I'm Sal

Thinking about doing some kind of Earlyvangelist t-shirt for swag or fund-raising for Leancamp. What do you think? Worth paying for? Would you wear something like this? (Tell me like it is - I can take the criticism if you think it's a silly idea!)

And if you like them, please let me know and sign up for the Leancamp waiting list. I'll make them available there first...

A validated hypothesis has the following components:

• Customer confirms that there is a problem.
• Customer doesn’t accept it the problem as “that’s life” or “it’s beyond my control.”
• Customer is already investing resources (time, money, learning curve) into trying to solve this problem.
• Customer is already investing behavioral change into trying to solve this problem.
• Customer does not have any constraints that prevent them from trying this solution.

A great way to think about how to determine who truly is an Earlyvangelist.

Cindy goes through some specific examples and counter-examples of things customers say, and how to see through the smoke-screens people put up when they intend to do something, but won't. For example:

Freda: “I joined my neighborhood gym and signed up for a trainer. It’s expensive, but if I know what I should be doing, I’ll be more likely to keep it up, unlike last time.”

Jasper: “Yeah, I really should lose some weight – that’s why I’m really interested to see what your product is, maybe it can help me!”

This is an important skill to pick up, since it will help you avoid proceeding and investing based on false signals in your interviews.

People don't seem to distinguish between Thomas Edison's perseverance and just dumb perseverance. Edison was solving a problem that everyone wanted solved! So he was persevering down the right path. It is knowing that you are on the right path that difficult to establish.

Here is a very brief non-exhaustive list of what we can do, that most people struggle with:

• Develop falsifiable hypotheses.
• Create well controlled experiments to test those hypotheses.
• Analyse and interpret data (very difficult with human behaviour!).
• Use data to advise on good directions to pivot.

Another useful way social scientists can help is in developing good interview questions for customer discovery. We can also keep the founders focused on the goal, which is validated learning rather biased proof to support their vision.

Great post by Tendayi, who was at Lean Startup Machine London, which has a better background on the connections.

So, how can we better involve people in the Social Sciences in the Leancamp community?

When you think a customer group will have a specific problem that's painful enough that they're already looking for a solution, you can validate that through Customer Development interviews. When you need prospects to see it to get it, lightweight paper prototypes can help you learn and evolve quickly. But what about the middle ground when the customer problem/pain isn't super strong, and showing paper prototypes won't tell you if they'll really use the thing?

Christian Blunden's (@christianralph) team at Lean Startup Machine London had an idea for a social network for reconnecting dog owners who meet while walking their dogs. The crucial thing to test was if dog owners would bite. So with the help of mentor Ian Collingwood (@johnnyforeigner) they put up poster for a website that didn't exist, to see if people would tear off the contact information to check later.

A great example of working out your MVP - your Minimum Viable Product! This quickly tested the riskiest part of their idea, whether people care enough to even check it out. And it tested real customer behaviour - what they do, not what they say they'll do. Nice one!

Every process a startup uses operates at one stage of the feedback loop. But lean startup practices have the effect of optimizing the total time through the loop. Practices that are harmful are the ones that optimize our ability to do just one of the three stages well. For example, you can build much faster if you don't "waste time" measuring. That's like suggesting you can drive faster if you close your eyes and hit the accelerator. It's true, but dangerous. The same is true for departmental structures that work like silos. They may work in large companies, but in startups they're dangerous because they encourage people to improve at their specialized job rather than maximizing learning.

A beautiful little countdown tool, here being used as a subtle reminder to keep scope in control and get it out there!