An intensive educational workshop, Lean Startup Machine teaches you to build solutions customers want.
By Hung Pham (Workshop Coordinator, Lean Startup Machine)
Time is money and we’re in the business of saving both. Join the movement that is transforming how new products are being built and launched. Attend a Lean Startup Machine workshop today – I’m coordinating one the next one in Palo Alto on September 7. An intensive educational workshop, this is where entrepreneurs and innovators learn how to build solutions customers want. You’ll learn and experience more in 3 days than most do in 6 months.
Your ultimate success is not contingent on your original “idea” but how you apply the Lean principles. Lean Startup Machine Palo Alto winner CrowdJewel is a perfect example. CrowdJewel is the world’s first jewelry design platform. Headed by CEO Courtney McColgan, a Stanford business school graduate, the team staged a 15-hour jewelry competition that attracted 75 designs from 14 countries and garnered 600 votes. After announcing a victor in its contest, the team was able to confirm sales by tracking traffic from its landing page to the designer’s site.
It’s not as important where you start, only that you start now. Groupon started as a platform for group social activism, YouTube started as a dating site, Dropbox went from 100,000 users to over 4,000,000 in just 15 months. Start learning. Start talking to customers. Start searching for viable solutions.
Over the course of the Lean Startup Machine weekend, you will do the following:
- Ideate a startup or work on the one you have now
- Practice customer discovery
- Research your target market
- Practice customer development
- Test your assumptions in iterations
- Understand your business model
- Iterate and pivot when necessary
Build something you can launch. Eliminate unnecessary features and focus on the ones people want. Build minimum viable products (iterative experiments or “hacks”) that will save you tens of thousands of dollars in development costs, and even more importantly, time.
Who’s this event for? Lean Startup Machine is NOT a hackathon. You should attend if your risk of finding users and customers is substantially higher than the risk of actually being able to build the technology. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come!
Got an idea of your own? Great. You’ll get a chance to deliver your elevator pitch at the kickoff. After voting, if your idea gets selected, you will be able to form a team and start working.
If you plan to work on an existing project… Bring at least one co-founder with you to the event if you plan to work on an existing project. If you have existing co-founders and none of them attend, you’ll have to work on a new startup idea. But don’t worry, you’ll still learn valuable skills that you can apply to your own business. Don’t show up looking for a technical co-founder… that’s not the goal of this experience.
No co-founders? No problem. You’ll meet many talented and smart people and have the opportunity to hear their new startup ideas. Whatever idea you work on, you will learn many valuable skills that you can later apply to your own business.
Win two tickets to the Lean Startup Machine in Palo Alto on September 7!
There are two ways to win:
- Sign up here to be entered into a drawing to win two free tickets. Refer a friend and increase your odds. There are no limits to the number of people you refer. Drawing will be held on August 1.
- Leave a comment below on why you think you should attend Lean Startup Machine.
Most compelling comment wins! Winner will be decided on August 1, 2012.
Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
About the guest blogger: Hung Pham is a Workshop Organizer for Lean Startup Machine. He has worked for several Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley such as Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, and currently Yahoo. He is also a former Lean Startup Machine winner for the world’s first jewelry design platform, CrowdJewel. Follow him on Twitter at @Lean_BayArea.
