3 lean startup tips from author of ‘Fail Fast or Win Big’ Bernhard Schroeder

Bernhard Schroeder is the author of Fail Fast or Win Big: The Startup Plan for Starting Now. He is Director of Programs at the Lavin Entrepreneurship Centre at San Diego State University (SDSU). Published author, lecturer at SDSU and marketer. Earlier in his career, he led marketing communications agency CKS Partners, and has been a brand expert for Apple, Nike, GM, Yahoo, ESPN and Amazon.

Last week I had the privilege of meeting Bernhard in person after watching his Entrepreneurship lecture targeted to MBA students. One of his early remarks was:

I am working with about 20 small startups today. They range in revenue from USD 400,000 to USD 12 million. Most times, their early success comes from moving quickly to drive sales or market share.

Here are 3 lean startup tips I picked up from his lecture. I also picked these up from research about his book Fail Fast or Win Big: The Start-Up Plan for Starting Now

1 — “Importance of prototyping and engaging customers as early as possible” — Bernhard speaks about the importance of prototyping and speaking to customers as early as possible in the process of creating your own business. This is paramount to collect feedback and test ideas with very low risk. In his own words: Customers may not always be right, but they are never wrong. The upside: you can reach potentially game changing solutions very early on and iterate on those continuously. This is the best way you can find customer Truth — the moment where you understand customers real problem and the what they feel the solution should look like. He puts this idea brilliantly with a couple of case studies he has picked up from years of mentoring of startups. Ultimately, all examples he provides point to the importance of keeping an open mind and that the marketplace is the judge of all ideas. Your opinions do not matter and customer choices are the only proof of what is right and what can be improved.

2 — “By the time you finish writing a business plan, its obsolete” — Bernie has redefined himself and continuously evolves in his thinking by analyzing trends and he says he owes most of his success to “being extremely curious”. His way of engaging the audience is challenging: after all business plans are obsolete is not an opinion you expect to hear coming from the former Professor of the Business Plan course at San Diego University. Bernhard walks the talk and shows proof he is constantly looking for ways to evolve in his thinking. He goes further when stating: “markets are moving too fast and marketplace windows are opening and closing all the time”. He also saved a minute or two to share stories of how his beliefs have led to status quo shaking discussions during his professional career and tenure at college.

3 — “Students and entrepreneurs are no different than you: the only difference is that they view failure as an opportunity to have fun”

How does he illustrate this idea? He presents to the audience what the entrepreneurship day at SDSU campus is: an event which gathers 15000 students all trying to sell something to other students at college. The idea behind the whole thing? Anyone can sell something and test an idea. He challenges the audience again: You know what I love about students? Their tolerance for risk is amazing. Somewhere on kindergarten we got the tolerance for risk beaten out of us. You can also check his TedTalk where more examples of this idea and case studies are provided.

While reaching his conclusions, one of the metaphors he used was: “Diamonds aren´t pretty until they are pressured and polished” in an allusion that the same is valid for ideas. And the pressure and polish is what entrepreneurship is all about. I found it graceful when I realized he had saved the very best for the end: Trust is the Key to Building your Company or Career! — I find this opinion so valuable that I will be dedicating a full post to this entire idea soon.

One final note: I was very fortunate to have met Bernhard. And it could not have happened if it had not been for the last 3 weeks where he came to Lisbon as part of his Entrepreneurship program. I had the opportunity to meet an amazing entrepreneur and mentor. What makes Bernhard different is how he really cares about Entrepreneurship and the way he lives his life: grabbing every single opportunity to improve his game.

If you are interested in knowing more about him, here his is bio. And here is his latest post focused on Why Lisbon Might Be the Next Startup Mecca.