieve, because sometimes that can unlock completely new ideas and new ways to make money and new ways to help them. I think this idea of, well, we can't talk to customers because we don't have a solution ready or we can't talk to customers because they don't know what they want, I feel as if those aren't really the reasons you should be talking to customers. With discovery, you're trying to figure out the jobs, pains and gains, test value prop with them, continue to understand them better. And if you pay attention to your customers, there's this great Bezos quote, right. If you pay attention to your customers and your competitors are paying attention to you, you're going to be fine because you are, they're getting lagging information, right? You're really deeply connected to your customers, and so I just think we've somehow built this culture over time where we can't bother customers, we can't confuse them, we can't come to them unless we have a polished solution and I think that's becoming less and less relevant as we go to co-creation. We go more to really deeply understanding them. I think we have to be careful of this culture of we can't bother them unless we have a polished solution to put in front of them, I don't think that's where we're headed with modern product management. Ula Ojiaku   And someone might be saying, listening to, whilst I've gone through your masterclass, I've read your book, but someone might say, well, do you mean by jobs, pains and gains with respect to customers? Could you just expand on those, please? David Bland   Yeah, if you look at the, so my co-author Alex Osterwalder, if you go back to the book before Testing Business Ideas, there's a Value Proposition Design book where we have the value prop canvas. If you look at the circle in that book, so the tool kind of has a square and a circle, and we usually start with a circle side, which is a customer profile. And with the profile, you're really trying to think of a role or even a person, you're not trying to do it at the org level, you're trying to think of an actual human being. And in that, we kind of break it down into three sections. One is customer jobs to be done. So you can think about, you know, one of the functional, usually functional jobs that tasks are trying to do, you could also weave in, you know, social jobs, emotional supporting, it can get really complicated, but I try to keep it simple. But one way to find out those jobs is by talking to customers, right? Then next are the pain points. So what are the pain points that customers are experiencing, usually related to the jobs they're trying to do. So if they're trying to do a task, here's all the stuff that's making it really hard to do that task. Some of it's directly related, some of it's tangential, it's there, it's like these impediments that are really, you know, these pains that they're experiencing. And then the third one is gains. So we're looking for what are the gains that can be created if they're able to either do this task really well, or we're able to remove these pains, like what are some things that they would get out of it. And it's not always a one to one to one kind of relationship. Sometimes it's, oh, I want peer recognition, or I want a promotion, or, you know, there are some things that are tangential that are related to gains, so I love that model because when we go and we start doing discovery with customers, we can start to understand, even in Agile right. If we're doing discovery on our stories, you know, we're trying to figure out what are they trying to achieve? And then is this thing we're about to build going to help them achieve that? You know, what are the pains we're experiencing? Can we have characteristics or features that address these big pain points they're experiencing? And then let's just not solely focus on the pains, let's also think about delighters and gains and things we could do that like kind of make them smile and make them have a good day, right? And so what are some things that we could do to help them with that? And so I love that framing because it kind of checks a lot of the boxes of can they do the task, but also, can we move the pains that they're experiencing trying to do it and then can we can we help create these aha moments, these gains for them? Ula Ojiaku   Thank you, and thanks for going into that and the definitions of those terms. Now, let's just look at designing experiments and of course for the listeners or people if you're watching on YouTube, please get the book, Testing Business Ideas, there's a wealth of information there. But at a high level, David, can you share with us what's the process you would advise for one to go through in designing, OK yes, we have an idea, it's going to change the world, but what's the process you would recommend at a high level for testing this out? David Bland   At a high level, it's really three steps. The first is extracting your assumptions. So that's why I like the desirable, viable, feasible framing. If you have other things you want to use, that's fine, but I use desirable, viable, feasible and I extract. So, what's your risk around the market, the customer, their jobs to be done, the value prop, all that. Viability is what's your risk around revenue, cost, can you keep cost low enough, can you make money with this in some way, make it sustained? And then feasibility is much more, can you do it, can you execute it, are there things that prevent you from just executing on it and delivering it? So that step one is just extracting those, because this stuff is usually inside your head, you're worried about it, some of them might be written down, some of them might not be. If you're in a team, it's good to have perspectives, get people that can talk to each theme together and compromise and come together. The second part of the process is mapping and prioritisation. So we want to map and focus on the assumptions that we've extracted that are the most important, where we have the least amount of evidence. So if we're going to focus experimentation, I want to focus on things that make a big difference and not necessarily play in a space that's kind of fun to play in and we can do a bunch of experiments, but it doesn't really pay down our risk. And so I like focusing on what would be called like a leap of faith assumption, which I know Eric Ries uses in Lean Startup, it also goes back to probably like Kierkegaard or something, and then Riskiest Assumption is another way you can frame it, like what are the Riskiest Assumptions, but basically you're trying to say what are the things that are most important, where we have least amount of evidence. So that's step two, prioritisation with mapping. And then step three is running experiments. And so we choose the top right, because we've extracted using the themes, we have desirable, viable, feasible. We can use that to help match experiments that will help us pay down the risk, and so I always look for mismatch things. Like you're not going to pay down your feasibility risk by running customer interviews, that doesn't help you whether or not you can deliver it. So making sure that you're matching your risk, and that's kind of where the book plays in mostly because we have 44 experiments that are all organised by desirable, viable, feasible, and then we have like cost, setup time, runtime, evidence, strength, capabilities. There's like a bunch of kind of information radiators on there to help you choose, and so we basically run experiments to then go and find out, you know, are these things that have to be true, that we don't have a lot of evidence to prove them out, are they true or not? And so we start then using this process to find out and then we come back and update our maps and update our artefacts, but that's kind of the three step process would be extract, map and then test.   Ula Ojiaku   Thank you. Would you say that there is a time when the testing stops? David Bland   I would say it never completely stops, or at least hopefully it doesn't completely stop. Even if you're using discovery and delivery, I find that usually in the beginning there's a lot of discovery and maybe a little bit of delivery or almost no delivery, and then as you de-risk you have kind of like more delivery and then a little bit less discovery. And then maybe if you're in a kind of repeatable mode where you're trying to scale something there's a lot of delivery and a little bit of discovery, but where I get really nervous are teams that kind of have a phase or a switch and they say, okay, we've done all the discovery now we're just going to build and deliver. I feel as if that constant contact with customers, being able to constantly understand them, their needs are going to change over time as you scale, it's going to change things, and so I get really nervous when teams want to just kind of act like it's a phase and we're done with our testing, right, we're done with our discovery. And I feel great organisations are always discovering to an extent. So it's just really finding the balance with your teams and with your orgs, like how much delivery do you have to do? How much discovery do you need to kind of inform that delivery? So ideally it doesn't stop, but the percentage of discovery you're doing in testing will most likely change over time. Ula Ojiaku   So in the world of Agile, Agile with a capital A in terms of the frameworks that originated from software development, the role of the Product Owner/Product Manager is typically associated with ensuring that this sort of continuous exploration and discovery is carried out throughout the product's lifecycle. Do you have any thoughts on this notion or idea? David Bland   I think there's always some level of risk and uncertainty in your backlog and in your roadmaps. So people in charge of product should be helping reduce that uncertainty. Now, it's usually not on their own, they'll pair with a researcher, maybe a designer. They might even be pairing with software developers to take notes during interviews and things like that to socialise how they're paying down the risk. But I think if you look at your backlog, you're kind of looking at middle to bottom and saying, oh, there's a lot of uncertainty here, I'm not really sure if you should even be working on these. So part of that process should be running discovery on it, and so I try to socialise it. So if you're in your Standups, talk about some of the discovery work you're doing, if you're in planning, plan out some of the discovery work you're doing, it's just going to help you build this overall cohesive idea of, well, I'm seeing something come in that I have to work on, but it's not the first time I've seen it, and I kind of understand the why, I understand that we did discovery on it to better understand and inform this thing and shape what I'm about to work on, and so I think it helps create those like touch points with your team. Ula Ojiaku   Thank you for that, David. So let's go on. There is, of course, your really, really helpful book,  personally I have used it and I've taken, I've not done all the experiments there, but definitely some of the experiments I have coached teams or leaders and organisations on how to use that. But apart from Testing Business Ideas, are there other books that you have found yourself recommending to people on this topic? David Bland   Yeah, I think there's some that go deeper, right, on a specific subject. So for example, interviews, that can be a tool book itself, right, and so there's some great books out there. Steve Portigal has some great books on understanding how to conduct interviews. I also like The Mom Test, well I don't like the title of the book, the content is pretty good, which is basically how to really do a customer interview well and not ask like, closed-ended leading bias questions that just get the answers you want so you can just jump to build, you know. So there are some books I keep coming back to as well. And then there's still some older books that, you know, we built on, foundationally as part of Testing Business Ideas, right? So if you look at Business Model Generation from Alex Osterwalder, Value Prop Design, the Testing Business Ideas book fits really well in that framework. And while I reference Business Model Canvas and Value Prop Canvas in Testing Business Ideas, I don't deep dive on it because there's literally two books that dive into that. A lot of the work we've built upon is Steve Blank's work from Four Steps to the Epiphany and I think people think that that book's dated for some reason now, but it's very applicable, especially B2B discovery. And so I constantly with my B2B startups and B2B corporations, I'm constantly referring them back to that book as a model for looking at how you go about this process from customer discovery to customer validation. So yeah, there are some ones I keep coming back to. Some of the newer ones, there are some books on scaling because I don't, I'm usually working up until product market fit, you know, and I don't have a lot of growth experiments in there. So there are some books now starting to come out about scaling, but I think if you're looking at Testing Business Ideas and saying, oh, there's something here and it kind of covers it, but I want to go a lot deeper, then it's finding complimentary books that help you go deeper on a specific thing, because Testing Business Ideas are more like a library and a reference guide and a process of how to go through it. It would have been like two or three times in length if we'd gone really, really deep on everything, so I think 200 pages of experiments was a pretty good quantity there. And so I'm often, I'm referring books that go deeper on a specific thing where people want to learn more.   Ula Ojiaku   Thank you for that. So if the audience, they've listened to what you have to say and they're like, I think I need to speak with David, how can they reach you? David Bland   Yeah, I mean, davidjbland.com is a great place to go, that's me, you can read about me, you can watch videos on me presenting. I have, you know, videos of me presenting at conferences, but also, there's a YouTube channel you can go to where I have some of my webinars that are free to watch as well, and just little coaching videos I make where I'm like, hey, I have a team that's really struggling with this concept and I just kind of make a quick YouTube video helping people out to say this is how I'm addressing this with, you know, with a team. Also Precoil, P-R-E-C-O-I-L, that's my company, and so there's a lot of great content there as well. And then just in general social media, although I have to say I'm pulling back on social media a little bit. So, I would say for the most part LinkedIn is a great place to find me, I'm usually posting memes about customer discovery and videos and things just trying to help people, like make you laugh and educate you, and so LinkedIn, surprisingly, I don't think I'd ever say like, oh, come check me out on LinkedIn, you know, five or ten years ago, but now that's where I spend a lot of my time, and I feel like that's where my customers are and that's where I can help them, so yeah, I end up spending a lot of time on LinkedIn too.   Ula Ojiaku   Yeah, some of your memes there like, I mean, how do I put it, just gets me up in stitches. Yeah, I don't know how you find them or do you commission actors to do some of them, but yeah, it's good. So yeah, so LinkedIn, social media is the main place, and your websites, those would be in the show notes. I also heard you do have a course, an online course. Can you tell us about that? David Bland   Yeah, this summer, I finally found some space to put together my thoughts into an Assumptions Mapping Course. So that is on Teachable. I'm going to be building it out with more courses, but I've just had enough people look at that two by two and read the book and say, I think I know how to facilitate this, but I'm not sure, and so I literally just went like step by step with a with a case study and it has some exercises as well where you can see how to set up the agenda, how to do the pre work for it, who you need in the room for it, how to facilitate it, what traps to look out for because sometimes, you know, you're trying to facilitate this priority sort of exercise and then things go wry. So I talked about some of the things I've learned over the years facilitating it and then what to do a little bit after. So yeah, it's a pretty just like bite-sized hands-on oh, I want to learn this and I want to go try with the team or do it myself. So yeah, I do have a new course that I launched that just walks people step by step like I would be coaching them. Ula Ojiaku OK, and do you mind mentioning out loud the website, is it precoil.teachable.com and they can find your Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals Course there?   David Bland   Correct. It's on precoil.teachable.com   Ula Ojiaku   OK, and search for Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals by David Bland. Right, so are there any final words of wisdom that you have for the audience, David. David Bland   Try to keen an open mind when you're going through a lot of this work. I feel as if the mindset is so important, you know. So if you're taking this checkbox mentality, you're not going to get the results out of following any of these processes, right. So, I think being able this idea of, oh, I'm opening myself to the idea that there's some assumptions here that may not be true, that I should probably test. It shouldn't be an exercise where you're just checking the box saying, yep, I wrote down my assumption and then, yeah, I ran an experiment that validated that and then move on, you know. It's more about the process of trying to, because your uncertainty and risk kind of move around. So, this idea of mindset, I can't stress enough that try and keep an open mind and then be willing to learn things that maybe you weren't expected to learn, and I think all these great businesses we look at over the years, they started off as something else, or some form of something else, and then they happened upon something that was an aha moment during the process, and I think that's, we have to be careful of rewriting history and saying it was somebody, it was a genius and he had a single brilliant idea, and then just built the thing and made millions. Very rarely does that ever occur. And so I think when you start really unwinding and it's about having an open mind, being willing to learn things that maybe you didn't anticipate, and I think just that mindset is so important. Ula Ojiaku   Thanks. I don't mean to detract from what you've said, but what I'm hearing from you as well is that it's not a linear process. So whilst you might have, in the book and the ideas you've shared, you know, kind of simplifying it, there are steps, but sometimes there might be loops to it too, so having an open mind to know that's something that worked today or something you got a positive result from, might not necessarily work tomorrow, it's, there's always more and it's an iterative journey.   David Bland   It's quite iterative.   Ula Ojiaku   Yeah. Well thank you so much David for this, making the time for this conversation. I really learned a lot and I enjoyed the conversation. Many thanks.   David Bland   Thanks for having me. Ula Ojiaku   My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

