When we look at that equation from an internal perspective our vision is based on a confidence in the model. However, when you look at it externally - how arrogant.

Unless your idea and model is truly unique and untested, which by the way is at least slightly delusional, why do you believe in the greatness hasn't already been tested and discarded?

So let's start with minimizing risk until you have sufficient real-time data to have real confidence in your idea and model; and that starts with the offer and processes.

Minimize the risk for the first offer by reducing the initial development investment while providing just the core features needed to make the sale.

​The challenge with the first offer is the number of critical assumptions that must be made and how those can be tested or minimized.

Building the MVO is never a finished product or service, it is a process to build right enough the first time and improve from there. Identifying the bare minimum features and functionality to engage the target market that is upgraded with each successive upgrade.

Topics: What Is The Minimum You Must Build to Make the First Sale - MVOffer? Given the product or service, what is the MVOrganization?

Understand what you are testing.

This might seem over simplistic but it gets at the first problem - are you a solution looking for a problem (finding the right customer) or building the right offer for a specific customer (the customer is known)?

Topics: ALL STOP - A Startup Is Not A Business, It Is An Experiment! What Must You Know Before Starting The Startup What To Build and When to Build It? (Right Customer or nature of the Offer) One More Thing Before You Start - How Are The Best of The Best Doing It

The first chasm problem is reality - what are the market conditions that will determine the offer and its price point.

Topics: Turning The Plan Into Reality Draw A Picture Of The Competitive Landscape How Do Customers Make Buying Decisions

Most companies as they mature develop a R&D process for the developing improvements or something new. We are advocating this is the first process to develop and is the inverse - D&R - Development & Research.

Topics: Your Core Process - Agilean Never Build On Spec, Find A Partner Managing The Mess Using Teams What If You Could Put Your Feet Up On The Desk During The Workday?

​"The World Of Business At Your Finger Tips"

If I could leave you with one thought about this series - it is taozen.

EPISODE 1: HOW MUST YOU THINK TO BUILD THE OPERATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF A STARTUP BUSINESS

Today's show is using the concept of MVO to introduce what is really required to build a startup - constant experimentation to test assumptions, build quick and test ideas to get it right.

Minimize the risk for the first offer by reducing the initial development investment while providing just the core features needed to make the sale. 

​The challenge with the first offer is the number of critical assumptions that must be made and how those can be tested or minimized. 

Building the MVO is never a finished product or service, it is a process to build right enough the first time and improve from there. Identifying the bare minimum features and functionality to engage the target market that is upgraded with each successive upgrade.

• Show 1: What Is The Minimum You Must Build to Make the First Sale - MVO
• Show 2: How Do Operations Look Like In A Startup?

• Show 3: ALL STOP - A Startup Is Not A Business, It Is An Experiment!
• Show 4: What Must You Know Before Starting The Startup
• Show 5: What To Build and When to Build It?
• Show 6: One More Thing Before You Start - How Are The Best of The Best Doing It

• Show 7: Turning The Plan Into Reality
• Show 8: Draw A Picture Of The Competitive Landscape
• Show 9: How Do Customers Make Buying Decisions

1. Show 10: Your Core Process - Agilean
2. Show 11: Never Build On Spec, Find A Partner Show
3. 12: Managing The Mess Using Teams Show
4. 13: What If You Could Put Your Feet Up On The Desk During The Workday?

This week we are taking the same minimalist approach only instead of the offer, it is the processes required to build the offer and support systems to ensure the first sale is successful.

EPISODE 5: BUILD ONLY WHAT YOU MUST BUILD As we discussed in Show 1, all startups are really experiments and not businesses. Therefore your goal is the keep everything simple and easy to test: limited variables, simple processes, quick production & testing, easily improved.

Topics: Minimum process possible to 'produce' the offer Minimum processes possible to service the account

Topics: Selection of the Right Customer, or Features of the Offer

Topics: Variables Customer Inputs Processes Output

Topics: Requirements Matrix Customer Requirements / Design Requirements Design Matrix Design Requirements / Engineering (Process) Design Product (Offer) Characteristics Product Characteristics / Engineering Design

That is all we can accomplish today. In Show 7 we will build 3 hypothetical matrix's to demonstrate the simplicity of the process.

Show 2 expanded on the 'Startup as an Experiment' idea to cover some of the tools which we will expand on today.

EPISODE 9: WHAT IS THE PLAN TO BUILD THE PROTOTYPE? This is consulting in its purest form - knowing the questions to ask. Our experience is answers are easier than questions and when engaging in this type of experimental design to prove the business idea there are 3 distinct stages in the process. Although initially only the first two matter. Once you have a winning offer, the last stage takes you from a tested prototype to a repeatable and a 'manufacturable' offer.

Topics: What Is The Design? How Are You Going to Test It? What Must You Learn to Build It Right?

