Lean Startup

We recently hosted a conversation between Sarah Paiji Yoo, Co-Founder & CEO at Blueland, and Chris Guest, Lean Startup Co. Advisor, about how becoming a mom led Sarah to create a company that is reimagining how we consume household products to eliminate the need for wasteful plastic packaging.

In Chris and Sarah’s conversation, they discuss:

- How Sarah got the idea for Blueland and why she felt so compelled to solve the problem of wasteful plastic packaging.

- How the team developed and tested their first product idea: toothpaste

- How they took these initial learnings and pivoted to cleaning spray products.

And much, much more…

When serial entrepreneur Sarah Paiji Yoo became a new mom, she wasn’t looking to find her next business idea. She had made the conscious decision to step back from work to find a balance between being a new parent and being a businesswoman. But it was the very act of being a mom that gave her the idea for what would eventually become her company, Blueland.

Sarah was horrified to discover how many microplastics are in the water she was using to mix formula for her baby — the very same water that we all drink. She discovered that all of the plastic we consume in society is ending up in our oceans and waterways where they’re broken down into microscopic microplastics that end up in our food and drinking water.

So Sarah made the conscious decision to cut back on her own plastic consumption. But she quickly discovered that was easier said than done. Oftentimes, there aren't any items on the shelves that give consumers a choice to opt for something more eco-conscious. From ketchup bottles to toothpaste to detergent, it’s all single-use plastic packaging.

But rather than getting discouraged, Sarah got an idea. She realized that she could go beyond having an impact on her personal consumption, by creating products that gave all consumers a more Earth-friendly alternative.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Chris Cochella, Executive Business Coach at Sequoia Group, and Adam Berk, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Member, about the value and application of mental models for extremely uncertain Lean Startup situations.

In Chris and Adam’s conversation, they discuss:

- What is a mental model and how can they help you?

- What is first conclusion bias and how can it help and/or hurt you?

- Three critical mental models that can help the Lean Startup entrepreneur subvert the first conclusion bias.

And much, much more…

Lean Startup methods are intended to reduce uncertainty in a highly uncertain environment. Warren Buffett likes to say, “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars, I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” As entrepreneurs, we are looking to lower the height of the uncertainty hurdle while making decisions and moving forward. Another way to look at this approach is to create a situation where: heads, I win; tails, I don’t lose much. The Lean Startup approach is all about using all available tools to reduce the hurdle height and increase the likelihood of winning. It’s about stacking the odds in your favor.

Lean Startup is a toolbox full of mental models to stop and interrupt the waste caused by simplistic, fast, and easy “first order thinking” like cognitive biases. Applying Lean Startup mental models helps to provide deliberate, valuable “second order thinking” to the entrepreneur and intrapreneur that will help reduce uncertainty. While many people are familiar with mental models, we will highlight the value and application of mental models for extremely uncertain Lean Startup situations.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Brock Blake, Founder & CEO of Lendio, and Marilyn Gorman, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Lead, focused on the decision to pivot one successful company into another that served a completely different niche of the market while embracing the importance of accountability.

In Brock and Marilyn’s conversation, they discuss:

- How Brock got started in the world of entrepreneurship and decided which problem to focus on.

- How a pivot from his first idea eventually led to Lendio.

- The “be the CEO of your job” mentality and how this builds accountability for Lendio employees.

And much, much more…

Brock Blake stumbled into the world of entrepreneurship when he was still attending college at BYU. He was studying finance and won an entrepreneurship competition that awarded him $50,000 to start a business. The only problem was that he didn’t exactly know what he wanted to do, much less how to go about launching into the business world.

Instead of diving in headfirst into the first idea or opportunity that presented itself, Brock decided to learn about the business of going into business. If he was going to be successful, he knew he needed to know how to be an entrepreneur. So he did his own market research and spoke to business owners in different areas of the market to know what it was like. In doing that research, he recognized a common thread between all the businesses: they needed capital. “I realized...that this was a big market, a big opportunity and a big pain that I thought we could solve.”

Empowered with the idea of helping businesses get on their feet, Brock launched his first business, Funding Utah (which would evolve to be Funding Universe) — which helped connect entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and angel investors. But the reality is that only one or two percent of entrepreneurs have the type of company that can or will raise money through investors. Most businesses are main street businesses, like restaurants, retail shops, landscapers or construction companies that need small business loans. “It’s not great to have a business where [you’re turning away] 98% of your customers because they’re not going to raise money,” Brock says.

