Original post by Kristen Mozian via StatesmanJournal
“The Lean Startup” has become a book that every tech entrepreneur has read and quotes regularly. Eric Reis, the author of the book, coined the term “lean startup” to reframe what it means to be a startup and the process that a startup should follow to ensure success… or at least to take a good stab at it. The main premise of the book is that a startup is simply a series of experiments. Experiments that have a hypothesis (an idea to test), limited variables to test (test certain aspects of your idea, not the whole idea at once), and success measurements (how you know when you succeeded or failed).
By executing and completing these experiments, you are continually refining and defining your product and target market. Through the experiments, you might find out that no one will buy your product, or that a completely overlooked demographic is actually your target market. In the long run, testing small aspects of your idea will save you time and money because you will be forced to focus on the product that will sell and not on superfluous aspects of your business that do not contribute to your bottom line.
While “The Lean Startup” is written specifically for tech startups, the principles can be and must be applied to small start-up business and social ventures. Here are some examples on how applying the lean start-up principles might look in a small business.
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