How do we plan for success in an uncertain world? How can we reframe uncertainty as opportunity? In this episode, Nathan Furr answers these questions and more. What You'll Learn: 1. Four things to do when facing uncertainty. 2. How to build your own ambiguity muscles. 3. Why you need to start with reframing. 4. How stories make our decisions (and how to choose them). 5. How to unpack “the worst case scenario”. 6. How to know what kind of risks YOU are comfortable with. 7. Achieve your values, rather than your goals. 8. How to be your own doula and practice emotional hygiene. Who is Nathan? Nathan Furr is a professor of strategy and innovation at INSEAD in Paris. Professor Furr earned his PhD from Stanford University and studies how to get ideas, test ideas, and create a culture of innovation. Nathan co-wrote The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization with Jeff Dyer, and has more recently published The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown with his wife, Susannah Harmon Furr. He has published broadly in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Forbes, Inc., and several different academic journals. He's also been nominated for the Thinker's 50 Innovation Award. Mentions: The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown by Nathan Furr and Susannah Harmon Furr https://www.amazon.ca/Upside-Uncertainty-Guide-Finding-Possibility/dp/1647823013  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John-Steinbeck/dp/0143039431  Follow Nathan Furr: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-furr-044852/  More of Do Good to Lead Well: Website: https://craigdowden.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdowden/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/craig-dowden/message

Hello & welcome back! In today's episode, we delve into the intricate dance between ambition, motherhood and entrepreneurship. My guest, Carrie Kwan, co-founder of Mums & Co., joins me to share her wisdom, insights, and practical tips on navigating the complexities of modern life as a business owning Mum. Carrie's mission in life is to help women harmonise ambition (business and career goals); livelihood (family and financial routine); and wellbeing (individual physical, mental and spiritual health).  And Mumbition™ is the Mums & Co word for it. The unapologetic blending of motherhood and ambition. We've recently collab'd with her to produce a Mums & Co x Dream Life Mumbition™ Journal – which guides working Mums through a simple, valuable and regular journaling practise. And, whether you're a Mum seeking harmony between motherhood and ambition, an aspiring entrepreneur looking for guidance, or anyone in search of practical life lessons, this episode will inspire and inform. In this episode you will: Discover the power of quarterly planning as a tool to reset and refocus your goals. Embrace the philosophy of "Progress, Not Perfection," and learn why ambitious dreams are worth pursuing even if they take time. Explore the art of journaling to capture ideas and thoughts - fostering creativity and reflection in your daily life. Uncover the secrets of effective networking and making respectful, specific asks to build a supportive community around you. Embrace continuous learning and collaboration as tools for personal and professional growth and find out how curiosity can be your greatest ally.   As always, I'd LOVE to hear what resonates with you – and what you plan to implement after listening in. So please share below and let's keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook group here.     Have a wonderful week …and Dream Big! Love, K Dream Life Founder  PS: More info on the collab and how to use the journal here...   SHOW NOTES: Find out more about the Mums & Co x Dream Life Mumbition™ Collaboration Journal here… designed to help ambitious mothers achieve their dreams while balancing their responsibilities. Mums & Co. - The platform founded by Carrie Kwan to empower and support mothers in business. Lean Start-up by Eric Ries - A recommended book by Carrie for those interested in entrepreneurship. Business Model Generation - Another book suggested by Carrie for business enthusiasts. Curious about Kristina's previous podcast guest, Luke Cook. Check out the episode where they discussed entrepreneurship and life. Learn more about the upcoming Be MPowered Conference and how you can participate in this empowering event. Want to transform your life and wellness with help from me? Join our Platinum Coaching Program and hang around positive like-minded people. Learn more here… Join my virtual book club GROW where we read and meet online weekly to squeeze the learnings from great books. Learn more here… Take your first step to getting clarity on what you want from life with this free bonus dreaming exercise here 101 Dreams Audio Guide    RESOURCES: Take the Quiz here… "Discover How on Track You Are to Living Your Dream Life" and uncover valuable insights into where you're at and how your own path forward can look. BONUS free 150 Dreams to Inspire You: The Top Dreams of Real People - 30 Page Downloadable pdf. Download here… Buy my book Your Dream Life Starts Here. Join our Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here - and jump into discussions & learning with like-minded people.  Learn about my Habit Club here... Help up spread this inspiring message to even more people by sharing our podcast on social media with the hashtag #101milliondreamers  Download a review of My Top 10 Favourite Books of all time Shop inspiring & meaningful products at The Dream Life Store here. For in-depth guidance on how to plan quarterly effectively access our video workshop here.. Use this journal to plan your Quarter… Follow Kristina on Instagram  Follow Kristina on Facebook  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this conversation, our Editor-in-chief Lex Sokolin walks through how 2023 is the year for executing on raw fundamentals, which means understanding how to design a Fintech or DeFi business model and understanding the shape of demand. Companies must focus on customer centricity and use a Lean Startup methodology to validate ideas and assumptions. This is done by testing products and services with prospects, using digital landing pages, and buying Google Ads to drive people to those landing pages. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATIONThe Fintech Blueprint: https://www.fintechblueprint.com/ Lex Sokolin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexeysokolin/ and https://twitter.com/LexSokolin Topics: start-ups, fintech, DeFi, innovation, disruption, tokenomics, cryptocurrency, blockchain, DAO, Web3, roboadvisorCompanies: Google, Greensky, Facebook, Robinhood, Youtube, DriveWealth, Betterment, Coinbase, MetaMask, Cross River Bank, MoonPayABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Sergey Gribov.  Sergey is a recovering Angel Investor now serving as a Partner at Flint Capital. Join Sergey and me as we discuss how he has realized $100M exits all the way to his darling unicorn coming in at a staggering $4.5B!  He brings a ton of wisdom to Flint Capital, a fund that was just ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the most founder-friendly funds on the planet. You don't want to miss it.LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Sergey Gribov[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal and or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.Support the show

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Jinan Glasgow George.  Jinan is the founder and CEO of Neo IP and PatentForecast.com. Join JiNan and me as we discuss how her technology gives Private Market Investors and Entrepreneurs a leading indicator of changes in their market leading to higher profits and smoother strategies. You don't want to miss it.LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Jinan Glasgow George[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal and or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.Support the show

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Brandon Schwab.  Brandon is the founder and CEO of a $25M real estate fund, focused on one of the most profitable sectors in the game. Join Brandon and me as we discuss how he was inspired to solve a problem in the industry by simply providing capital and compassion to unlock profits nearly 2x more than the rest of the industry. You don't want to miss it.LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Brandon Schwab[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal and or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.The Whiteboard Entrepreneur - with Devon Dickinson - Fuel The Entrepreneur in All Of Us!I give straightforward advice to fuel the entrepreneur in ALL of us! Pursuing your...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Making it After 40A podcast that explores what it means to be a person building a career in a creative...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Justin Sloan.  Justin is the founder and CEO of Sloan Capital, An investment firm that has $20M of real estate book value as well as scaling up on a massive restaurant empire, starting with Ever bowl. Join Justin and me as we discuss how he went from a scrappy kid to a tech entrepreneur, all the way to doing multi-million dollar deals and scaling all the way. LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Over the past several years, Justin Sloan and Sloan Capital have begun syndicating real estate deals to outside investors and have made sizeable venture investments in more than a dozen companies. Justin is highly knowledgeable in all things business, and his undeniable passion is what sets him apart from the rest. Having built companies from the ground up, he understands the details that go into establishing a successful firm and the resources required to help in scaling it while still maintaining the small things that make it stand out. His hard work, diligence, resourcefulness, and flexibility make Justin the right individual to spot and execute on opportunities.[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal and or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.Support the show

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Amy Hanlon.  Amy is the founder and CEO of Blue Meta Design, A design company that is the secret weapon used by The Mega Venture Firms like Will Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz to create that billion-dollar designs for all of their pitch decks. Join Amy and me as we discuss how her designs and storytelling methods have gone on to raise $10B from investors. If you're serious about raising money, You don't want to miss it.LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Amy Hanlon, president of Blue Meta Design, visually showcases the impactful stories of startups through graphic design, partnering with VCs on cutting-edge investments.  A small branding agency located in the Mid-South, Blue Meta Design is client-focused, servicing companies that are changing the world and their communities. With a goal to create memorable brands, Amy dives deep into the inner workings of each company to develop creative visuals while supplementing customizable services. She works with some of Silicon Valley's biggest names, giving her insight into what makes a brand stand out to a venture capital firm. Graphic design is Blue Meta's medium for making their clients' brands their competitive edge, ultimately acting as an extension of their client's teams, providing highly integrated solutions to help them succeed.[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal and or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be cSupport the show

The new guest is Aurélien Ominus, an innovator, blockchain author of 'A Practical Guide To Blockchain In Business' and others, at Eyrolles Business, serial entrepreneur & Blockchain Deeptech teacher at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seein-apps.com, a SaaS platform that makes crypto investments sociable and engaging for users.Aurélien Onimus Interview Questions1. Academic background2. Early career3. The state of blockchain4. Blockchain impact in France5. Blockchain and Real Estate6. As a blockchain author7. About 'A Practical Guide To Blockchain In Business'Aurélien Onimus BiographyAurelien Ominus is an innovator, blockchain author at Eyrolles Business, serial entrepreneur & Blockchain Deeptech teacher at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and active enthusiast sport athlete. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seein-apps.com, a SaaS platform that makes crypto investments sociable and engaging for users.He is certified in an Executive Program in Design Thinking from MIT Sloan School of Management. He also did a Master's programme from INSEEC San Francisco focused on start-up development. He regularly contributes as an expert columnist on an innovation Subject linked to Start-up and Tech, including Blockchain, Web 3, Metaverse, Crypto, start-up, and fundraising at France 3 Corse Via Stella Via Nova.He is also the former founder of Manager l'innovation, an innovation firm that helps create and manage ambitious start-ups, project and product management, Blockchain, Design Thinking, Lean Start-up. As an author, Aurelien has published four books on blockchain: A Practical Guide To Blockchain In Business (his latest book, in October 2022, published with Eyrolles Business), Blockchain: A Revolution In Real Estate (2020, published with Eyrolles Business), The world after the Blockchain: what is behind Bitcoin (2020, self published), and Blockchain and ICOs (2018, self published). He is also a Blockchain Deeptech teacher in Entrepreneurship & Innovation management programme at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.As a Coach and Manager of the INSEEC basketball team, he managed a team of 12 members, winning a majority of games in the French Championship. Links & ReferencesAbout Dinis Guarda profile and Channelshttps://www.openbusinesscouncil.orghttps://www.intelligenthq.comhttps://www.hedgethink.com/https://www.citiesabc.com/More interviews and inspirational videos on Dinis Guarda YouTube