So instead of staying focused on a small equity-seeking segment of the market, they decided to pivot and focus on the larger, loan-seeking 98%. And thus, Lendio — a company focused on helping small business owners get access to capital — was born.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Maryana Iskander, CEO at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, and Ann Mei Chang, Executive Director of Lean Impact at Lean Startup Co., focused on the pioneering work of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in South Africa and their efforts to tackle the global youth unemployment crisis.

In Maryana and Ann Mei’s conversation, they discuss:

- How Harambee focused their efforts on solving problems for two customers - young people looking for a job and businesses needing to hire.

- How they used data to guide their problem solving efforts and what some of the key learnings were.

- Their efforts to scale their work to Rwanda and what the key challenges have been.

And much, much more…

South Africa has a big problem on its hands. Even though they make up less than 1% of the world’s population, they have one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. It’s a problem that’s compounded over time. Every year, nearly two-thirds of young people who enter the job market end up unemployed, resulting in a population of between six and nine million unemployed young people.

It’s a problem not easily solved. It’s not just a matter of not having enough jobs or a lack of the right type of education — although, those are big problems. But even at the most basic level, there are barriers to entry that are just now being recognized. Things like not having the resources to properly look for a job or enough money to afford transportation to an interview are factors that haven’t traditionally been considered in the past.

But when businesses began to recognize their difficulties in finding young people to fill open positions, they got together to try to find a solution. Their efforts led to the creation of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Today, the award-winning non-profit uses data and innovation to bridge the gap between employers and unemployed young people as they work to solve the global youth unemployment crisis.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Claire Lee, Head of Early Stage at Silicon Valley Bank, Liz Curtis, CEO & Founder at Table + Teaspoon, and CJ Legare, Lean Startup Co. Chief of Staff, about the realities facing female entrepreneurs today.

In Claire, Liz, and CJ’s conversation, they discuss:

- Why Liz decided to start Table + Teaspoon, a “Rent the Runway, but for table settings.”

- What Claire calls the “Single Digit Club” and what we can do to change it.

- The importance that mentors have played in both Liz and Claire’s career.

And much, much more…

Liz Curtis didn’t always intend to be an entrepreneur, least of all in the world of entertaining. In fact, she was studying to become a lawyer when she started Table + Teaspoon — a blog that featured decorating ideas, entertaining tips and recipes. The blog was initially just a creative outlet for Liz as she pursued her career as a corporate litigator, but eventually, it became a much bigger idea that she launched into a business.

In 2013, while she was still practicing law, Liz decided she wanted to build something “rather than tearing things apart,” the latter of which she felt she was doing as a lawyer. Liz pivoted on her career and started interviewing with startups to do something — anything — to hop aboard their rocket ship. But after verbally agreeing to join a startup about to launch their new app, she “realized that she’d rather build her own rocket ship.”

So in 2013, she left law behind and started looking at what tech-enabled solutions were needed in the entertaining space, a huge market lacking any innovation and thus ripe for disruption. After getting her hands dirty and exploring a little bit of everything in the industry — catering, interior design, flowers, weddings — she landed on her current business model which she describes as “Rent the Runway, but for table settings.” The bootstrapped idea launched as a prototype in the Fall of 2016, went nationwide in 2017, and late last year she started raising her seed money, which, according to Liz, “is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, including taking the California bar exam.”

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We recently hosted a conversation between Bec Evans, Co-founder of Prolifiko and author of "How to Have a Happy Hustle", and Elliot Susel, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Member, focused on the similarities between the world of writing and publishing and the world of startups.

In Bec and Elliot’s conversation, they discuss:

- The traditional, old-school practices of the publishing industry and why change is needed.

- How Bec utilized a Lean Startup approach to writing her new book.

- Current innovations happening in the publishing world and what the future of publishing looks like.

And much, much more…

There are few industries as steeped in traditional, old-school practices as publishing. Many of the major publishing houses have been around for tens (if not hundreds) of years and still haven’t really changed their business structures or publishing methods. But for Bec Evans, that just means there’s a lot of potential for things to become a bit more interesting.

Bec has spent her entire career working in and around the world of writing and publishing. She was managing a writer’s retreat when she had an idea for an app that would help writers complete their writing projects. By digging into the idea, she became interested in Lean Startup techniques — specifically what it would be like to work in a fast, iterative way — and began working on the app Prolifiko, a productivity tool for writers that helps them start and finish their writing projects.

