The Lean Validation Cheat Sheet is a quick & dirty reference for innovators. It shows which design & research techniques are most useful for validating assumptions in different phases of product innovation.
Hester Bruikman & I made it in Bali 😉🌴
¡Y muchas gracias a Sergio Majluf por la traducción! 🙏🏼
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Eric Ries’ Lean Startup methodology starts from the premise that we can engineer startup success by following a simple process. For any startup, product, or service to be successful, four core assumptions must be true:
The problem we’re addressing is a meaningful one.
The solution we’ve chosen fixes (part of) the problem.
Our product delivers the solution effectively.
The market we’ve chosen wants to buy our product
(i.e. our business model is sustainable).
The Basics of Lean Validation
Lean validation exists to minimize risk and maximize learning while developing products & services. The process by (1) makes assumptions explicit and (2) investments the minimum necessary to validate each assumption.
Traditionally, a startup or established company invests lots of time & money perfecting a product before putting it on the market. If the product isn’t successful, they have no idea which of their core assumptions wasn’t true.
The “Learn, Build, Measure” Loop
Most people refer to this as the “Build, Measure, Learn” loop. But Hester & I agree that Learning first saves time and misunderstandings, especially for large teams. The process of validating each assumption is an iterative loop with three steps:
Learn: Explore your assumptions & decide what to do next.
Build: Articulate your assumptions in a quick, cheap prototype.
Measure: Conduct experiments validate your assumptions.
Based on whether your experiments invalidate or validate your assumptions, you can decide whether to go back & try again with different assumptions (pivot) or proceed to validating your next set of assumptions (persevere).
After validating product-market fit, repeat the process continuously. People & their needs change over time, so assumptions that are valid today might be invalid tomorrow.
Lean Validation: Step By Step
Here’s the Lean Validation Cheat Sheet in text. Everything listed here is explained elsewhere… I recommend DuckDuckGo. 😉
Validate the Problem
Core Assumption
This is a meaningful problem to address.
LEARN: Exploration Questions
What is the problem?
Who has this problem?
How does it impact people’s lives?
How do people (try to) address the problem now?
BUILD: Prototypes
Vision, Objectives, Actions
Character Map or Persona
Journey Map
MEASURE: Experiments
Interviews
Field Observation
Co-Create Journey Map
Diary Study
Contextmapping
Problem – Solution Fit
Core Assumption
This solution fixes (part of) the problem.
LEARN: Exploration Questions
Does this solution really work?
Does it solve enough of the problem to be meaningful?
Do people trust it enough to use it?
Will people spend (more) time & effort to solve this problem?
BUILD: Prototypes
Value Proposition (Canvas)
Concierge MVP
MEASURE: Experiments
Literature Study
Competitive Analysis
Survey
Co-Create Value Proposition
Concierge experiment
Product – Solution Fit
Core Assumption
Our product delivers the solution.
LEARN: Exploration Questions
Is our product meaningfully better than what people do now?
Is our product usable enough to deliver the solution?
Does our product enable the necessary behavior change?
BUILD: Prototypes
Paper prototype
Click-demo
Wizard-of-Oz prototype
Minimum-Viable Product
MEASURE: Experiments
Design Review
Usability Test
UX Test
Alpha & Beta Testing
Product – Market Fit
Core Assumption
Our business model is sustainable.
LEARN: Exploration Questions
How many people have this problem?
Do people (still) trust our product to solve their problem?
Will people (still) exchange money or value for our product?
Can we continue delivering the solution?
BUILD: Prototypes
Landing Page
Newsletter Page
Video Prototype
MEASURE: Experiments
Ads Test
A/B Test
Pre-order Experiment
Let’s Talk
Do you find this as interesting as I do? Get in touch, and let’s have a chat!