Lean, it comes from the manufacturing industry, and it is all about avoiding waste, both in time and in money. Steve Blank coined the term but it's truly the conglomeration of work from a number of key individuals including Steve Blank and Alexander Osterwalder.
At its core Lean Start-up is about waiting to scale the company until you have verified that you have a viable product that people will actually buy. The concept revolves around the idea of creating a "minimum viable product" and taking it to the customer for feedback based on the actual product. Through a series of iterations or pivots (taking the product back to the drawing board and tweaking it) you find the product-market fit.
Once the product finds its fit then it's time to scale up and spend money on marketing, staffing and launching.
The attractive thing about this concept is that it not only makes sense but it forces you to innovate.
Perhaps even more intriguing is that this concept can (and should) be applied to many other aspects of business, not just start-up's looking to scale to multi-million dollar sized corporations. Small business owners can use it to test new products and services, to test new website designs, sales tactics, marketing materials, business models and so much more.
We're big believers in the future of Lean and its applicability to Start-up, small business, innovation and business development. So much so that we've just recently launched our Lean Development consulting services and sponsored a Lean Start-up meetup group in St. Louis. Check out our Lean consulting services and our whitepaper and consider joining our Lean Start-up meetup group.
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