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Ron Bauer.  Ron is the founder and CEO of Theseus Capital, A family office out of the UK focusing on investing in early-stage companies. Join Ron and me as we discuss how he grew his first big company to a $3B market cap, which launched him into infamy as a startup, scale, and IPO exit beast. You don't want to miss it.Learn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thercmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRCMillerWebsite: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Ron Bauer is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, business mentor, and author, with over 20 years of experience. He is focused on the Life Sciences, Technology, EdTech, and Natural Resources sectors, where he has created several exciting ventures side by side with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs and scientists.Recently, he was a principal investor in 180 Life Sciences (NASDAQ: ATNF), Pasithea Therapeutics (NASDAQ: KTTA), Stran & Co (NASDAQ: STRN), Genflow Biosciences (LSE: GENF), Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals (LSE: HEMO), and Cognetivity Neurosciences (CSE: CGN).[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.Support the show

In this week's episode, I bring on my dear friend Martin Saenz.  Martin is the founder and CEO of a $50M real estate income fund known as Bequest Fund. Join Martin and me where we discuss how he made millions in the mortgage space, and how you can too. You don't want to miss it.LIMITED TIME OFFER: SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE TO GET OUR ECONOMIC RESEARCH REPORTS:https://mailchi.mp/d41cfc90bd9f/subscribe-to-newsletterLearn to Launch your own Fundhttps://www.fundlaunchlive.com/2022?affiliate_id=3730376BlockFi Pays You Interest on Your Crypto Savings Account:https://app.blockfi.com/signup/?ref=155c31ecSubscribe to YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Website: pentiumcapitalpartners.com[MY GUEST]: Martin Saenz is a Managing Partner of Bequest Funds, which is a 50MM 506(c) Reg. D Income Fund that pays an annual return of 9% to its investors monthly. Before founding Bequest Funds in 2019, Mr. Saenz was purchasing various commercial real estate properties in the DC area since 2009. In 2013, he launched a private fund in the mortgage note space which currently manages 42 million assets under management (AUM). Over the years, he has written five books, three of which are geared toward real estate investing strategies. His experience in acquisition, due diligence and asset management has familiarized him with all aspects of the real estate market. Mr. Saenz is considered a thought leader in the real estate, mortgage note, and passive income industry. Martin holds a BA degree in Philosophy from U.T. — San Antonio, an MBA from Drexel University, and a M.S. in Project Management from George Washington University.[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved placement growth of 5200% ROI in his first 5 years in the industry. His Podcast, “Making Billions”, was recently ranked in the top 20 Venture Capital Podcasts on the Planet! Previously he served as a Chief Financial Officer for a National, award-winning InsurTech company, which he grew 50% year-over-year. Managed and mentored 250 professionals while serving in this role. Additionally, he has mentored over 500 emerging fund managers to start and scale their investment funds, totaling nearly $1B in funds raised to date.                                                                                                             DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening to our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax and other licensed in the recipient's state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered as a solicitation for investment in any way.Support the show

Dr Rasmus Koss Hartmann is an associate professor at Copenhagen Business School and author of the article that I covered in the first part of this episode, entitled Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy: the Entrepreneurship Industry and the Veblenian Entrepreneur. In this interview we spoke about where he got the idea, the damage that Veblenian entrepreneurship can do to the economy, urban myths about entrepreneurship, potential flaws of popular mottos such as those promoted in The Lean Start-up by Eric Ries, and the role of entrepreneurship education. Enjoy the episode.

Innovation is hard, and more so in these uncertain and volatile times. On this episode, Maanda Tshifularo (SuperLead CEO) and co-host Nqobile Ncobo unpack the Lean Start-up Methodology to help you innovate successfully, and build a sustainable innovation culture. SuperLead · Hollard Life Solutions

Innovation is hard, and more so in these uncertain and volatile times. On this episode, Maanda Tshifularo (SuperLead CEO) and co-host Nqobile Ncobo unpack the Lean Start-up Methodology to help you innovate successfully, and build a sustainable innovation culture. SuperLead

Welcome and thank you for checking in at The Inner Game of Change Podcast where I focus on exploring the multi layers of managing organisational change.My guests cover a diverse number of critical topics to enable effective and sustainable change in the workplace.My guest today is Patrick Link; The Editor and co-author of the Amazon bestseller The Design Thinking Playbook. A professor and co-founder of the Trihow framework, Patrick is a wealth of practical knowledge and thought leadership in the area of Design Thinking.  I am grateful to have Patrick sharing his knowledge and insight with me today.    Topics include:·      What is Design Thinking?·      HIPO vs VOC·      Good testing does not cost much·      Small, big and wicked problems·      Start small but start·      Change practitioners' seat at the table·      How to make change tangible·      Tear down the silosand much more... About Patrick (In His Own Words) Editor of the two Amazon bestsellers "The Design Thinking Playbook" and "The Design Thinking Toolbook". Both books are available in German and many other languages.Design Thinking is very well known, and many tools and templates are available, see. e.g. www.dt-toolbook.com/tools or www.leancanvas.chHowever, there is a gap between Design Thinking and agile development. Which are the key tools in this gap, often called "Lean Start-up"? I am looking for an exchange about this gap. Before Covid-19 all the workshops where analog, during the Corona crisis, all the workshops needed to be done digitally. Analog workshops are not always possible. Digital workshops are not always working. How will the future normality look like? How can we do hybrid workshops?The hybrid world of Trihow combines ease of use and haptics from the sensory, analog world with the editability and reusability of the efficient digital world. If you are interested in offering a Bachelor or master thesis in the area of Business Engineering, in particular in product management, innovation or hybrid spaces, please contact me.ContactLinkedInlinkedin.com/in/patrick-link- Websitehslu.ch/smart-up  (Company Website)leancanvas.ch  (Personal Website)trihow.com/  (Company Website)Emailpatrick.link@hslu.ch

In this episode  Richard Pharro  talks to Milvio Di Bartolomeo, the first person globally to concurrently hold the Strategy Implementation Professional, Managing Benefits and Better Business Cases Practitioner certifications.  As a Delivery Office Manager in the Queensland Public Sector in Australia  providing assurance, benefits, governance and risk management advice for a portfolio of programmes and projects, Milvio's role involves providing advice to a plethora of portfolio projects. He is a prolific student and avid writer and blogger on strategy execution. Join us in listening to Milvio explain what motivates him to  take on so much work, constantly take on new projects, exams and innovate. Just  listening to Milvio you can tell how embedded his knowledge is, however for Milvio knowledge alone is redundant – it's about applied knowledge. He believes you have to have ‘skin in the game' to be an effective sponsor and the right culture to drive projects successfully.Resources mentioned:Connect with Milvio on Linkedin; https://www.linkedin.com/in/milvio-d-b37b4113/Check out one of Milvio's many articles; https://apmg-international.com/article/top-tips-managing-benefitsBooks mentioned; The Project rots from the head, by Colin D. Ellis and The Lean Start-up Audiobook - By Eric Ries Praxis framework  https://www.praxisframework.org/Managing Benefits https://apmg-international.com/product/managing-benefitsEconomic world forum Milvio mentioned - https://www.weforum.org/focus/skills-for-your-future

Beim Aufbau manch digitaler Geschäftsmodelle (wie bei Plattformen und Ökosystemen) benötigt es ein enorm schnelles Erreichen der kritischen Maße an Anbietern und Nachfragen, um überhaupt seine Wettbewerbsfähigkeit erreichen zu können. Ein solch aggressives Wachstum, bei dem viele der üblichen betriebswirtschaftlichen Werte bewusst missachtet werden, nennt man Blitzscaling. In dieser Podcastfolge denke ich daher über vier verschiedene Wachstumskonzepte nach: dem Wasserfall Scaling, dem Lean Start-up basierten Lean Scaling, dem Fast Scaling und eben dem Blitzscaling.

Welcome to Season 3 of the Evolving Leader podcast.In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are joined by innovation expert Rita McGrath. Rita is an author, professor of management at the Columbia Business School, keynote speaker, founder of the innovation platform ‘Valize' and in September 2021 was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Strategy Award. Reading recommendation:"Seeing around corners - How to spot inflection points in business before they happen" (Rita McGrath, 2021)THIS EPISODE:2.18 Rita's background and career to date.4.36 Eliminating ‘innovation theatre'.7.54 Discovery driven growth, and Rita's ‘flops file'.11.53 How Rita's ‘Discovery Driven Planning' HBR article influenced Eric Ries and the Lean Start-up.14.27 The ‘Barebones Net Present Value' tool can help to project the entire lifecycle value of a potential project.15.57 Insights regarding how we need to think differently about competitive advantage and where that approach has been adopted successfully.25.01 One of the most important superpowers for leaders. ‘Seeing around corners – how to spot inflection points in business before they happen' (Rita McGrath, 2021). Rita elaborates.29.25 The process of assumption busting.31.52 People are one of the only remaining sources of long term competitive advantage.34.53 The pitfalls that Rita sees when working as an advisor in businesses around the world37.56 Rita's next area of research.39.38 Experiences from living and working through Covid. Social: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader

In today's episode with Vlad Blagojević, Co-founder of FullFunnel.io you will learn1. Why Vlad considers a sole focus on generating leads as a major problem in B2B Marketing2. A step-by-step guide on how to realize efficient Account based Marketing in the B2B industry3. The superpower of personalized gifts for generating high response rates, hot leads and binary feedbackAbout VladVlad is a highly experienced sales and marketing executive who has been selling and marketing B2B technologies and services since 2006. Having a background in software engineering, Vlad started his career in respective roles at Sony and Dell EMC. As of 2006, he turned to sales consulting with a focus on the tech industry at Sirris, among others. Today, besides his role as B2B marketing consultant at FullFunnel, he is an ambassador for the think tank RevGenius. Vlad's commitment to sharing his expertise is reflected in his work as author of the 6-week ABM playbook and his past entrepreneurial activities as founder of Growth Hacking Belgium and Lean Start-up Circle Brussels. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with family and friends, swimming, cycling and playing drums.About FullFunnel.ioBased on the principle of "fewer leads, more value," FullFunnel helps B2B technology and services companies with long and complex sales cycles generate demand and unlock business opportunities with the help of FullFunnel Account-based Marketing. With more than 30 years of experience and knowledge, the team develops customized go-to-market strategies and inbound lead generation campaigns for their mid-sized and large clients. Moreover, they offer comprehensive B2B marketing training and a Slack community for B2B marketers who are interested in driving sales and moving the needle. The company was founded in 2020 by Andrei Zinkevich and Vladimir Blagojevic.About the host SammySammy is Managing Partner and founder of SAWOO. SAWOO helps companies with Social Marketing and Lead Generation to leverage the power of LinkedIn in a sustainable way. No spam, no bots, but building real Human 2 Human connections between you and your B2B buyers.Shownotes Find Vlad on LinkedInVlad's company FullFunnel.ioFullFunnel.io's list of questions for efficiently defining your ICP Vlad's favorite business books: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink, The Business of Expertise by David Baker and Deep Work by Cal NewportVlad's favorite business leader: Josh Braun, Founder of Josh Braun Sales Training, Gaetano DiNardi Head of Gro

EP58.1 - [Nota Especial] -  Programa Gratuito en Apoyo a la Inclusión LaboralLas Hormigas Agilistas, solidarizan con Comunidad Agentes de Cambio para la difusión del Programa Gratuito en Apoyo a la Inclusión Laboral.Este programa consta de tres tracks que contienen una variedad de temas que pretender ayudar a las personas que lo requieran. Desde revisión de plataformas de empleo, análisis de vocación profesional, home office personal, encuestas de trabajo, manejo de crisis, marca personal, introducción a la Agilidad, Lean Start-up, Lean Inception, entre muchos otros temas.Para apoyar este programa hemos realizado una pequeña entrevista con Claudia Toscano, quien nos viene a describir mas en detalle esta iniciativa.La agenda de este programa puede ser consultada en www.hormigasagilistas.org, buscando el EP58.1.Es importante entender que este programa se realizará desde el 21 a el 28 de Agosto de 2021, por lo que es necesario movernos rápidamente haciendo la mayor difusión posible.#HormigasAgilistas #AgentesDeCambio #InclusionLaboral #QueVivaLaAgilidad

In deze podcast is Mike in gesprek met Reindert Westrik. Reindert is één van de eerste en jongste gecertificeerde Gallup coaches in Nederland. Hij heeft ervaring met Design Thinking en Lean Start-up processen en past die meesterlijk toe om talenten van ondernemers te activeren, teamprestaties te verbeteren en het start-up denken een boost te geven in organisaties.

