2015 Lean Startup Conference Program Details

The Lean Startup Conference 2015

Irrational Products4:00 - 4:30 PM
Amir Shevat, Slack, @ashevat
Room: Herbst
As product managers and founders we know failing can be a good learning experience – and that is true, unless you fail because of something common or stupid that could have been avoided by simple methodologies. Many times we simply make irrational product decisions that prevent us from actually running valuable experiments. Avoiding common mistakes and taking better product decisions, by using easy hacks, could make or break your product and startup. In this session we will go over a few common product failures, as well as demonstrate simple methods and tricks to avoid these failures.
ExperimentsAll/GeneralPresentation
The Hidden Burden of Iteration4:00 - 4:30 PM
Winnie J. Kao, Seth Godin's altMBA , @winniekao
Room: BATS
There are a lot of useful hacks, scripts, marketing hooks, and tactics. This talk doesn’t offer any of those things. Iteration, by definition, means change–and change is something that our brains are hard-wired to avoid at all costs. When you choose to run lean, you sign up for a lifetime of fighting your natural instincts. In this talk, you’ll learn a framework to leverage the anxiety of never knowing the answer, and to confidently move forward through chaos.
ExperimentsAll/GeneralCase StudyPresentation

For Platinum and Gold Passes only.

Caution: Live Subjects! Lean Experiments for Services3:30 - 4:00 PM
Lauren Braun, gravitytank , @another_lauren
Room: C260
Testing apps, websites and digital services is pretty well-documented territory. But running lean experiments for services without a screen can seem daunting. In-person services are holistic experiences with lots of moving parts, which can easily make testing costs and timelines balloon. The biggest challenge is figuring out which parts of the service to make real and which parts to fake. At gravitytank, we work with organizations big and small to run lean experiments that focus on the most uncertain and risky element of a new service. Like any good test, our experiments generate useful quant data (i.e. throughput, sales, user preferences), but we also leverage them to collect meaningful qualitative feedback. We’ve used this approach to lean service MVPs for restaurant startups, huge CPG companies, global hotel chains and others. Across the board, the learnings have had significant impact on development. Caution: Live Subject! will take you through a few examples, offer some ‘pro tips’, and together, we’ll run a rapid-fire service experiment to bring it to life.
ExperimentsAll/GeneralPresentation