emotional support for starting lean midway through product development

[kimsia sim]

Hi,

I joined the Lean Startup Machine http://leanstartupmachine.com/events/singapore-august-31-september-2/ over 31st Aug, 1st and 2nd Sept,

I posed this question to Florian of Flocations and to Hugh during Q&A.

So some of us in LSM are probably midway through product development already. So do we stop everything now and then re-start on the customer development validation process?  And what do we do if we have co-founders not here with us today? 

 

I recall that Florian suggested to me that if the co-founder is not onboard or find LSM too weird, that I should do the customer interviews solo.

If I recall correctly, Hugh said that the question was good and that I could try to sell it as a religious experience akin to an evangelist. 

He also said to think like a business person and re-think the relationship if the co-founders do not believe the importance of customer interviews.

I have two requests.

1) Could Florian and Hugh expand on their answers if I misrepresent them here?

2) Some advice/emotional support for me when I go back to my startup on Monday to talk to co-founder about interviewing people instead of spending all week doing product development?

I feel psychological pain to wean myself off product development and talk to co-founder about interviewing people because

 

a) it is psychologically comforting to just do what i am used to which is product development and

b) being evangelical on lean principles is new to me.

[Hugh Mason]

On Saturday, 1 September 2012 15:35:14 UTC+8, kimsia sim wrote:

Some of us in LSM are probably midway through product development already. So do we stop everything now and then re-start on the customer development validation process?

Our experience at JFDI.Asia is that successful start-ups need to do three things:

1. Truly understand a problem that's worth solving

2. Offer a solution that fits that problem

3. Find a fit between the solution and the market

The risk, if you haven't done customer discovery, is that you're not doing (1). You could be creating a solution that's addressing a non-problem, or an aspect of a real problem that customers don't really find that much of a problem. In which case, the longer you leave it before you find out, the more time and resources you are going to waste. Doing customer discovery now doesn't necessarily mean throwing away all you have done to date (though you must be prepared to do that, entering into the process).

 And what do we do if we have co-founders not here with us today? 

Maybe get them to read 'Running Lean' ?

 

If I recall correctly, Hugh said that the question was good and that I could try to sell it as a religious experience akin to an evangelist.

... well only if you truly believe in Lean. For what it's worth, I do. I don't think it's necessarily the final word on how to manage entrepreneurial innovation but, in 25 years as a creative/technical person, it's the first time I've come across a process that doesn't kill innovation while also directing it towards creating value. S$4.2million says it works, for the teams that went through JFDI.Asia's last bootcamp, anyway. 

He also said to think like a business person and re-think the relationship if the co-founders do not believe the importance of customer interviews.

I was assuming when I said that you're doing a project with the primary aim to be useful to customers, rather than doing basic research (focused on discovery of new phenomena) or an art project (focused on self-expression).

If I am right, then I suggest that it is reasonable to expect all co-founders to align in achieving a common understanding of those customers. This doesn't mean every co-founder has to be brilliant at doing customer interviews but it does mean that all co-founders take customer discovery seriously and participate in it, regularly, to stay in touch with the customer's view of the world.

If someone is brilliant but really isn't interested in active customer discovery, then perhaps they would be better in a role as a specialist employee, rather than a co-founder. But personally, I would still have doubts whether someone who doesn't care about customers is someone I would want in my company.

advice/emotional support for me when I go back to my startup on Monday to talk to co-founder about interviewing people instead of spending all week doing product development?

It's reasonable for your co-founder to need to be convinced this is the way to go, rather than simply taking your word for it. Blind faith is one thing but, actually, lean innovation is all about making judgements based on evidence. So it's also reasonable for you to expect even a skeptical co-founder to explore the value of customer discovery with an open mind.

If you are in business with a skeptic, one approach could be to suggest that you do customer discovery for a fixed period and see what comes out. Just make sure that:

a) you really are talking to customers rather than non-buying users (cats are the users of catfood, but the customers for catfood are cat owners), and

b) that you are doing what Ash Maurya calls a solution interview, not simply asking people to tell you that they like what you are putting in front of them.

 I feel psychological pain to wean myself off product development and talk to co-founder about interviewing people because

 

a) it is psychologically comforting to just do what i am used to which is product development

Thanks for sharing this. I admire you for stating this so explicitly. You are saying what most of us feel. Product development is the comfort zone but it is better to find out now if you are developing something that people don't want, while you still have time and energy to pivot, rather than later.

b) being evangelical on lean principles is new to me.

You don't need to be evangelical, unless that is how you feel. You could just be reasonable and say that an evidence-based approach to testing out the whole of your business proposition, not just the functionality of the product, makes sense.

Good luck and please let us know how things go next week :)

 

[Flo.]

As a way to execute on it for the coming week and manage your co-workers's feelings: don't scare them by saying everything they are doing should be stopped!

Tell them about your experience of the weekend, tell them that you would like to apply the process to your project...

- If they fall in love with it... great, you can put on hold the current development and do the lean process/customer discovery with them right away.
- If they understand but do no want to do it / not before finishing the current product development: Great, they are giving you more time to convince them... start the process by yourself, start the customer interviews, share results with them, invite potential customers at your office so your coworkers can easily join the interview...

- If they reject it ....   :(

All the best!

[kimsia sim]

Thank you Flo and Hugh for your detailed answers!!

Especially Hugh when you said that I should expect my co-founder to be a reasonable skeptic. That line really helped me to have the courage to be as honest as I can without sounding like a religious nutcase.

I just finished a 2 hour conversation on Skype with my co-founder.

He was trained as a designer so he is familiar with Lean concepts, though he calls it simply an "iterative process".

His personal view is that he does not believe in MVPs such as surveys or questionnaires work.

He believes in sitting down with the user and observing his reactions as he uses the product in a sandbox environment.

Long story short, we have both arrived at the conclusion of working towards a simple MVP that only has two functions working in 2 weeks time.

Which is a good beginning in slowly steering my startup towards Lean.

I understand that some of you may think I was worrying for nothing.

 The issue was that my co-founder as a designer was aiming for a value proposition in the product AND a superior experience at the same time.

See Meng's post on differences between experience vs solution http://jfdi.asia/2012/08/04/is-your-product-an-experience-or-a-solution-9/ 

I was scared that when I proposed a MVP of only 2 functions, or anything minimalist, he may object because a test that does not fully reflect the experience he wants our users to have is not a fair one.

Looks like I was wrong about my co-founder on that one.

Thank you for the support and advice. 

I may have to come back to you all very soon again for advice here in OpenFrog for more learnings.