Devops for Growth

“Quel est votre traction?” Une question presque inévitable dans l’écosystème startup. Pour y répondre honnêtement, et comme toujours en startup, le contexte de votre business vous aidera à définir la meilleure métrique qu’il faudra mettre en avant. Preuve tangible que votre startup prend son envol, la mesure de cette métrique et son amélioration seront la preuve tangible de votr

Formulation good research questions seems to be very hard. We prefer "open dialogue" methods above questionnaires, especially when you are not sure what to ask.

The way that the FAANG companies use metrics to build products is vital to their success. They invest an army of people and homegrown tools to pull it off. My last article, Balancing short-term and…

Quand le produit est lancé en commercialisation, Anaïs en voit déjà les limites et commence à penser à une V2 et une ouverture de capital. Elle prend quelques contacts dans les fonds d’investissement mais n’arrive pas à trouver leur adhésion : à cette époque les données du marché sont plutôt pessimistes malgré son début de traction (une vingtaine de clients dans le 1er mois).

Elle écume toutes les aides possibles pour le projet, puis sur les conseils du Réseau entreprendre et d’Atlanpole décide finalement, mais un peu à contrecœur, la transformation de BeApp en agence.

Interestingly enough, the article written by Steve Blank does intend to draw a clear line dividing those two approaches. The two main arguments supporting this division, according to Blank, are based on the different features of a startup compared to those of a established company, and they are as follows:

- A startup has a pressure and a sense of urgency (so that they don't run out of resources before validating their innovative proposal, which would imply to close that emerging company and to fire the team) much more noticeable than in the case of an established company that wants to explore an innovative project. This makes innovation processes (and, among them, learning from customers) to be different in one case or the other.

- Customer Development was conceived by Blank thinking about startups launched by "visionaries" that startup with a solid idea about a product and search for customers and markets wanting it. Thus, they have that pressure and sense of urgency to find those customer segments (and reaching product/market fit) before running out of resources. Design Thinking (at least according to Blank) is not devised thinking of an entrepreneur's vision of the product he/she wants to build. Instead, it focuses on "searching for problems/needs" using a process that attempts to reduce risk through learning and iterative refinement using prototypes.

The Start-up Owners Manual
This near-encyclopedic guide unlocks the secrets to startup success - walking you, step-by-step, through the tested and proven Customer Development process created by startup expert Steve Blank. Whether you're launching a physical channel startup or one that will sell through web/mobile channels, on these pages, you'll learn how to:

Use the Customer Development method to bring your business idea to life
Conduct your search for a scalable, profitable business model
Incorporate the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses
Find Product-Market fit
Get, Keep and Grow customers
Fuel growth with metrics that matter

Avoid the 9 deadly sins startups commit most often. The Startup Owner's Manual lays out the best practices, lessons and tips that have swept the startup world, offering a wealth of proven advice and information for entrepreneurs of all stripes.
Quick links:

Video: Steve Blank on entrepreneurship 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Video: Steve Blank, the start-up owners manual
Slides: Steve Blank, the nine deadly sins of start-ups
Paper: Steve Blank, the nine deadly sins of start-ups

This post describes a way of tracking growth experiments using Google Sheets.

You can find all of the templates in this Google Folder. The growth experiments belong to a method that is strongly based on Brian Balfour’s “How to build a Growth Machine” article. The original on www.coelevate.com no longer exists but this one KissMetrics article seems to contain most of the important points. In my opinion, Balfour’s writing and thinking is some of the smartest in the business.

The truth is that many startups make the same mistake of thinking if something doesn’t work, it must be everything, or they just guess the wrong reason why their business is not working. The truth is, any part of a customer’s experience can influence them. Here are some other metrics to consider, my own 5C Scorecard:

Customer Numbers A simple, binary index, set and measured for each period, provides visibility, clarity and simplicity of your North Star.

Conversion Rate to be a very telling KPI in that it reveals a combination of the company’s ability to sell its products to its customers and the customers’ desire for the product. It is particularly instructive to track and review Conversion Rate over time and regularly run experiments to improve.

Customer Acquisition Cost (‘CAC’) CAC is the unit cost of spend on sales and marketing, on average, to acquire a new customer. This tells us about the efficiency and effectiveness of our marketing efforts, although it’s more meaningful when combined with other metrics detailed below, and when measured over time.

Customer Retention Rate indicates the percentage of paying customers who remain paying customers during a given time period. The converse to retention rate is Churn (or Attrition), the percentage of customers you lose in a given period. When you see high retention rates over an indicative time period, you know you have a sticky product that is keeping customers happy. This is also an indicator of capital efficiency.

Customer Lifetime Value (‘CLTV’) is the measurement of the net value of an average customer over the estimated life of the relationship. Improving the ratio of CLTV/CAC is critical to building a sustainable company.

There is also one financial metric you need to keep a track on at this stage:

Cash Burn This is simply the net cashflow per month and is critical to the survival of any startup. Runway is the measure of the amount of time until have in terms of cash, expressed in terms of months.

Short Runways cause entrepreneurs to be myopic and removes the liberty to tweak and iterate when necessary. It also forces them to focus on the next fundraising round instead of on growing the business. It’s a separate discussion from this blog, but fund raising should be focused on milestones, not the runway.

Overview of steps

Complete the value proposition canvas
Build the simplest possible version of MVP
Test the MVP with real users

Lean LaunchPad is an entrepreneurship methodology created by Steve Blank to test and develop business models based on querying and learning from customers. It is based on the scientific method and combines experiential learning with the three building blocks of a successful lean startup: Alexander Osterwalder's "Business Model Canvas", Steve Blank's "Customer Development Model", and Agile Engineering.

Students of Lean LaunchPad propose and immediately test business hypotheses. They get out of the building to talk with prospective customers and partners, using this customer feedback acquired in these interviews to refine their product or service; ensure their product or service meets a customer need or solves a customer problem; and validate that they have created a repeatable, scalable business model.
Methodology

Lean LaunchPad pedagogy combines three elements: a Flipped Classroom, Experiential learning and Team-based learning. During the course, students interview potential customers in order to validate or invalidate their hypotheses, as expressed in the Business Model Canvas. Students listen to recorded lectures and presentations before each class, and use class time to present what they learned from customer interviews the previous week. Students present their findings which creates the basis for discussion, critiques, and brain-storming by both professors and students.[1]

As of 2021, the Lean LaunchPad has been taught in more than 300 universities worldwide to over 20,000 teams. More than 300,000 people have signed up for a free online version of the class[citation needed].