This is a question that it's constantly on our minds as we embark on the journey of starting our businesses. Here are three steps that will help you determine if your business has the potential to make money.1.  Determine if your business has good marketYou need to identify if your product or service has a good market.  Here are some characteristics to keep in mind when identifying a good market for your businessesCan your target market be grouped together? They share enough of the same problems and desires that they can be grouped together.Is your target market group large enough? Your market must be large enough for it to be worth the resources you'll spend.  It should give you the opportunity to generate sales in a consistent way.Do they share the same perspective? For example, you shouldn't create a product or service that address the whole population – male and female.  Choose one group with shared prospective such as – Active female vegansWill your business be in demand? Look at current and future trends to see if your business is sustainable.  Have other companies done it and are successful at it?  Competition is good in this case! It tells you that it's been tested and proven to make money before you.  Consider using Google Trends to learn about the frequency and volume of a particular topic to assess current trends.2. Talk to your ideal customersThink about who's your target market, What do they like to do? Where can you find them?You want to get in touch with your potential customers and talk to them.  Join their social media groups to learn more about them.Take part in conversations, ask questions, conduct polls, and conduct informational interviews.You want to establish the motivating factors for your target market to buy your products/services. What would be a barrier to buying your product/service? What challenges does your target have? What are their goals, desires and aspirations? This will give you valuable insight and information that will help you develop your product/service for your target market.  This will also help you with your marketing strategy. 3. Create an MVPAn MVP, a minimum viable product, was introduces by Eric Ries the author of the Lean Start-up.  He explains that the most effective way to develop a product is to create a simple yet viable product that can deliver value for your customers.  Creating an advanced product with many features is not effective at this stage.  You want your customers to give you feedback before you perfect your product as you are working with only assumptions. As you get feedback from your customers using your product, you can then further develop and enhance.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! Has the fear of not making money stopped you from creating your business?Get your FREE 4 Step Guide to Starting a Lucrative Online Business You'l Love!

In fast changing times, the Lean Start-up methodology is indispensable tool for the business owner. This episode covers why this tool should be in your toolbox, what problems it can solve, and how it can work with the traditional business plan. More information at http://arise2live.com #Arise2Live #entrepreneur #businessmodel #leanstartup

Hey hey, welcome to GrowGetters...The Future Skills Podcast. Whether you’re looking to build a future-proofed career in your industry, or create a thriving multi-passionate, multi-income stream lifestyle on your own terms - then you are a GrowGetter and you are in the right place!Well, one thing’s for sure, is that COVID-19 has completely rocked our worlds in the most literal sense. It’s changed the way we do business, accelerated industry digitisation, and tested the mettle of our leaders, both in politics AND in business.For this episode, we investigated just what it takes to be an effective, successful, and stable leader in today’s crazy world, and we want to bring you the top 4 things that the pandemic has taught us about great leadership. So let’s get started!PLUSIf you enjoy listening to the pod there are a few ways you would absolutely make our day (and week, and year!!) and help support us so we can continue to create kickass content just for you!The quickest way is to make sure you click that FOLLOW button on Spotify, and hit SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you get your poddies) to make sure you never miss an episode!And if you are an Apple Podcasts user, we would be thrilled if you can take one minute to leave us a 5-star rating and a glowing review so even more of you fabulous GrowGetters can find us!If you’re more of a social media maven, then you can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at @growgetters.io where we post a whole swag of tips, tools, advice, and hacks on future-proofing your career!We run a weekly Clubhouse room to discuss Future-Proofing, Future Skills, The Future of Thought Leadership, and much, much more. FOLLOW US @tiffanyhart and @tanyagarma so you are notified next time we go live.And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our GrowGetters Growth Hacks newsletter on growgetters.io for a fortnightly fix of the very latest hacks, tools, models, trends, and recommended reads to help you stay in demand and in the know!

Meneruskan pengembangan Lean Start-up Model for Fashion Brands, mendigitalisasi rantai supply, menyiapkan organisasi dan SDM yang pembelajar, dan meneruskan memperbaiki diri pribadi --adalah hal-hal yang harus jadi fokus di tahun 2021. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ngobrolbrandlokal/message

In this podcast, Nathan Furr(@nathan_furr) talks about leading transformation. He shares some of the crucial ingredients of transformational leaders. He sheds some light on how businesses could improve their storytelling to get the transformation agenda across. He shares some cool tips and tricks that help leaders plan for a transformation across data-driven and disruptive times. Timeline: 1:39 Nathan's journey. 4:49 Nathan's current role. 13:55 Transforming legacy old company. 21:52 The right moment for companies to think about data transformation. 26:38 Using comic books to share transformational stories. 34:32 Who's the most responsible person in an organization for transformation? 39:13 Qualities a leader must have for bringing in transformational change. 43:40 Nathan's success mantra. 47:57 Nathan's favorite reads. 50:29 Closing remarks. Nathan's Recommended Read: East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by John Steinbeck, David Wyatt https://amzn.to/2S9MHA0 Nathan's Books The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization by Nathan Furr, Jeff Dyer, Clayton M. Christensen https://amzn.to/2TeadJE Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company's Future by Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel, Thomas Zoega Ramsey https://amzn.to/2CTw16z Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation: The lean startup book to help entrepreneurs launch a high-growth business by Nathan Furr, Paul Ahlstrom https://amzn.to/2UfTpSC Podcast Link: https://futureofdata.org/leading-transformation-through-data-driven-times-nathan_furr-insead-futureofdata-podcast/ Nathan's BIO: Nathan Furr is a professor of strategy and innovation at INSEAD in Paris and a recognized expert in innovation and technology strategy. He has multiple books and articles published by outlets such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, including his most recent best-selling book, “The Innovator's Method” (Harvard Business Review Press, September 2014), which won multiple awards from the business press. He has two forthcoming books from Harvard Business Review Press addressing 1) how companies lead transformation and 2) how innovators win support for their ideas. Professor Furr has worked with leading companies to study and implement innovation strategies, including Google, Amazon, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Philips, Kimberly Clark, Solvay, and others. Professor Furr earned his Ph.D. from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University. About #Podcast: #FutureOfData podcast is a conversation starter to bring leaders, influencers, and lead practitioners to discuss their journey in creating the data-driven future. Wanna Join? If you or any you know wants to join in, Register your interest by emailing us @ info@analyticsweek.com Want to sponsor? Email us @ info@analyticsweek.com Keywords: FutureOfData, DataAnalytics, Leadership, Futurist, Podcast, BigData, Strategy

Kennst du das "mulmige" Gefühl, das du hast, wenn du eine komplett neue Aufgabe bekommst und du erst einmal nicht weißt, wie du es angehen sollst? Oftmals ist es aber NICHT die Angst, die wir vor der Aufgabe selbst in dem Moment haben, sondern eher die Angst vor dem Unbekannten. Wir sprechen in dieser Episode darüber, - inwiefern eine Planung dir hilft. - wieso es wichtig ist, vergangene Erfolge zu feiern und wertzuschätzen. - was es mit dem Lean Start-up Prinzip auf sich hat. - warum es clever und smart ist früh Feedback einzuholen. - warum es gut ist sich außerhalb der Komfortzone zu bewegen und dieses Gefühl mit etwas Positivem verbinden sollte. - und was es mit dem "Fixed-" und "Growth Mindset" auf sich hat. Viel Spaß mit dieser Episode! Deine Julika & Lan Wenn dir die Folge gefallen hat und dir weiterhilft, kannst du uns unterstützen, in dem du uns eine 5 Sterne Bewertung hinterlässt! So schaffen wir es, dass der Podcast von mehr Menschen gefunden wird und wir dadurch noch mehr Menschen erreichen!

I recently had the chance to talk with Michele Chaboudy.She is an experienced senior executive, serial entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor.Michele is vice-chair of the north bay angels and teaches innovation at Santa Rosa Junior College.Her background and experience are wildly diverse giving her insights broad applicability.In this interview, she shares tons of useful advice for any founder or CEO.In the course of our conversation, we talked about:how many young entrepreneurs misunderstand networking. It is not handing out business cards over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It can happen every day, all the time.her favorite analogy, taken from her experience racing motorcycles. You need to be looking at least two turns ahead because you go where you look.her process for evaluation companies as an investor, and what matters most to her.how she teaches founders to develop a strategic mindsetwhat entrepreneurs need to know about researching their intended customersFeel the Boot Founder’s Alliance: https://ftb.bz/allianceMichele’s startup consulting website: https://macabbey.com/blogMichele’s suggested resources for founders and entrepreneurs:https://helloalice.org---co founded by Elizabeth Gore, who was also interviewed on Feel the Boot.Simon Sinek— https://simonsinek.com/ particularly his “Start with Why” (book) and any of his speeches.Scott Berkun— https://scottberkun.com/ - “Dance of the Possible” book and “Saving My Creative Soul” (video). All of his books and talks are excellent.Malcolm Gladwell, recommend all of his books including his latest, Talking to Strangers.Tina Seelig— http://www.tinaseelig.com/ - Stanford prof in engineering dept teaching innovation. Favorite book: Ingenius. Recommend any of her books and Ted Talks.Jason Calacanis— https://thisweekinstartups.com/ Interviews Start-up Founders/CEO’s. Recommend his book on angel investing for tech start-ups.Range by David Epstein. Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. —The worst thing you can do is ask a kid what he or she wants to be when they grow up. Try to keep all your options open and don’t worry about starting “late” in a pursuit.Lean Impact—How to innovate for radically greater social good by Ann Mei Chang. Takes the Lean Start-up concept and applies it to non-profits.

