Lean Startup & Problem- Hypotheses
Follow the principles of Lean Startup
Traditionally, a new product has often been planned in secret for a long time, then fully developed with all its functions and then launched on the market.
This process has often taken longer than a year. However, this approach assumes that you can perfectly assess the market and future users and have all the information you need before the launch, e.g. who the customer is, what their needs are and how they will interact with the new product.
Unfortunately, this is rarely the case in today's world, especially when developing innovative products. And so it has very often happened that after completion of the product, it has been shown that the users do not accept the product and a lot of time and money has been wasted in development. This is why an alternative and more flexible approach has become established in recent years: Lean Startup. With the principles of Lean Startup, you can test and validate your idea quickly and cost-effectively to see whether the planned product works and learn from its users in the process. Instead of investing a lot of time (and possibly even money) in the development of a fully functional product, you only build a slimmed-down version of the product with as few resources as possible, but which contains the core functionality or mode of operation, and make it available to users to see whether it solves the targeted problem of the users. This slimmed-down product is referred to as a minimum viable product (MVP) in the Lean Startup environment.
One principle of Lean Startup is that everything you believe about the users and their interaction with the future product are only hypotheses. We assume that the users have a certain problem with existing solutions and that they like our solution much better and that it is exactly what they need - but we don't know. With the MVP, we want to test as quickly and cost-effectively as possible whether the core hypotheses we assume are correct and put the product in the hands of real users.
User feedback allows you to quickly learn whether the idea of the new product works and then improve the product and test it again. This results in a continuous, iterative cycle of building, testing and learning, with the help of which the product is developed in a user-oriented manner, the business model is tested and there is no risk of developing products without the user in mind.
It has been shown that the most successful start-ups and product development teams are those that keep the lead time of this cycle as short as possible and only need a few weeks or even days to test new hypotheses and learn from user feedback.
The MVP does not have to be a fully programmed app, a finished product or a perfectly defined service. Even if you want to build an app, for example, it doesn't even have to be digital. For example, to test the core hypotheses of a new job platform and find out how students evaluate and select a job, it is enough to search for job advertisements from your own city on the Internet and approach students in the canteen of a university and go through the job search process with them. This process teaches you a great deal about the behavior of users and whether your own assumptions are correct.
Step 1: Problem-Hypothesen
Before we start building something concrete, it makes sense to first define what you want to build. Formulating this in a few sentences not only helps you to become more concrete, but also creates something stable that you can develop further. It also serves as a basis for discussion. The most important part of the creation process is the exchange with other people who can support you or who would even buy your future product. Their feedback helps you to continuously improve the idea.
Start with the problem that you are solving.
You probably already have an idea for a product or service.
First of all, it is important that you know what you want to build and why you want to do it. All new products, services or applications don't start with the solution and various functions of it, but with a problem: Why do you want to develop this product and why should other people use it.
For example, let's say you want to develop a job platform for students: What bothers you about current solutions where students can find jobs? Do any of your friends have the same problem? What exactly does it look like?
Task 1: Write down the problem you want to solve in a few sentences. Try to specify as well as possible who the people are who have this problem and why existing approaches do not solve the problem well.
Example: Students in almost all subject areas are looking for opportunities to earn money and gain practical experience alongside their studies. Since companies have to pay a lot of money per ad on the major job portals, student jobs are often not advertised there at all and are rather advertised directly at the university on bulletin boards or via individual professors. This means that students only have access to a small selection of job offers that are relevant to them and may miss out on the right offer.
Converts the problem statement into hypotheses
In the lean startup approach, we assume that everything we think we know is just a hypothesis. In our example, we have assumed that many students are looking for opportunities to earn money and gain practical experience alongside their studies. If we don't validate this assumption, but build a product right away, then we can get into trouble: If the problem assumption on which we have built everything is not correct, we build a product that does not solve a problem for our target group and they therefore see no reason to use it. We have invested a lot of time (and perhaps money) in a product for nothing. That's why it's important to validate hypotheses early on and to recognize for yourself in the first step that there are only hypotheses that you are not 100% sure are correct.
Task 2: Translate your problem into hypotheses. If you have already validated hypotheses in discussions with (potential) customers, you are welcome to write this down.
Example for hypotheses:
Students in almost all subject areas are looking for opportunities to earn money alongside their studies.
Students in almost all subject areas are looking for opportunities to gain practical experience in the professional world alongside their studies.
Companies avoid large job platforms for student jobs because they are too expensive.
Companies only advertise student jobs via notice boards at universities or directly via professors.
...
The next step is to confirm or reject these hypotheses, e.g. in our example by talking to students and companies to see whether the problem really exists in this form. We will look at the best way to do this next week.
Value Proposition Canvas:
Another way of visualizing problems and potential customer interests is the value proposition canvas. To what extent do you make your customers' world better ("gains") and what "pains" ("pains") do you relieve them of?
This article explains the Value Proposition Canvas in more detail:
Task 3: Fill out the right side of the value proposition canvas on your Notion team page.
Tasks for this chapter 💪
The Weekly Report
We have learned from the startup teams that we support in the Starterkitchen that commitment, goal setting and self-reflection are important components of the learning process and are crucial for the success of startups. That's why we ask you to create one report per chapter in which you document your progress. If you are a team of several people, please make a joint appointment to fill out the report together and plan your week.
If you are part of the Starterkitchen or an Opencampus course, please follow the instructions of your mentor on how to share the Weekly Report.
Last updated
