Lean Startup: Power and tactics of focus for entrepreneurs

Lean Startup: Power and tactics of focus for entrepreneurs

LEAN means agile.  Lean start is not cheap or quick.  Lean start means finding the traction (someone actually paying you) as quickly as you can, by ALL means. You need to find what others are demanding to buy, rather than selling them YOUR DREAM. People buy a lot of things, they also DON'T buy a lot of things.

When you start LEAN, you must focus on a niche.  Dominate that niche. Get on first page for a particular Google search keyword, and then try to pivot and grow.  That is how ALL big success are made of.  If you start with a vague but big idea, you can not handle that.  That is the formula of lean start.  This is the emphasize of this class.

Everyone can be an Elon Musk or Steve jobs - most people did not know how THEY HAVE IT IN THEM.  Here are six steps Musk and Jobs BOTH took.

1. Start.  Start with a bad idea is OK, but start. Start with what you have NOW.  Start now.  There is no perfect start.  Starting is committing to true learning (not school teaching).

2. Start safe.  Never quit your job or school. 

3. Learn to sell things, even if it it not your own products. Gain the mindset, feel the "force" or the "qi" of business.

4. Don't just dream big.  FINISH something small first is OK.  Dominate a single niche, for example lighted magnifiers. Be world's number one.  Otherwise no one will find you in 2021+.

5. Learn to pivot and grow, this is the part that "smarts" actually is involved.

6. Plan on making and survive many mistakes.  Be quick and be good study of market dynamics.  The more mistakes you make, the better you become.  All successful entrepreneurs hide their mistakes, you only hear the "good parts".

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WARNING - PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU SIGN UP TO THIS COURSE.  "Lean startup" is very hard to teach!  It is like teaching a 17 year old boy about "Lean Marriage".  Mostly first time entrepreneurs with low budget and no past experience want to find a quick way to get things working and touch people's lives.  I completely understand.  I was there, was just like that.  However, they typically have no sense of hidden danger and will not heed any warning.  The "risks" of entrepreneurship is not about bad ideas - but about execution details and hidden untold pits and traps.  When you are lean you must balance patience with speed.  Imagine someone dancing Argentine Tango for you - imagine the control of tempo - slow when slow, fast when fast.  Startup is a dance like that - with your unseen customer.

Your customer is your TRUE startup partner.  They don't want to buy from you - they demand benefits from you.  Find them.  There are 6 billion people on earth.  The name of the game is to find 1, find 100, find 10,000 of those.

FIRST TIME ENTREPRENEURS think that everything SHOULD have been taught at school.  In such case, any one providing warning or honest advice at the early exuberance stage will not be very popular.  If you sign up, please keep an open mind. I was a technical person and started after my college professor job at top American universities.  I want to give you honest advice here after 6 years of gaining experience.

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Contrary to popular myth or belief, people don't always buy what they need.  You can not just provide a solution prototype, go find people, and expect people to pay you cash.  You need to provide exclusive benefits and overwhelming value.  Never make others buy what you want to sell.  Sell others what they already want to buy.

Agile is to quickly "discover" what people buy, not to quickly start to sell your unique, original, new offerings.

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Startup is NOT about YOUR idea.  It is about know what your customers are thinking, when they are in the market!  Any bad idea can be executed by Elon Musk - it is not about ideas, it is about finding something working while you are short on cash, time and experience.  Trust me, the world is full of smart or dumb people - they have tried everything.  They have even tried YOUR IDEA, long time ago. 

Teaching first time entrepreneurs to let go their guards of secrecy is extremely hard.  But it is necessary.  A mind is like a parachute - it only works when it is OPEN. 

If startup were a school test, getting an idea is ONLY the first point mark, the execution is the rest of the 99 points.  You can get a lot of points even if the idea is "wrong".

Never spend forever thinking, never keep ideas secrets - it only hurts your chance.  Trust me, the world is full of ideas.  Getting an idea is not the hard part of the work.  A person with critical thinking must first be willing to criticize his own idea, but still try ANY IDEA.  You must believe in your ability to learn on the fly and recover on the fly.

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Business is just relation of benefits.  Starting a business is just experimentation.  It is like dating.

How to start your business with no funds and no experience?  Do you try to have the best idea or do you focus on now? Three critical issues are completely missed in the "lean startup" book - the author thought you already knew!  the three elements are:

1. market

2. demand

3. benefit/promise/trust.

Fortunately we talk about these here.

Why I have no customers? I have my MVP, what is next?  I put my web page up, how come no one clicks? These are common questions facing lean startup entrepreneurs.  Don't waste time guessing.  Use your time building your track.

This is a practical course about execution and market validation steps to start a solo business with lean budget.  Use the hacks and tips contained here to make sure you don't waste time in the dark and run on hope alone.