I recently had the chance to talk with Michele Chaboudy.She is an experienced senior executive, serial entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor.Michele is vice-chair of the north bay angels and teaches innovation at Santa Rosa Junior College.Her background and experience are wildly diverse giving her insights broad applicability.In this interview, she shares tons of useful advice for any founder or CEO.In the course of our conversation, we talked about:how many young entrepreneurs misunderstand networking. It is not handing out business cards over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It can happen every day, all the time.her favorite analogy, taken from her experience racing motorcycles. You need to be looking at least two turns ahead because you go where you look.her process for evaluation companies as an investor, and what matters most to her.how she teaches founders to develop a strategic mindsetwhat entrepreneurs need to know about researching their intended customersFeel the Boot Founder's Alliance: https://ftb.bz/allianceMichele's startup consulting website: https://macabbey.com/blogMichele's suggested resources for founders and entrepreneurs:https://helloalice.org---co founded by Elizabeth Gore, who was also interviewed on Feel the Boot.Simon Sinek— https://simonsinek.com/ particularly his “Start with Why” (book) and any of his speeches.Scott Berkun— https://scottberkun.com/ - “Dance of the Possible” book and “Saving My Creative Soul” (video). All of his books and talks are excellent.Malcolm Gladwell, recommend all of his books including his latest, Talking to Strangers.Tina Seelig— http://www.tinaseelig.com/ - Stanford prof in engineering dept teaching innovation. Favorite book: Ingenius. Recommend any of her books and Ted Talks.Jason Calacanis— https://thisweekinstartups.com/ Interviews Start-up Founders/CEO's. Recommend his book on angel investing for tech start-ups.Range by David Epstein. Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. —The worst thing you can do is ask a kid what he or she wants to be when they grow up. Try to keep all your options open and don't worry about starting “late” in a pursuit.Lean Impact—How to innovate for radically greater social good by Ann Mei Chang. Takes the Lean Start-up concept and applies it to non-profits.

In this episode I share my views on the book The Lean Start-up by Eric Ries, an american entrepreneur who has created a great impact in this movement. I will be talking focusing on main aspects of the book. It was suggested by our professor. And I also recommend reading it, for a great start.

Can innovation can be measured? Inspired by the Lean Start-up methodology, Suzanne Charlotte Vos, Innovation Consultant and PACE Coach at ING Labs in Singapore, shares her secret recipe on the qualitative and quantitative metrics she uses when it comes to measuring innovation.

Læring i dag er mer enn å høre på en forelesning eller lese en bok, men hva er læring i 2020 og hvordan skal norske SMB klare å sette av tid til læring og utvikling når det er så press og fokus på drift? I denne episoden av #LØRN snakker Silvija med Synniva Larsen som er leder for studentopplevelser for executive på Handelshøyskolen BI og Annita Fjuk som er ansvarlig for samarbeid mellom forskning og næringsliv hos Digital Norway, om hva de har fått av innsikt etter dybdeintervju med endringsagenter i SMB rundt om i Norge, for å lage et master kurs som skal mobilisere nye og eksisterende endringsagenter i norske SMB for den digitale transformasjonen som kommer. — Nærmest alle har nevnt i denne prosessen er at de trenger en større innsikt i hva endringsledelse egentlig er, for dette er så komplekst og det er så mye mer du må gjøre enn å bare følge en typisk 5 stegs modell, forteller de i episoden. Dette LØRNER du: Fleksibel livslang læring Hva skal til for å dele ut studiepoeng? Digital verktøykasse Endringsledelse Lærende ledere Anbefalt litteratur: The Innovator's Method (Innbundet). Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization. Forfatter: Nathan Furr og Jeff Dyer See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Selbst gestandene, etablierte Wirtschaftsunternehmen hat Corona ordentlich in Bedrängnis gebracht, wie sieht es dann erst bei Start-ups aus, deren Kapitaldecke denkbar niedrig hängt? Sebastian Schulz, Gründer der Kaffeerösterei Maldaner Coffee Roaster erklärt, wie er von der Krise voll erwischt wurde und blitzschnell sein Geschäftsmodell von B2B auf Endkunden-Vertrieb umstellen musste. Seine Ausführungen sind ein praktisches Lehrstück für den Lean Start-up Ansatz. Er führt uns außerdem ein in die Welt des Kaffeeanbaus und -vertriebs, der er mit seinem social business Prinzip tüchtig umkrempeln will. Hört rein in 40 Minuten geballtes Entrepreneurship und in die Ausführungen eines Jungunternehmers, der den Sinn in seinem Wirken längst gefunden hat. Interview: Jule Jankowski Wir tauchen in ihre Arbeitswirklichkeit ein und sprechen mit unseren Gästen darüber • Wie sieht Dein neues Normal aus? • Was hilft/Was gibt Halt? • Was sind persönliche Lernerkenntnisse? Mit unserer Corona-Chronik schaffen wir kollaborativ ein Zeitdokument und eine Lernplattform zum Umgang mit essentiellen Krisen in der Arbeitswelt. Die Zeit zu lernen ist: JETZT!

Een goed gesprek met Tom. Tom is: Geboren in Bladel Brabant Woonachtig in Den Haag Co-founder bij Server.biz Co-founder bij etenbezorgd.nl Associate Trainer bij Gladwell Academy wilgraaghebben.nl Al sinds 2006 Lid van JCI-Haaglanden Wat er zoal besproken is: Begonnen webshop bouwer in PHP Leuke bij verdiensten in zijn studententijd Ongegeneerd reclame maken voor JCI Haaglanden Black Friday Cyber Monday Shopify webshops 900.000.000 omgezet op Black Friday Adobe Analytics verteld dat er op Black Friday 7,4 miljard is omgezet Cyber Monday gaat er ruim eroverheen: 9,2 miljard totaal Verschil tussen Cyber Monday en Black Friday Flut aanbiedingen werken niet met Black Friday Enorme sales dip in de weken voor Black Friday? Omdat ze de prijzen opvoeren Niche Markt hoeft niet mee te doen met Black Friday - Maasa wel! Niet mee doen kan funest zijn. publiek gaat toch opzoek. Affiliate Marketing oplossing voor te dure Facebook en google advertentie Of toch niet? Amazon Bol.com Amazon echt in Nederlands komt zal Bol.com het heel zwaar krijgen 40% kans en 60% bedreiging (reputatie van Amazon) Eigen merken van Amazon Basic worden prominent getoond Uber is keihard Thuisbezorgd is ook gevaarlijk voor de horeca. Zorgt ervoor dat horeca ondernemers afhankelijk worden Bol.com bang voor Amazon Risico spreiden dus verkopen op Bol.com en Amazon Forse bedragen aan provisie van Bol.com - Uitleg Marco Coninx waarom Bol.com op de knieën zal gaan en de prijs zal moeten laten zakken. Gevolgen voor retailers zullen wel meevallen. Aangezien Bol.com er al een tijdje is. Retailer verliest wel bestaansrecht. Door grote partijen zoals CoolBlue, Amazon, Bol.com en Zalando Mond op mond wint het niet van Online Houdt PicNic stand tegen Amazon Fresh Geen toekomst voor winkels zonder duidelijk profiel Ken jij iemand met een videoland abonnement? Piraterij gaat toenemen Meteen groot denken. Want als je Europa eindlijk verovert hebt dan is er in Amerika wel iemand die het gekopieerd heeft en groter naar Europa kan komen. Thuisbezorgd, Uber, Deliveroo geven zoveel uit aan marketing om elkaar te breken. Winner takes it all markt Tegenwoordig moet een webshop eigenaar meer doen aan social media promotie en informatie beveiliging wetgeving - cyber criminelen - AVG - Internationale BTW AVG training beschikbaar voor leden van eCommerce Café Eerst Marktplaatsen daarna pas verkopen via je eigen webshop Scoren met niche producten Wat is dropshipment Uitbesteden van het logistiek steeds populairder (eWarehousing.nl) Tom kan je bereiken via Linkedin Boek the Lean Start up van Eric Ries Leest graag over de Amerikaanse politiek door de ogen van Jerry Springer ook podcast https://ecommercecafe.nl/amazon-black-friday-uber-met-tom-verdaat/ Tom bedankt (ook omdat je het eCommerce Café een warm hart toedraagt)

Craig and Tony are at YOW! Conference in Brisbane and catch up with Joshua Kerievsky, CEO of Industrial Logic and founder of Modern Agile and they talk about: Episode 20: Lean Start-ups with Joshua Kerievsky Industrial Logic and the Extreme Programming Playing Cards If you are a consulting company and don’t have your hands dirty … Continue reading →

Avec Domobios, Anne-Catherine Mailleux a créé un procédé innovant pour piéger les insectesEn écoutant cette interview, vous découvrirez le plaisir de créer sa propre entreprise après des années de recherches fondamentales. « Voir concrètement ses produits, c’est fun ! »Anne-Catherine Mailleux, biologiste, s’est acharnée à comprendre, pendant 15 ans, ce qui faisait bouger les acariens et, plus particulièrement, les punaises des lits. Des recherches fondamentales menées à l’ULB puis à l’UCL qui lui ont permis d’identifier les molécules (des phéromones) qui les attirent. « Depuis lors, je parle couramment l’acarien ».Une maitrise qui va lui faire sauter le pas. Avec le soutien d’Innoviris, et plutôt que de trouver des partenaires qui étaient prêts à lui fabriquer son produit et à le vendre, elle choisit de le faire elle-même en créant Domobios avec Pierre Buffet, puis Acar’Up, la société qui commercialise le tout premier produit de Domobios. Sa vie prend un rythme effréné. « L’industrie, cela trace plus que la recherche fondamentale ». Et, pour une aventure de plus, Anne-Catherine est toujours partante. Aujourd’hui, elle se concentre sur les punaises des lits qui ont toujours vécu avec les êtres humains. Parce que le sang est leur principale source de nourriture. « On est leur Bed&breakfast ». Ces dernières années, elles ont refait surface et résistent désormais très bien aux vaporisations. Surtout aux USA. Seule solution : les capturer et les immobiliser. Les pièges collants disponibles sur le marché ne sont pas efficaces « Elles ne sont pas totalement idiotes ces bestioles : elles repèrent rapidement la colle et préviennent toutes leurs copines ». Par contre, si c’est le plafond de la boite qui descend et leur encolle le dos, elles n’y voient que du feu, elles appellent même leurs congénères. Cette Cinacienne, qui a installé son laboratoire à Marche-en-Famenne, a tout appris sur le tas. « Créer son entreprise, c’est comme entamer un long voyage : cela commence toujours par des petits pas ». Chercheuse, elle a appris à devenir dirigeante d’entreprise. Puis elle a transformé son business, passant de la R&D pure à la production et à la vente. Et elle ne regrette rien : produire, cela vous donne des marges plus importantes, une liberté d’action, un vrai contrôle sur la production. Des conseils ? Ne pas attendre que le produit soit prêt à 100% pour le montrer à son public. « Les gens sont très bienveillants même si le design est moche. Ils sont toujours prêts à vous donner des idées ». Le produit doit plaire à l’utilisateur final, il doit être utile et pas trop cher. « Et arrêtez de paniquer au 1ercouac : au 3e, vous relativiserez.Son secret pour déconnecter ? Ecoutez l’épisode… (indice : il y fait froid).Pour s’inspirer, elle vous recommande :The Lean Start-up, de l’entrepreneur américain Eric RiesDes associés qui cartonnent d’Etienne Van de Kerckhove, avec la contribution d’Éric Domb. www.domobios.comPlus d'infos sur ce podcast via www.innoverenwallonie.be Voir Acast.com/privacy pour les informations sur la vie privée et l'opt-out.

Daniela Behrendt stellt Ihnen zwei weitere Arbeitsmethoden der New Work vor: Lean Start-up und Kanban. Hören Sie rein.

