24 THINGS YOU CAN LEARN READING...

Etienne Garbugli2x Startup Founder (Flagback & HireVoice)

Recognized Usability & UX Research expert

2013 Most-Liked SlideShare Presentation Creator

Author of Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want

Etienne Garbugli2x Startup Founder (Flagback & HireVoice)

Recognized Usability & UX Research Expert

2013 Most-Liked SlideShare Presentation Creator

Author of Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want

View Full ContentThe Lean B2B Table of ContentChapter 1— IntroductionChapter 2— Where I’m Coming FromChapter 3— The nature of the B2B WorldChapter 4— Where It StartsChapter 5— Choosing a MarketChapter 6— Finding Early AdoptersChapter 7— Leveraging Domain Credibility & Visibility

Chapter 8— Contacting Early AdoptersChapter 9— Finding ProblemsChapter 10— Conducting Problem InterviewsChapter 11— Analyzing the ResultsChapter 12— Finding a SolutionChapter 13—Creating a Minimum Viable ProductChapter 14 —Preparing Your Pitch

Chapter 15— Conducting Solution InterviewsChapter 16— Product-Market FitChapter 17— Common ChallengesChapter 18— Speeding up Product-Market ValidationChapter 19 — Conclusion

There are 3 reasons why businesses buy ...

To increase revenue

To decrease costs

To increase customer

satisfaction

1

Your passion, domain expertise and your ability to build products are the 3 things in your control to reduce the risk of starting up.

2

You can find great business ideas right where you work.

That’s what 50% of the Inc. 500 Founders did (Source: Amar Bhidé).

3

Alcohol and the telephone are great tools to test your value proposition.

You will learn whether your value prop is shareable and can be memorable.

4

VCs, industry bloggers, journalists and market analysts are fast-tracks to understanding markets.

They have an horizontal - broad - view of the market.

5

Annual reports can tell you if a company has an early adopter mindset.

What can you learn from a financial ?

6

Your story - or the story of your founding team - can help get you through the doors of enterprises.

Britelynx founder, Pete Lalancette, was a military helicopter pilot for 21 years before starting up. Wouldn’t you be curious to meet him?

7

Competitors often tell you who you should be speaking with.

Start here

8

The early adopters that get the new iPhones are not the same people that go and try the new coffee shop.

- Brant Cooper, Lean Author

Being an early adopter is not a personality type.

9

“

Meeting people in their work environment can sometimes lead to great insights.

Interviewing IT professionals, Jason Cohen noticed certain magazines on the desk of his prospects. When his product was ready, he advertised in that magazine to great success.

10

Finding where your prospects gather for pleasure or for work can significantly increase your odds of success.

Where do IT executives go to network?

11

Proximity to customers is key. Moving in with them can be a great idea.

Having development teams at client offices, helps you discover customer pains, context of use, stakeholders, underlying needs and enterprise reality.

12

In the long run, the people that seek problems out-perform the people that seek solutions.

Drs. Jacob Getzels and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi proved this theory by following the career of professional artists for over 2 decades.

13

To win, your solution must be at least 2 times faster, 2 times better and 2 times cheaper than the known alternatives.

14

–Value (Actual or Perception of)

=Risk (Perception of)

Implementation Score

... though rarely perceived as a competitor, Excel is almost always an actual competitor for software startups.

“- Joshua Porter, HubSpot Director of UX

If you can't beat the Excel solution, your product will never be a success.

15

Frequency is about the worst way to pick a problem to address.

Cables have been getting tangled up all over the world for decades – it’s a very common problem — but very few people would pay to have that pain removed.

16

To keep your focus, sometimes it’s best to turn down paying customers.

You won’t convince large enterprises to sign with you if all your customers are tech startups.

17

You can generate revenue and still fail. If revenue is the first form of

validation in B2B, (user) engagement is the ultimate form.

18

93% of products that ultimately became successful started off in the wrong direction.

“- Clayton Christensen, Innovation Author

Company pivots are a lot more common than people would think.

19

The average age of successful B2B founders is 40.

20

Not 19, 25, 28 or 32 (Source: Vivek Wadhwa).

The average number of attempts needed to make a sale is eight to ten. If you’re trying to reach C-level executives it's 12 to 14.

21

Persistence is key.

Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM...“

22

Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM...“

...said the IBM marketing team

22

The CIA has its own investment fund.In-Q-Tel is slowly becoming the stamp of approval for technologies secure enough for government agencies.

23

You should never optimize before product-market fit.

With time on your side, everything can be improved.

24

« Read this book before you schedule even one more meeting about your startup. » - Jeffrey L. Cohen, Co-Author, The B2B Social Media Book

« Lean B2B nails the key to being nimble and iterative in the complex, drawn-out world of B2B entrepreneurship: relationships. It captures how I've been running my own Lean B2B practice for years and makes it accessible to anyone. » - Brian Gladstein, CEO and Founder, Explorics

« Lean B2B is a must-read to understand one of the most under-addressed market opportunities by startups: B2B. » - Wandrille Pruvot, Chief Revenue Officer, Art of Click

« Lean B2B is filled with rock-solid advice for technology entrepreneurs who want a rapid-growth trajectory. Read it to increase your certainty and your success rate. - Jill Konrath, Author of AGILE SELLING and Selling to Big Companies

LEAN B2BBUILD PRODUCTS BUSINESSES WANT

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