Topics: What is the Context of the Problem? Why is the Current State Not Working? Create a Problem Statement to Solve?

Topics: What Must We Know Before Starting? How Should We Build It to Learn? How Should We Measure Performance?

You will have proven the business idea is viable and there is at least an early market for you offer. Now you can focus on building a full featured offer and standardizing the support process. You have made the transition from an experiment to a business.

Topics: What are the Sprints (Steps) Required to Build It? How Do We Involve the Vx of the Customer? How to Manage Incremental Improvements to a Finished Offer?

What really starts the process is your analysis of the bigger issues, the market, and competitors.; and that is where we are today.

EPISODE 13: MARKET RESEARCH There are many ways to define market research. For our purposes we will look at it from the 3 Levels from a Macro to a Semi-Micro perspective. The goal is simple. Bring to market the MVO that will capture market share because it is a better match between what the customer wants and any of the known alternatives.

Topics: Level 1: RESZ - Regulatory, Economic, Scientific, Zeitgeist Level 2: Competition - Primary Secondary, Tertiary

Topics: Market Size Market Growth Market Segments

Topics: Aspirations & Pain Points Features & Benefits Price Point

Topics: Building spreadsheets: (RESZ, Markets, Competitors) Revisiting your plan for the prototype

EPISODE 17: WHY BENCHMARK? Benchmarking is nothing more than looking around a various industries: (1) your competitors, and (2) similar business models to identify how the best of the best are building, making, delivering their offer. You can either go in the dark and build it on your own or you can save yourself allot time and pain and learn from others.

Topics: Lowest Cost Producer of Best Quality Offer (LCP/BQO)

Topics: Performance: involves gathering and comparing quantitative data (i.e., measures or key performance indicators) Practice: involves gathering and comparing qualitative information about how an activity is conducted through people, processes, and technology. External: compares metrics and/or practices of one organization to one or many others

Topics: Statista Hoovers Dunn&Bradstreet SCORE Sizeup.com IBGR GROWTH APP

Topics: AS IS vs. SHOULD BE vs TO BE

"The World Of Business At Your Finger Tips" ​Join our Facebook Group Join our LinkedIn Group Download the mobile APP

This is the plan you need to build to ensure 3 things: (1) MVO, (2) customer offer match, (3) speed to market.

This entire process can be accomplished in months and sometimes weeks depending on the complexity of the initial offer.

EPISODE 21: AGILE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN This is an overview of the planning process that puts the required structure into place that can be managed and tested. This will provide the script to build a MVO that the customer wants and do it without burning any more working capital than necessary.

Topics: Planning: Product Vision, Development Roadmap, Release Features, Project Iteration Designing: Understand, Research, Sketch, Design, Prototype, Test, Refine Execution: Discovery, Implementation Testing: Communications, 4 Quadrant Acceptance Deployment or Release: Client UX

Topics: Customer Requirements: complete list of needs and wants (X Axis)​ Design Requirements: what is required to build/make the offer (Y Axis)

Topics: Design Requirements: what is required to build/make the offer (X Axis) Engineering Requirements: convert Design to Engineering Speciation's (Y Axis)

You are now ready to move from mostly planning and research to implementation and using the Agile Cycle.

Topics: Engineering Requirements: Engineering Speciation's (X Axis) Product (Service) Requirements: Convert Engineering to Offer Characteristics - Results and UX (Y Axis)

EPISODE 25: WHAT ARE THE REAL SUCCESS FACTORS? OK time to pull our research together and focus on the specifics of the build, and that starts with customers. The following topics are the major areas you must drill down on to get a clear picture of required Design Requirements.

Topics: Targeted Customer Offer Characteristics Market Timing

Topics: Start with the smallest cohort group possible Understand how value is perceived by the targeted customer Find a co-development partner to test & validate Create a buying persona

Topics: Physical characteristics? What does the offer do? What additional value does it provide?

Topics: ​Where is the market for the initial offer? Innovation, Early Adopter, Early Majority, Later Majority, Laggards Where is the market/customer in the sales cycle? Where does the company stand in brand awareness? What are competitors selling that is similar to our offer? Where is economy and how will that influence timing of the buying decision?

Next Show: Creating a list of testing variables.

The second issue is when testing the components, there is enough functionality that a solid conclusion can be drawn.

Topics: Usability Performance (Results) Emotional Connection

The owner's job is to interact with their peers to gain feedback on the 3 areas of concern - usability, performance, and connection with the offer. You can also venture into pricing by establishing what is the maximum you can charge.

The design team works with prospective customers to validate all of the functionality and features you intend to build.

