Lean UX at Startup Lessons Learned
This week I had the pleasure of speaking about UX at Eric Ries' Startup Lessons Learned Conference. The event is at the center of the Lean Startup community and was attended by 400 entrepreneurs, developers, product managers, investors, and designers, with a simulcast audience of equal size.
I joined the "Design + Lean Startup = Lean UX" panel with Josh Seiden, Jeff Gothelf, and Zach Larson, hosted by Janice Fraser. We discussed the value of design in defining products and services, and shared techniques for incorporating design into startup culture and organizations.
The startup community is hungry for good UX, and entrepreneurs, investors, and developers alike are recognizing the value and experience designers can contribute to a successful product team. Here's some highlights of the overwhelmingly positive response:
@navneetaron
#leanux is awesome. silicon valley companies both large and small can benefit from it. my learning from #sllconf
@dshdle
Super motivated & inspired! started morning watching "Design + Lean startup = #LeanUX" talk
@ericries
You could hear a pin drop in here while @clevergirl explaining "test / invest" or "prove / improve" cycles.
@ClintonWu
Customer dev and UX are the same thing. Epiphany.
@rickperreault
@manjeetdadyala Loving the leanUX panel. Eye opening session. #sllconf #leanux +1 Very important to bridge design & dev
And perhaps my favorite, here's a reminder we designers are not the only ones saying "duh, if you'd listen to what I have to say, things could be so much better!"
@geoffclapp
Designers and consultancies are starting to understand&embrace; #leanstartup. Not only cost of deployment&development; has changed
For your viewing pleasure, here's the Justin.tv archive of the panel (my talk on Product Stewardship starts around 21:30.)
Watch live video from Startup Lessons Learned on Justin.tv
You can find the deck on slideshare here: http://goo.gl/o5nVB
I encourage you to watch all the segments from the conference. A few in particular stood out for me:
Brad Smith of Intuit discussed how his Fortune 1000 company runs on startup principles: no teams larger than two pizzas can feed; hire good people and provide an environment for them to succeed; and foster a strong sense of responsibility throughout the team.
Mitch Kapor talked about his transition from old-school entrepreneur to lean startup advocate and how his overnight success at Lotus lead him to believe it was easy: "I gave bad advice for 25 years."
James Birchler of IMVU detailed lessons his team learned about the limits of A/B testing and the value of developing good hypotheses to validate through testing and feedback.
Finally, please take five minutes to watch Eric Ries' closing remarks - he does a great job summing up the spirit of the day and highlights the value of design to the Lean Startup movement.
Watch live video from Startup Lessons Learned on Justin.tv
Related Reading
- Take the Design Collaboration and Communication class
- Better together; the practice of successful creative collaboration
- Lean UX workshop recap
- Lean UX, Product Stewardship, and Integrated Teams
- Integrating solve and do
What do you think? Join the conversation in Comments