But, she still needed to pay the rent, so Bec took a job working for a publisher. The company knew about her side hustle and got excited about the technology and the different things Bec was trying, so they created a new role for her in their company: Head of Innovation.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Julie Legault and Justin Pahara, Co-Founders of Amino Labs, and Hisham Ibrahim, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Member, focused on building a product designed to bring biotechnology — an area of science typically only accessible to experts in the field — to non-experts and beginners.

In Julie, Justin, and Hisham’s conversation, they discuss:

- How they discovered the problem with bringing biotechnology to beginners and how that led to the creation of Amino Labs.

- The iterative process they used to build a product that served their customer’s need, not their want.

- How they wrote a book about genetic engineering for beginners using an iterative process.

And much, much more…

When Julie Legault was a masters student at the MIT Media Lab, she was encouraged to try new things and to do things she wouldn’t normally do. So when Justin Pahara’s first startup, Synbiota, put on a workshop about a new technology called synthetic biology, Julie gave it a try.

For her, it was a game changer. “I just discovered something amazing and I can make projects with this,” she remembers thinking. She and her fellow grad students got really interested in synthetic biology and all of its applications, so they tried to utilize their new knowledge in MIT’s biotech lab. But that’s where Julie recognized a big problem in the biotech space — there was a huge barrier to entry. If you weren’t an expert, it was very difficult to learn or gain any type of experience in it.

Initially embarrassed by her inexperience, Julie turned the idea that there are no tools that allow beginners to get interested in biotechnology into her graduate thesis. She got overwhelmingly positive feedback, so she kept moving forward with the idea. Eventually, it led her to getting back in touch with Justin for his help and expertise in the area. Together, they founded Amino Labs, a company that builds hardware and provides experiences that makes bioengineering accessible to children and non-scientists.

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We recently hosted a conversation between Chris Cochella, Founder & Co-Owner at Brackitz, and Marilyn Gorman, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Lead, focused on how the desire to find better engineering toys for his son turned into an idea to create a toy to help promote STEAM learning in young children.

In Chris and Marilyn’s conversation, they discuss:

- What problem drove Chris to start Brackitz.

- The process Chris went through to test his early assumptions with his customers (teachers and students).

- The importance of letting your curiosity fuel you.

And much, much more…

Like many new product beginnings, the idea behind Brackitz came out of a personal need. After he started a science program at his kids’ elementary school, Chris Cochella, founder and co-owner of Brackitz toys, realized that there wasn’t a lot of hands-on science or engineering tools available for young children. To Chris, this was a problem.

Right now, the National Science Foundation says that the declining interest in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) is a national concern. As Chris was looking more into the issue, he discovered that spatial play and spatial reasoning is a very strong predictor of STEAM related things, including degree attainment and math skill development in children ages three to four.

In a world where kids are increasingly on digital devices, how do we get them to willingly put those devices down and start playing more with their hands?

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We recently hosted a webcast conversation between Dante Vitagliano, Political Consultant at Pinnacle Campaign Strategies, and Marilyn Gorman, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Lead, focused on how Lean Startup can be used to run political campaigns.

In Dante and Marilyn’s conversation, they discuss:

- The similarities between startups and running political campaigns.

- The 3 major phases in the political process where using a Lean Startup approach can help campaigners.

- How to do experimentation and learning inside a political campaign.

And much, much more…

When it comes to political campaigns, Dante Vitagliano wants to build a better business model. When he and his partners started Pinnacle Campaign Strategies, they set out to solve some of the problems they consistently saw happening in political campaigns. To Dante, applying the Lean Startup methodology to their campaign efforts made sense. “There are so many similarities between the startup landscape and what we as [...] campaign professionals face on the day-to-day,” he says.

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We recently hosted a webcast conversation between Pete Oliver-Krueger, Agile, Lean, and Teal Managing Consultant; Jim Damato, Agile Specialist; and Heather McGough, Lean Startup Co. CEO & Co-Founder focused on how Lean Startup is applied in politics.

In Pete, Jim, and Heather’s conversation, they discuss:

- Why it’s so important to apply Lean Startup in the political arena and how it can be done.

- The key lessons learned from Jim’s former startup, TruthinessCheck, which used crowdsourcing to do fact checking.

- The future of innovation in politics.

And much, much more…

Email us: [email protected]

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