Topics: Executive Meetings with 'decision makers' - multiple customers Focus Groups between 'buyers & users' and designers - 1 customer

Topics:​ Process Design Material Environment Compliance/Testing

Topics: Executive Meetings with 'decision makers' - multiple customers Focus Groups between 'buyers & users' and designers - 1 customer

Next Show: Creating a list of testing variables part 2

Topics: Selecting the right customer - A review Part of a fast growing industry and/or market Unsatisfied or neutral about the current offer purchased Willing to help design a solution for them? First Meeting Share the big picture - who you are, what you are trying to accomplish as a company - create a desire to be affiliated Focus on the offer - why this offer, what you have researched and learned to date - surprise and intrigue with your understanding Overview: Physical characteristics, What does the Offer Do, What additional Value does it provide Schedule Second Meeting - allow the customer to share and discuss internally and create a second meeting to capture their requirements ​Second Meeting ​Restate the objective for the meeting - what new offer are you building to solve which customer problem Work with the group to fine tune the offer's goal - what problem will it solve Inquire about the positives and negatives of the offer currently being purchased Create a list of customer needs; ensure you capture both what it must do (results) and what will make it user-friendly Request volunteers to help in the design and build process Schedule third meeting for gaining closure on the list Third Meeting Prior - clean the list and rework into your design process Share your list for agreement Solicit participants for Focus Groups

The Focus Group's role in the beginning is to validate the requirements for results and user-friendliness by talking to the people doing the work.

​We will come back this later as the prototype is being built. The Agilean Process requires the Focus Group to test the prototype as it is being built.

Topics: Group members - marketing, sales, production, distribution, service Create a group charter for working together Have each person (1) discuss their role in the company, and (2) their role with the new offer Share the requirements list and have them prioritize the items in 2 lists: (1) results, (2) user-friendliness Solicit for requirements missing from the list, add, and re-rank Review the final list and gain agreement

Topics: Fourth Executive Meeting Share results from focus group and finalize the weighted design characteristics Request that members of the focus be available to help during production to ensure we are building what we promised

In Show 4 we covered the key questions to start build the prototype. Let's take that a little deeper.

Topics: What Is The Design? ​Build a model of the initial process How Are You Going to Test It? ​Do a walk through, imagine what happens at each step and record the initial brainstorm What Must You Learn to Build It Right? ​Based on the walk through and brainstorming - make 3 lists: based on facts, where are you certain (no assumptions); based on a few assumptions - where do you have reasonably certain; what don't you know This is list is where the Design Phase and the Development meet.

Next Show: The Agilean Design, Development, and Production Processes

Topics: ​Vision for the New Offer Reason for the Team How this Team Supports the Business 3 Key Results the Team Must Accomplish Team Member Roles Rules for Problem Solving & Decision Making Rules for Dealing with Conflict Time Demands for Team Members Principles of Agile Projects and Sprints

Topics: Goals are the customer's, objectives are the team's - what is the big picture (goal) then break it into required activities (objectives). Requirements Matrix Design Matrix Offer Characteristics Matrix Avoid details until the latest possible moment - focus on estimating time and topics. Based on the topics break everything down into the smallest pieces possible - the Sprints. Create a Road Map of how the project will evolve over time - what question/problem/issue is each Sprint solving. Sprint Planning based on the Agile Cycle - include resource requirements.

The Sprints are short-term, time boxed to accomplish a segment of work. The output of a Sprint provides the basis of the next Sprint; each is an incremental accomplishment to reach an end result.

Topics: SCRUM 1: Exploration - goal is to go from problems (opportunities) to solutions. Define: create user story Explore: identify all of the root causes / drivers Validate: test root cause / drivers to select highest probability solutions Iterate: test each solution to isolate the 1 SCRUM 2: Testing - goal is to develop the right solution right. Explore: research market leaders, best in class providers for a building a first version; process or offer. Update - upgrade solution from SCRUM 1 and build first process or offer. Validate - use it internally (1.0 or alpha version) to determine if (1) produces expected results, (2) how user friendly is consumption. Iterate - based on 1.0 test, upgrade the process or offer SCRUM 3: Development - goal is generate new business Explore: prepare client test (2.0 or beta version), control the controllables Update: with install team, fix issues as it arises to meet results and use expectations. Validate: review the client results and compare against storyboard - adjust as necessary. Iterate: prepare the release offer (version 3.0)

Topics: Control of Inputs: select only customers that fit your brand and skill sets, QFD (Requirements, Design, and Offer Characteristics Matrices). Control of Throughput: Project and Sprint processes Control of Output: Offer Characteristics Direct Supervision: SCRUM Master or Owner/Facilitator on Timeboxing and accountability. Cultural Boundaries: reduce variation by creating a set of behavioral boundaries. Standardization of Skills: technical competence, industry competence, teamwork competence.

Topics: Select the core customer requirements that represent the total offer you can test Select the design requirements that represent the total offer you must build

Topics: Define what success looks like Assign roles Determine which problem and decision making tools you will use Gain agreement on how conflict will be resolved

Topics: The Define Sprint The Explore or Update Sprint The Validate Sprint The Iterate Sprint