Scott Porad

Dear Dave, Eric and Lean Startup Meetup at SXSW Attendees,

Let me start by simply setting the record straight: Cheezburger absolutely supports the Lean Startup approach.

For those of you who weren’t at the meetup, in a poorly executed attempt at humor, I gave many the impression that Cheezburger doesn’t buy into the Lean Startup idea. This is incorrect; we have built much of our development processes around the approach, and continue to push ourselves to improve by better understanding how the ideas of a Lean Startup can be applied to our team.

I suppose the lesson here is that just because we run a network of funny web sites doesn’t mean that we’re actually funny people.  Haha…the joke’s on you!

In all seriousness, the question I asked at the event is an important one: if you buy into the ideas of a Lean Startup, then where is the best place to start?  I asked this question because…

• …when we talk about big new ideas, like Lean Startups, there are many, many different aspects and techniques that are discussed.  For a beginner, it can be overwhelming and confusing which can make it especially hard to see the forest through the trees.  As such, I thought it was important for Dave and Eric to give some concrete guidance to those in the room who wanted to experiment with these ideas.

• and, at Cheezburger we’ve been experimenting with Lean Startup ideas for about a year, so I wanted to know if the things we had been doing were those Eric and Dave thought were most important.

With that in mind, for those of you who weren’t there, allow me to summarize Eric and Dave’s answers to my question.

• Dave’s point of view was that the place to start was with a test.  One simple test.  I can’t remember his exact words, but he basically boiled it down to this: identify a customer segment, establish a hypothesis about that segment, make a change to product or marketing, run an A/B test, and measure the impact of the change.  With that new learning, then repeat the process again.

• Eric’s point of view was that the place to start was with a shift of mindset from thinking about delivering code as an achievement to thinking about a measurable learning as an achievement. For example, it might be better for us to measure the number of A/B test results we have, than to measure the number of story points of code we deliver.
   
  Eric went on to describe the practices of a Lean Startup as a three-tiered pyramid—the base of the pyramid is formed by the shift in mindset that he described; the second layer of the pyramid are some of the basic customer development practices, such as A/B testing and minimum viable products; the top of the pyramid are the software development practices such as Agile, TDD and continuous deployment. In his view, start at the bottom of the pyramid and work up.

I thought both of these answers were great, and terrific guidance for people who are just getting started with Lean Startup ideas.  And, of course, they mesh nicely—Dave gave us the practical, and Eric the philosophical.

Finally, in closing, I want to thank Ash Mauyra who organized the event.  I believe this meetup was a major step in advancing the cause of Lean Startup methodologies, and they wouldn’t have happened without Ash’s efforts!