Retail and Restaurant can learn a lot from the Lean Start up philosophy. Listen to hear how to start with a nimble model and build a brand. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Eric Ries is the founder and CEO of LTSE, the company that is affiliated with the SEC-approved Long-Term Stock Exchange, which seeks to build a new relationship between companies that are built to last and the stakeholders who believe in them. Eric is an entrepreneur who created the Lean Startup methodology and wrote the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup. He was named by Fortune to its 2018 "40 Under 40." Our conversation covers Eric’s early startup experience, the core principles of a Lean Startup, his path to creating LTSE, key components of its business philosophy, value proposition, and business model, and the application of Lean Startup principles to building this business. LTSE’s mission is extraordinarily important to improve investment outcomes in public markets for all of our benefit. I encourage you to join the LTSE’s Long-Term Investor Coalition on its website ltse.com or by emailing ltic@ltse.com, and ask questions of companies and managers you meet with to keep this movement top of mind. Learn More Read the Transcript Subscribe to the Capital Allocators Blog or Monthly Mailing List Don't Subscribe, but Let Us Know Who You Are Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides Review past episodes of the Podcast

Nathan Furr ( @nathan_furr @INSEAD ) on leading transormation through data driven times #FutureOfData #Leadership #Podcast In this podcast Nathan Furr(@nathan_furr) talked about leading transformation. He shared some of the crucial ingredients of transformational leaders. He shed some light on how businesses could improve their story telling to get transformation agenda across. He shared some cool tips and tricks that help transformation leaders on planning for a transformation across data driven and disruptive times. Nathan's Recommended Read: East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by John Steinbeck, David Wyatt https://amzn.to/2S9MHA0 Nathan's Books The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization by Nathan Furr, Jeff Dyer, Clayton M. Christensen https://amzn.to/2TeadJE Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company's Future by Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel, Thomas Zoega Ramsoy https://amzn.to/2CTw16z Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation: The lean startup book to help entrepreneurs launch a high-growth business by Nathan Furr, Paul Ahlstrom https://amzn.to/2UfTpSC Podcast Link: iTunes: http://math.im/itunes Youtube: http://math.im/youtube Nathan's BIO: Nathan's BIO: Nathan Furr is a professor of strategy and innovation at INSEAD in Paris and a recognized expert in the fields of innovation and technology strategy. He has multiple books and articles published by outlets such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, including his most recent best-selling book, “The Innovator’s Method” (Harvard Business Review Press, September 2014), which won multiple awards from the business press. He has two forthcoming books from Harvard Business Review Press addressing 1) how companies lead transformation and 2) how innovators win support for their ideas. Professor Furr has worked with leading companies to study and implement innovation strategies, including Google, Amazon, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Philips, Kimberly Clark, Solvay, and others. Professor Furr earned his Ph.D. from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University. About #Podcast: #FutureOfData podcast is a conversation starter to bring leaders, influencers and lead practitioners to come on show and discuss their journey in creating the data driven future. Wanna Join? If you or any you know wants to join in, Register your interest by mailing us @ info@analyticsweek.com Want to sponsor? Email us @ info@analyticsweek.com Keywords: FutureOfData, DataAnalytics, Leadership, Futurist, Podcast, BigData, Strategy

This extra episode is the recording from a presentation we recently did for The Entrepreneurs Club in Melbourne. In our presentation we discussed the content we wished we knew 4 years ago when we first started trying side hustles. We explore some of the best book concepts we've learned in the context of 'The Dip'. Finding Your Dip (drawing from The Black Swan, Lean Start-up, The Click Moment) Pursuing Your Dip (drawing on So Good They Can't Ignore You) In The Dip (drawing on The War of Art and Perennial Seller) In this episode we fielded questions from the audience. If you'd like to ask a question (that's we'll answer on our next Q&A episode), head to: www.whatyouwilllearn.com/question 

Jack is a Technology Consultant for the CYBG Accelerator. He is responsible for developing innovative digital services for new and existing CYBG customers to help them become more financially fit. He and his team do this using techniques borrowed from Design Thinking and Lean Start-up methodologies. Prior to his current role, he held roles within financial services focusing on customer experience management and corporate innovation. He is Product Owner for B currency, an augmented reality currency converter app designed to keep users financially fit whilst abroad. His talk will focus on the application of Design Thinking for innovation in the travel space.

Mario Dönnebrink ist Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, digitaler Enthusiast und CEO der d.velop AG, dessen Ziel es ist, mit digitalen Lösungen Geschäftsprozesse zu vereinfachen. In seiner Freizeit ist er leidenschaftlicher Bierbrauer und Hobby-Landwirt. Nach dem Lean-Start-up-Modell führt er nicht nur sein Unternehmen, sondern auch seine Familie.

Nathan Furr is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, where he teaches innovation and technology strategy. He is a recognized expert in the fields of technology strategy, digital transformation, and disruptive innovation. He is the #1 bestselling author of Nail It Then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation, The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization, and the new book LEADING TRANSFORMATION How to Take Chargeof Your Company's Future.   Podcast Highlights   Who is Nathan Furr? Nathan cares about the dreams that people have and them getting the chance to pursue those dreams. He started his career in industry and even tried his hand at a start-up where he learned a lot of lessons the hard way. This lead him to ask the question of “how does breakthrough innovation really happen?” and eventually to Silicon Valley. That’s where he stumbled upon the fundamental dilemma that he’s been trying to answer with his books and work.   We live in an environment of uncertainty and change and the tools we use today were designed during the industrial revolution, they were not designed to address an environment of radical uncertainty and hyper change. Uncertainty is the main theme that runs through all of Nathan’s work.   It’s hard to see beyond the fence of your daily life what’s possible.   The driving force behind new tools and frameworks is technology. Technology has lowered the barriers and made the world more dynamic and rapidly changing than ever before.   Is change accelerating? Before the industrial revolution there was no such thing as Management, there were no courses you could take, and no business schools. During the 1700’s technology changed the nature of industry and introduced new problems. Business schools were created to solve these new problems. The question Management tries to solve is “how do I coordinate, how do I optimize, and how do I execute?” There are more new companies and new inventions with more new people participating in the process than ever before and this is contributing to the environment of dynamism. This is the golden age for hardware entrepreneurs. The framework has shifted from “how do I coordinate, optimize, and execute on the capture of value?” to one of “how do I create new value?” Breakthrough Innovation The big players are getting bigger and the smaller businesses are growing around the opportunities around mass customization. Many big companies are now looking to work with start-ups. Software is making the world more modular and allows businesses to work with each other rather than just compete. There are more automobile related start-ups in the last five years than almost any other category. INSEAD INSEAD was founded to be the Harvard of Europe. Once you get outside the United States, INSEAD is very well known. Breakthrough innovation crosses borders. We’re all in this world together and we all have to figure out how to deliver efficient, effective service wherever they our customers are. Staying On Top Of Change Nathan found that innovators engage in five fundamental behaviours. The number one behaviour is associating, where they look at other areas of life and applying an idea to another area. There is a lot of innovation that gets stuck in some area that can transform the way business is done in another area. Observe the world and keep your eyes open. Question and challenge the status quo, notice the world around you and look for problems that can be fixed, experiment and network for ideas. Digital transformation is not about technology,

In this podcast Robbert van Geldrop the founder of the Dutch Lean Startup Circle his expertise in the field. He believes that entrepreneurship can be learned if the person willing to follow through. How Bill Gates became a billionaire and how Steve Jobs became a visionary? Starting with his passion for software development, he worked on freelance projects such as restaurant booking system and for Abu Dhabi Stock exchange. Robbert studied Social engineering and Policy Analysis at TU Delft. Started his own company that provides back up for companies back in 2004 and since then Robbert immersed himself in the Lean- Start-up world and was one of the pioneers to bring Eric Ries Lean Start-up book and concept to the Dutch market. Robbert is also a partner at Firm house and a mentor for the startup visa program hosted by CiC Rotterdam, where international entrepreneurs can apply and have one year long visa to live and work in the Netherlands as an independent entrepreneur. He also an investor and one of the founders of Venture Lab incubator that helps founders to test their ideas and finally bring it to life. He shared his best and not so good investment and why! Which places Robbert likes to hang out in Rotterdam and so much more fun stuff! This podcast is available on SoundCloud and iTunes. YOUR REVIEW, PLEASE! Help us reach new listeners. Don't forget to review the podcast and leave us your comments on our iTunes Page https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/madam-rotterdam/id1397052198?l=en&mt=2&fbclid=IwAR2gJgImtWa1yCyQUr38sJABhmDioyCGd79G_SmwdQJN547VkI_hhuvx3_o Happy listening! Madam Rotterdam

Inscrivez-vous à ma newsletter pour recevoir chaque semaine les clés pour entreprendre et réussir dans la mode: http://bit.ly/edlmwebsiteJe résume en 5 minutes chrono les principaux enseignements tirés de chaque épisode du podcastDans ce nouvel épisode, nous allons à la rencontre de Charlotte Dereux, la co-fondatrice de Patine, une marque d'essentiels qui forment la base de votre dressing : prêt-à-porter tout le temps, longtemps, avec du bon dedans. Des habits disponibles exclusivement sur leur site, sans intermédiaires afin d'offrir une qualité exceptionnelle à prix accessibles. Dans cet épisode, on évoque sa vie avant Patine, de ses débuts dans le marketing digital, de ses 10 ans chez Sarenza en tant que Directrice marketing, et bien sûr on parle de Patine en long, en large et en travers. J'ai adoré interviewer Charlotte, j'espère que vous prendrez autant de plaisir à l'écouter.  SE RETROUVER DANS L'EPISODE  01:20 Charlotte se présente et revient sur son parcours, sa prépa, en passant par l'ESSEC, les Cours Florent, Bag Magazine, devenue une agence digitale, puis Sarenza10:00 Le quotidien d'une directrice marketing chez Sarenza 13:30 Le déclencheur vers l'entreprenariat, par quoi Charlotte et Nicolas ont commencés, le temps de préparation jusqu'au lancement, les premiers pas23:40 Temps de maturation vs. Lean Start up 26:00 Le POC de Patine, arriver à expliquer la marque, avoir une vision très lointaine et savoir en pratique par quoi commencer 30:00 Comment trouver sa place, le positionnement-prix de Patine38:00 Les actions pour émerger rapidement, les collaborations, 2 fans bases qui se rencontrent 48:00 L'importance du copyright49:30 Le design, le produit52:30 Comment Charlotte et Nicolas se dispatchent le travail, la production, le rythme 58:00 Gérer l'opérationnel et la stratégie, le financement (Smart Money) 01:01:00 Comment ne pas se lasser, à une époque où l’on zappe beaucoup, l'univers de Patine, les échecs 01:07:00 Les projets à venir, l'étranger, le moteur de Charlotte, qui elle regarde, comment elle se nourrit, pourquoi le nom Patine, qui elle souhaiterait entendre dans EDLM KEYLEARNINGS  On est créatif sous la contrainte. Quelle qu'elle soit. Il faut des contraintes pour être bon. J'étais convaincu que ça devait aller au-delà d'une marque de mode.Une marque, il faut 10 ans pour l'installer.Moi, je ne vois pas Patine comme un travail. J'aime tellement travailler et ça prend tellement de temps, il faut que ça soit un continuum de la vie, il faut que la marque qu'on crée soit exactement en ligne avec qui on est. La vision lointaine et la cohérence de ce qu'on fait, il faut vraiment le bosser, et en pratique dans l’exécution, il ne faut pas produire trop de choses à l'avance. On a fait du "lean" parce qu’on a lancé un t-shirt et pas tout une collection. Il y a toujours de la place pour une marque qui a du sens et qui fait des beaux habits. Moi, j'ai l'impression qu'il y a encore beaucoup de place aujourd'hui. Un des trucs que j'ai le plus appris en lançant Patine, c'est d'oser. Oser demander, communiquer et proposer. En fait, il est nécessaire de comprendre que le pire qui puisse nous arriver, c'est qu’on nous dise non et que ce n'est pas très grave. Quand ils disent non là, ils diront oui après. Un non n'est jamais définitif et il ne faut jamais le prendre personnellement. Pour moi, écrire est vraiment facile. Ça l'est aussi parce que je sais exactement ce que je veux dire. Du coup, je n’ai pas à tortiller sur le sens, car il n’y a pas de bullshit et que c'est vraiment sincère. Les mots viennent facilement parce que j'adore ça.  Ce qui me fait avancer aujourd'hui, c'est d'être exactement là où je voulais être.  RÉFÉRENCES DANS L'EPISODE  Cycles de KondratieffSimon Sinek Lean Branding Lean start upMuesli boys Outdoor Voices shop à MelroseGlossier

In this episode of the effective ecommerce podcast, We will discuss the top 15 books to read in ecommerce.   The Lean Start up How to win friends and influence people David and Goliath Don’t Make me Think Think and Grow Rich E-Myth Revisited Primal Branding Lead with a story Story Brand Jab Jab Jab RIght Hook Trust Me I’m Lying Good to Great Essentialism Steve Jobs/ Elon Musk and other bios Launch Four Hour Work Week    

