The Best Advice We Heard in 2016
By Jennifer Maerz, Contributing Editor of Lean Startup Co.
Reducing uncertainty is one of Lean Startup’s core tenets. We want to help you eliminate that whole attitude of “Well, we assume it’s gonna work” from your teams so you can get out there and really test what’s right for your audience and your organization. In place of guesswork, we’re handing over tools from an array of experts through an array of channels (webcasts, virtual workshops, meetups, summits, conferences, blog posts). Come 2017, know that we’ll be back with even more road-tested strategies to share from leaders across industries and around the world.
Before we close our laptops on 2016, though, we wanted to take a moment to share the eight most popular pieces of expert advice from across all our content channels. We hope that strategies that’ve already inspired so many people in our community will also inspire you.
Here’s to creating a positive, long-term impact on the lives of our customers by stepping further outside our comfort zones in 2017. Have a great New Year.
How to Get Buy-In to Drive Change (blog post)
Cindy Alvarez heads innovation at Yammer (Microsoft). She’s also a total pro at breaking down a task that can feel overwhelming into manageable and actionable tips.
Guy Kawasaki’s Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs (blog post)
The legendary entrepreneur divulges excellent nuggets of wisdom, including “the opposite of success is not failure, it’s learning.”
5 Steps to Go From Concept to Product (blog post)
Heather McGough, co-founder of Lean Startup Co., describes a five-day sprint that helps teams refine their UX design process.
5 Experiments You Need to Find Product Market Fit (virtual workshop)
Learn by doing in this virtual workshop with Justin Wilcox, founder of Customer Development Labs, who takes us through validating product-market fit for your specific startup. (Main lesson starts at 7:10)
Scaling Lean with Ash Maurya (video)
How do you know when an idea is worth pursuing? What hypothesis should your team test first? Ash Maurya breaks down concepts from his 2016 book, Scaling Lean: Master the Key Metrics for Startup Growth, in this webcast.
How to Empower Your Employees to Act Like Entrepreneurs (blog post)
Heather McGough breaks down the cornerstones of empowering teams to think like founders — including enforcing a culture where leaders shouldn’t always know the answers.
The Minimum Viable Product Balancing Act (blog post)
Lean Startup Co. training faculty member Hugh Molotsi breaks down the considerations that are most helpful in framing MVPs.
How Basecamp Defined a Movement and Stayed at the Top (article)
Basecamp founder Jason Fried revolutionized project management — here’s how he built such a great business.