We all like the learn startup approach, but very few people know it is the difficult approach.  Make sure you don't waste your time wondering and learning.  Avoid time consuming mistakes.

In lean startup, your time is your biggest expanse. Make sure you do things the right way.  Starting lean is not an advantage, make sure you validate and grow right.  Learn the hacks and tips from the missing menu which should have accompanied the lean start book.

This course give you an easy to follow recipe to design your playbook, so you can live the uncertainty with certainty and confidence..

A 20 lecture series that boost your marketing awareness and validation IQ with essential development information.  The root of entrepreneurship is within everyone. Find it within you and for yourself.  What is business? what is core difference of technologist and businessmen?  why can't I get out of the idea infinite loop?  can I become an entrepreneur? how do I make my own business? what is the true meaning of business building? find answers to these and other critical questions.

Find the start of YOUR BUSINESS.  Straight talk to point the way.

Get your life to a higher dimension - to the business dimension.

The key is to research the market.  Don't make something that you have a passion for. Pivot quickly. Compete on quality and price. Don't expect something unique and brand new to stick.  There is a universe in a sand grain.

Four principles. Three paths.  Pivot and grow. Assets: Skill, Money, Time, Trend.

If you are a STEM student, a coder, or a passionate inventor, I know you.  I am you.  I have scars to prove that many things we believe is wrong.  Please remember:

1. The true spirit of "lean startup" is to be agile listener and value provider.  Lean startup is often followed by first time entrepreneurs and engineers - it is important to know that "lean startup" in this context does not mean "prove yourself can".  While you can provide anything, the world may not be listening, you may not find your audience (maybe because they are busy watching TikTok clips), and they may not buy from you because your offer is not convincing enough and you are not proven.

2. People are irrational.  We buy cars that can cause a lot of accidents, and we don't wear masks even though it can save lives.  Never say "I think" in your startup plan.

3. You are building a business, not building a product.  Product is but one element of business.  No one buys a product - people buys something that gives them proven benefits.

4. Your job is to find the people who would accept you.  This is called marketing and is 90% of total work.

5. MVP still need to have proven benefits and quality.  A crude artifact will win you some fans, but not buyers.

6. People pay a price, but they keep the value.  People buy benefits. Just "solving a problem" or "satisfying a need" is not enough.

7. Business opportunity is not everywhere to be found.  You must sell what people demand, rather than letting them buy your big invention.  This is the reason you must search for them.  Lean start is to search and test, never taking yourself for granted.

8. People don't buy a lot of things.  We are all spenders - but harvesting money from people is different.

9. Everything costs money.  Quality costs money.  Advertising and boosting your presence costs money. Your lean journey is to quickly find the market and customer match - meaning you are not just kidding yourself or dreaming with your passion and interests.

10. Don't believe that "doing the right thing" and "making an effort" will lead to results.  These are just the beginning. To compel others to pay is a different level, way more to learn than being a good student and engineer.  It is not about your smartness anymore.  Assume everything is not needed, assume everyone is equally smart, and you start to get the right picture of this game.

On the journey of startup, you will learn.  Every mistake is just learning, because there is no text book.

1. You find that what you want to do has been done.

2. Google and other search engines understand your search intent better and start to show you things you thought did not exist.

3. The game is not making something - but to put people in front of what you made.

4. When you become a seller, then the cost of production and supply chain will catch up to you sooner or later.  There is no "cheap business".  Business is always expensive - you spend money to make money.  The good ones manage to squeeze out profits.

5. People buy value.  Value is result of research.  People buy benefits.  Benefits is result of strong focus.

6. If you are highly unique, you will not be discovered but rather deeply buried in search results and social network noise.  Other companies spend money advertising - their bull horn is big and buries your sound easily.  Even if people do notice your unique offering and you don't have competition, they still have to find it high quality and low cost and reliable and trust worthy to pay the price.  Customers are "sneaky" as well.

7. Even if you are highly unique and effective, you still have to enter a market and sell things there.  People don't just shop on the street or social network.  You still have to build a store and sell things.  Marketing cost can easily be more than what a lot of lean solo startups can stomach - the market operators have to make money first.

8. Your first success will be a small one.  Big ones are grown from small ones.  Start something and dominate it.  It may already take your whole life.

Lean start in three steps. How to be most potent when you don't have a lot of capital

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What you will learn

• I have too many ideas. I can not focus. How do I start if I can not even pick?
• Cann't focus on one idea but have no capital and no experience? Its common. Let's explain what you should do.
• Engineers, programmers and coders find your path and 3 step game plan to establish your own business.

Rating: 4.22222

Level: Expert Level

Duration: 4.5 hours

Instructor: Chang Liu