    Die neue schlanke Linie im Management   Überflüssige Kilos stören nicht nur, sie machen auch langsamer und sorgen dafür, dass dir schnell die Luft ausgeht. Und genauso geht es auch deinem Unternehmen: Ballast macht es langsam und ineffizient. Abhilfe schafft hier der ursprünglich von Toyota entwickelte Lean-Ansatz. Bezog sich dieser anfangs nur auf Produktionssysteme, wurde die Philosophie des schlanken Arbeitens inzwischen auch auf zahlreiche andere Bereiche wie Management und Start-ups ausgeweitet. Wir zeigen dir im folgenden Artikel, wie Lean Management sowie Lean Startup funktionieren und wie du diese Ansätze erfolgreich für dein Unternehmen nutzen kannst.   Leanmanagement – das steckt dahinter   Das Vermeiden von Verschwendung, unnötigen Ausgaben und Kosten, Fehlern sowie das Erreichen bestmöglicher Qualität – so lässt sich Lean Management kurz und knackig beschreiben.   Lean Management bedeutet übersetzt schlankes Management. Schlank bezieht sich hierbei auf die effiziente Gestaltung der kompletten Wertschöpfungskette. Der Ursprung des Begriffs lean im Zusammenhang mit Industrie geht in die 1990er-Jahre zurück. Damals veröffentlichten Daniel Roos, Daniel T. Jones und James P. Womack das Buch „Die zweite Revolution in der Automobilindustrie“, in dem sie die qualitativ besonders hochwertigen sowie effizienten Produktions- und Entwicklungssysteme in der Automobilindustrie als Lean Production bezeichneten. Als Goldstandard der Lean Production gilt nach wie vor das Toyota Produktionssystem. Da Lean Production und Lean Management ihren Ursprung in der Automobilindustrie haben, stießen beide Ansätze vor allem in eben dieser Industrie auf sehr große Resonanz. Als Lean Management wurde das Prinzip der schlanken Produktion – auch übertragen auf eine schlanke Führung – auch in anderen Bereichen populär. So wurden die Grundprinzipien von Lean Production mit der Zeit auch auf andere Sektoren übertragen und es entstanden neben Lean Management auch Lean Engineering, Lean Selling, Lean Construction, Lean Medicine, Lean Government und Lean Administration. Als jüngster Spross der schlanken Linie gilt Lean Startup, das durch die Publikationen von Eric Ries große Popularität erlangt hat und sich mit schlanken Start-ups sowie schlanken Prozessänderungen in bestehenden Unternehmen beschäftigt. Obwohl die beschriebenen Prinzipien im Grunde immer dieselben sind, hat inzwischen dennoch eine Bedeutungsverschiebung stattgefunden. So steht im Lean Management nicht mehr eine schlanke Produktion im Vordergrund, sondern eine schlanke Führung. Dabei handelt es sich nun um eine neue Führungsphilosophie, die in ihren Grundzügen an die Idee der Lean Production angelehnt ist. Die ursprüngliche Idee wurde jedoch erweitert und für den Bereich Management adaptiert.   Das Toyota Produktionssystem als Vorbild für Lean Management   Die Ursprünge des Lean-Prinzips liegen beim japanischen Automobilhersteller Toyota, der bereits seit Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts auf schlanke Prozesse in Produktion und Management setzt. So konnten stabile Prozessorganisationen als Grundlage des bekannt hohen Qualitätsniveaus gestaltet werden.   Heute wenden so gut wie alle Branchen Lean Management mit großem Erfolg an. Dabei geht es längst nicht mehr nur um Lean Production, sondern auch um Lean Administration, Lean Maintenance und eben Lean Management. Zahlreiche Unternehmen setzen hierbei auf Lean Projekte, deren Vorbilder das Toyota Production System ist.   Werte schaffen ohne Verschwendung – die Ziele von Lean Management   Wie du dir bei der Übersetzung des Begriffs Lean – schlank – vielleicht bereits denken kannst, geht es bei Lean Management in erster Linie darum, Prozesse abzuspecken und von Ballast zu befreien.   So sollen für diSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=2PU5W9H752VZJ&source=url)

In this BONUS episode at Agile Camp Brian & James spoke with Greeta Wilson about improving the customer experience with Agile. Also Agile in the 80's tv show the A-Team....?  About Greeta:  Geeta Wilson is a highly innovative and transformational Customer Experience and Operational Excellence leader with extensive domestic and international experience in start-ups, Fortune 500 companies such as NCR Corporation, and Humana, a Fortune 100 company. Geeta is the founder of Humana’s FastStart Consumer Experience lab, an enterprise customer-centric movement that challenges convention and corporate routines. Using methods from Lean Start-up, Agile/Scrum, Design Thinking, and Lean Six Sigma to accelerate speed-to-market across all lines of business, the FastStart team has brought its disruptive CX approach to thousands of Humana associates and leaders. Geeta has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal, and 1:1 Media. She was recognized by American City Business Journals (Louisville Business First) among its 2017 “People to Know” and by MM&M as one of its 2017 Top 40 Healthcare Transformers. The FastStart lab was honored with a 2016 Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) Innovation Award. Geeta’s recent speaking engagements focusing on the consumer experience include Forrester CXNYC 2016 and 2017 conferences, 2016 CXPA Insight Exchange, 2016 Lean Startup conference, and Dreamforce 2016, the largest tech conference in the world.

I’ve known Nish for over 25 years.  He was there when I started my first job out of school, and over the years our careers and lives intersected. These days, as well as being a friend, Nish and his family are also clients.  For many years Nish was a financial planner, even running his own firm for a period.  To have someone with that professional skill and background decide to engage me and my firm to act as their financial planner is to me, one of the greatest professional compliments you can receive. Today I’m really excited to share with you a little bit of Nish’s hugely successful transition from the corporate world to running his own photography business – Nish Photography.  But it doesn’t just stop there.  Because Nish and his incredibly supportive wife Janine made a second transition a few years later by making a sea-change.  Leaving the big smoke with its big mortgage and hecticness, and moving the family to a small seaside community about an hour out of Melbourne.  Nish and his family have never been happier.  I asked Nish how these two major transitions came about, and I think there is absolute gold in what he was able to share.  So let’s dive in and take a look at this real life example of someone who has achieved choices in life, true financial autonomy. So far in Financial Autonomy – the audio blog, we’ve looked at different transitions that you might make in your life – moving from being an employee to starting your own business, reinventing yourself after a redundancy, or rebuilding after a divorce.  In future episodes we’ll be exploring many more, like planning financially for starting a family, making a career change, and retirement. Today though I’m really fortunate to be able share with you a real life experience of someone who has successfully achieved not one but two major transitions. In preparing for this piece I interviewed Nish to gain a better understanding of how his move from the corporate financial world to running a photography business unfolded, and then how he and his family subsequently made the transition from inner city life to a small seaside community. I started by asking why he decided to make the initial move from the finance world, where he had worked in various roles for around 20 years, into photography. He attributed the initial steps in that direction to a discussion he had with a psychologist who encouraged him to spend more time and energy doing the things he loved.  His two great passions beyond his family were music and photography. So he took some singing lessons and picked up some small gigs playing his guitar and performing.  Now that’s no small thing.  First you need to acquire the skill of singing (he already knew how to play the guitar), then you need to have the courage to get up and perform in front of real people, and then you need to find venues and convince them to let you play, ideally with you receiving some money for the effort. He did it. Next came photography.  Nish told me he’d essentially missed the transition in photography from film to digital, so as with the singing lessons in pursuing his musical interests, there was a financial and time investment to be made in bringing his skills and equipment up to the level required.   He recognised that the singing wasn’t likely to be a viable alternative to his current career, but saw that photography presented the possibility of building a business and giving him an option to escape corporate cubicle captivity. So he launched his photography business as a side project, working on weekends.  His initial focus was family portraits and weddings.  He built his web site, and promoted himself through word of mouth.  He gained valuable experience and knowledge.  He operated this way, working his normal job, and developing his photography business on the side for roughly 12 months.  This is a great strategy to progress towards a transition, and one you certainly should consider if this is your financial autonomy goal. Eventually, and after a significant nudge from Janine, his wife, he quit his job and devoted himself full time to his photography business.  I asked Nish what steps they took financially to make this huge step possible.  The key things were: Janine always monitored their family budget, and so had a good sense of how much income the household needed to keep afloat. She was therefore confident that they could manage on her wage alone for a period. They changed their mortgage to interest only to reduce the loan repayments. They approached the change as a 5 year plan, with the understanding that Janine’s income would be the primary income to the household during this period, and then at the end of that 5 year period, Janine could potentially pursue her own transition, perhaps working fewer hours, and Nish’s business would by then be at a level where his income could be the primary support for the household. In addition to these financial planning steps, through Nish operating the business as a side project for a year, he had already identified that the relationship management skills he had learnt through his corporate career, were applicable to building his new business. He’d also started to get some corporate photography work, and shortly after moving into photography full time he pivoted the business entirely towards this corporate work, which has been a key to the success of his transition from employee to self-employed. So let’s break things down.  Nish’s successful transition to self-employment entailed: A low risk trial for 12 months. Any money he made was reinvested back into the business.  This period wasn’t about making a fortune. The gain here though was knowledge and experience, not least of which was finding that his initial target market was wrong – family portraits and weddings, and that he was better suited to corporate work.  This is right out of the Lean Start-up approach of a minimum viable product.  Put your idea out to market with the lowest investment possible, and then get market feedback as to whether your idea, your concept is right.  Then use that feedback to change or improve your offering. They had a survival strategy, as I explained in episode 1, mapped out. They had a household budget and knew their numbers.  They knew that with the mortgage repayment reduced to interest only, they could survive on Janine’s wage alone while Nish built up the business.  This knowledge was empowering to them both.  Without this knowledge, the stress levels would have been enormous. They were realistic about the time it would take to build this new business – a 5 year plan. Nish and Janine embarked on this adventure, not with the expectation that the new business was going to be an instant success, but with a realistic time frame that enabled Nish to develop his skills and the relationships essential for the business in a sustainable, long term way.  Nish told me that it wasn’t until year 3 that he started to make a reasonable income.  I wonder how many people in a similar position, with less planning, would have quit after 12 or 18 months? As inspiring as that story is though, as mentioned in the intro, Nish and Janine didn’t stop there.  About a year ago they made a second transition, moving from inner city Melbourne to a small seaside community about an hour out of Melbourne. Financial Autonomy is about gaining choice, and this move was in very large part, motivated by that desire.  Nish and Janine had always wanted to live by the beach, and indeed when in Melbourne, they were within range of the beach.  But beyond that, city property prices are expensive, and that means a big mortgage.  They wanted to have more flexibility around when and how much they worked.  Part of their 5 year plan was to be in a position where Janine could reduce her hours.  This sea change was an important step in making that possible. Once again, Janine’s handle on the family budget empowered them to know what was possible.  They were able to determine how much they could afford to spend in the new town, and then look around to see if the type of house this budget would allow, was suitable for their family. Pleasingly they found a home that fitted all their requirements, and Nish tells me that the whole family has just never been happier.  Like all parents, he worried about the kids moving schools and making new friends.  Well it took less than a day for his girls to settle in, and their happiness in this new seaside life has been a core ingredient on the overall success of the move.   I finished up my discussion with Nish by asking what advice he would give others who dream of gaining choices in life.  He offered four suggestions that I think are absolute gold: Love what you do. Pursue your passions.  You’ll look back and think “why didn’t I make this change years ago?” Talk to your partner and approach your transition to Financial Autonomy as a team. Nish freely admits that there is no way he could have achieved what he has without the support of his wife Janine.  She both gave him permission to have a go, and the nudge needed to take the plunge. Don’t listen to nay-sayers. For both the career change and the sea change, Nish had plenty of people tell him he’s crazy. He relayed the story of some friends who were absolutely convinced the sea change was a terrible idea, and that in a short period of time they would want to return to the inner city but would be priced out.  Those friends recently sold their Melbourne home and bought a house not far from Nish and Janine. Follow your heart. Take a risk sometimes.  It is scary, but it’s well worth it. I hope you’ve taken something out of Nish’s story.  I’m really grateful to him for allowing me to share it with you.  Check out Nish’s work at the very easily remembered name of www.nishphotography.com.au There’s some absolutely stunning photo’s there so be sure to take a look.  And if you need some photo’s done, be sure to give him a call.      

Was macht einen Solopreneur aus? Solopreneure sind schlank unterwegs. Ihr Ziel ist es nicht, feste Gebäude aufzubauen oder Personen anzustellen. Solopreneure sind aber keine Eigenbrödler: sie haben durchaus Netzwerke. Trotzdem sind sie die alleinigen Inhaber ihres Unternehmens, nehmen kein Fremdkapital auf und arbeiten nicht auf den Exit hin. Außerdem haben Solopreneure flexible Teams und arbeiten mit Komponenten in meist digitaler Struktur und hohem Grad an Automatisierung. Wie bekommt ein Solopreneur sein Produkt auf die Straße? Erst einmal muss man sich hinsetzen und nachdenken. Es muss ein Konzept her, man muss wissen, wo der Weg hingehen soll. Der Weg darf dabei natürlich flexibel sein, Umwege sind drin. Grundlegende Fragen wie: Was will ich eigentlich? Wie groß soll mein Unternehmen werden? müssen allerdings von vornherein beantwortet werden. „Kompetent mit Komponenten arbeiten“ Als Ehrenfried Conta Gromberg angefangen hat, Business Konzepte auseinander zu nehmen und zu verstehen, fiel ihm auf, dass am Ende einzelne Komponenten übrig bleiben. Man bildet selbst sozusagen den Kern und holt sich andere Unternehmen als (oft digitale) Komponenten dazu. Dabei gibt es übergreifende Komponenten, die jeder braucht; zum Beispiel arbeiten 90% der Solopreneure mit Wordpress und viele mit Google Analytics. Und dann gibt es Komponenten, die branchenspezifisch sind, wie beispielsweise Auslieferungstools für Händler. Dabei ist Ehrenfrieds Faustformel: Vom aktuellen Umsatz sollten maximal 10% für Komponenten drauf gehen. Was macht eine gute Komponente aus? Eine gute Komponente muss einfach greifbar sein: man muss wissen, was man reinsteckt damit etwas Bestimmtes raus kommt. Der Output muss klar definiert sein und nach Checkliste abgearbeitet werden können. So wird allen Parteien transparent gemacht, was passiert und wie die Komponente ein Problem lösen oder einen Wunsch erfüllen kann. Weg also von der Individualisierung hin zum Productised Service und zu automatisierten Prozessen. Beispiel: „Potato Parcel“ Ein Minimalbeispiel für ein Unternehmen und seine Komponenten wäre das britische Potato Parcel. Den Kern bildet ein Mann mit seiner Idee, Kartoffeln mit Sprüchen auf Bestellung zu versenden. Weiterhin hat er vier Komponenten: seine Webseite, ein Shopsystem auf seiner Webseite, ein Auslieferungssystem und Kommunikationskanäle wie Mailchimp, Instagram und Twitter. Ein sehr schlankes Konzept, mit guter Konzeption und nahezu ohne Risiko. Übrigens auch ein wichtiger Punkt: Lieber schlank anfangen, ohne großes Risiko und erst einmal den Markt antesten, wie wir es vom Lean Start up kennen. Ehrenfrieds Hebel-Tipp Ehrenfried Conta Gromberg Tipp zum Zeitsparen: als erstes die Newsletter Komponente eures Unternehmens überdenken. Sammelt alle E-Mail Adressen direkt richtig, macht euch Gedanken über deren Verwaltung, schon bevor ihr sie bekommt. Das spart am Ende eine Menge Zeit und Arbeit! Newsletter2go und Mailpoet wären Programme, die man beispielsweise gut nutzen könnte. Es gibt auch Apps, wo die Leute ihre Mail-Adressen selbst eintragen können, was beispielsweise auch noch das Handschrift-Problem löst. Webseiten: http://smartbusinessconcepts.de/ http://solopreneurday.de Tools: https://www.newsletter2go.de http://www.mailpoet.com Talk auf der DNX über die Produkttreppe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v8t4NX5KX0

What are you passionate about? In the outdoor markets, and especially as entrepreneurs, passion is such an important asset. But it can also, sometimes, get in the way of our own clear thinking about the ideas and projects we're so in love with. This is why I'm so excited to be talking with Al Tabor, tech worker and market forecaster extraordinaire about what we in the outdoor markets can learn from tech start-ups. He's translating what he knows about how tech startups get going and making it applicable to outdoor startups. And it's working – Al has worked wonders with Sierra Designs, Mountain Headwear and recent visitors to the Intrepid Entrepreneur Podcast, Martin Zemitis of Slingfin, and Brad Stewart of Caravan Outpost. Al and I both know that the outdoor markets are a completely different animal than tech start-ups, but something Al says every entrepreneur should read is The Lean Start-up, by Eric Ries. Al is admittedly not a business book person, so if he says it's good, you better believe him! The Lean Startup mentality is all about learning. You need to learn what path your business is on, and if this path will lead to success! And, you need to learn it as fast and cheaply as possible, to save yourself a lot of time and heartache. This sounds overwhelming, but Al's talking me through the steps on how to evaluate your startup idea and find your minimum value product, your MVP! Something else that we entrepreneurs in the outdoor markets can also learn from tech—and from basketball!—is to pivot! If you find out your idea isn't working, keep one foot in it, and spin until you find a new opening. This is where passion can be a challenge to us outdoor market entrepreneurs. We're so in love with our project, we don't want to change anything. But Al says, you have to keep one foot in that passion, and use the other to pivot to a new way forward. Who knows what you'll find! Al's giving some great examples of what it looks like to pivot in the outdoor markets by talking about his work with Slingfin and Caravan Outpost. He's also discussing using the Root Cause Analysis system to hit the hard reality of any problem – in business or in your personal life.   Bravery in Business Quote   “The job of a startup is to learn. More than anything else, you have to figure out if you're on a path that's going to lead to some sort of success” - Al Tabor (click to tweet)         Cliff Notes Tech and outdoor markets are different animals, but can still both learn from Lean Startup Methodology Definition of a startup (from Reis) a human endeavor that's trying to deliver a product or a service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. The job of a startup is to learn what path it's on and if this will lead to success. Important to attract and reward investors. Try to make explicit your assumptions. Who are target customers, assumptions about distribution, etc.  Once you have made all of this explicit, test it. Find sales or feedback or metrics to validate the assumptions supporting the value of your proposition. If you can't support your proposition value, it's time to pivot (like in basketball). Keep one foot in what you know and spin to find a new opening. Passion can sometimes get in the way of a pivot, because you constrain yourself and are not willing to take one foot off the ground or experiment with an idea that you are in love with Pivoting is probably hard for most passion-driven founders. Need to keep one foot in the passion, and used the other to find a more viable way forward. Learn, Build, Measure cycle part of the Lean Startup. You want to find a way to shorten this cycle as much as possible for efficiency. 5 question approach (Reis calls it Root Cause Analysis, Tabor calls it Root Cause) / Six sigma methodology. Asking “why?” five times (or more!) until you get to the root causes, the “hard reality underpinning the situation” to find the corrective. Continuing to ask “why” can lead to finding an area in which you need to pivot. Leads to clarity. Passion is personal but you have to be clear about the business viability of the product. Minimum viable product (MVP): find the fastest, cheapest way to test your product viability/market to save yourself a lot of time and heartache. The sooner you know you need to pivot, the fast you can move.     The Lean Start-Up:           Step 1: Define your value of proposition         Step 2: Validate this proposition.         Step 3: If it's not going to work, pivot. Keep one foot in what you know, and spin around to find a new opening.   “You've got to listen to everybody but you don't have to take anybody seriously.” - Al Tabor (click to tweet) Resources SlingFin.com CaravanOutpost.com/ IntrepidEntrepreneur.net/Brad-Steward (Past IE podcast w/ Caravan Outpost founder) IntrepidEntrepreneur.net/Martin-Zemitis (Past IE Podcast w/Martin Zemitis) IntrepidEntrepreneur.net/Dylan-Enright/ (WeFunder IE Podcast) PeakDesign.com/ TheLeanStartup.com/ (Lean Startup book website) YouTube.com/watch?v=fEvKo90qBns (Eric Reis google talk referenced)   Show notes: IntrepidEntrepreneur.net/Al-Tabor

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 390 features our interview with Vinay Patankar. We discussed his start up Process Street and the path Vinay and his partner took in order to embrace agile because it delivered value, not just because it was cool. We also discussed how Agile fits or helps in a lean start-up and the lessons Vinay wants to pass on to others. Vinay’s Bio: Vinay Patankar is the co-founder and CEO of Process Street, the simplest way to manage your teams recurring processes and workflows. Easily set up new clients, onboard employees and manage content publishing with Process Street. Process Street is a venture-backed SaaS company and AngelPad alum with numerous fortune 500 clients. When not running Process Street, Vinay loves to travel and spent 4 years as a digital nomad roaming the globe running different internet businesses. He enjoys food, fitness and talking shop. Twitter: @vinayp10 Re-Read Saturday News We continue the read Commitment – Novel About Managing Project Risk by Maassen, Matts, and Geary. Buy your copy today and read along (use the link to support the podcast). This week we tackle Chapters Three which explores visualization, knowledge options and focusing on outcomes. Visit the Software Process and Measurement Blog to catch up on past installments of Re-Read Saturday. Upcoming Events I will be at the QAI Quest 2016 in Chicago beginning April 18th through April 22nd. I will be teaching a full day class on Agile Estimation on April 18 and presenting Budgeting, Estimating, Planning and #NoEstimates: They ALL Make Sense for Agile Testing! on Wednesday, April 20th. Register now! I will be speaking at the CMMI Institute’s Capability Counts 2016 Conference in Annapolis, Maryland, May 10th and 11th. Register Now! Next SPaMCAST The next three weeks will feature mix tapes with the “if you could fix two things” questions from the top downloads of 2007/08, 2009 and 2010. I will be doing a bit of vacationing and all the while researching, writing content and editing new interviews for the sprint to episode 400 and beyond.   Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: “This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, for you or your team.” Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English and Chinese.

Buckle up as we welcome one of China's top entrepreneurs David Chen, CEO of Strikingly.com. Having quit Goldman Sachs and his studies at the University of Chicago, despite his parent's wishes to the contrary, David never gave up on his dream and followed it to Silicon Valley despite not getting into Y-Combinator on his first attempt. David has very much followed the Lean Start-up methodology in his rise to fame. He shares valuable insights on his own lean path to success, eventually landing a spot in Y-Combinator, one of the world's most renowned accelerator programs in Silicon Valley. David never gave up, admitting this was one of the key attributes top accelerators like Y-Combinator look for in founders. We hope you enjoy. A huge thank you to our sponsors Chinaccelerator and People-Squared and to our crew, Darren, David, Qi, and Chrystal.

Steve interviews an expert in the field of publicity, Rebecca Hasulek. Rebecca is the author of DIY PR: Public Relations and Content Hacks for the Lean Start-up. Her expertise is particularly suited for small business owners, because of her background in entrepreneurship. In the interview she covers such things as the best way to start, how to make an impact and become a "thought leader", how to get your information to the right people, among a lot of other very valuable information. Don't forget, you can submit your question for an "Ask An Expert Live" segment by sending an email to theselfemployed@yahoo.com. Subscribe to the Small Business Success RSS Feed to get weekly podcasts automatically! Or, listen on iTunes!

Steve Blank speaks to Julie Gould about the Lean Start-up model for entrepreneurs. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.