Lean Startup

One of the top pieces of advice you can take when you’re trying to innovate more effectively is this: work in cross-functional teams. But most companies are structured in silos: design, development and product management work separately, with communication and collaboration relegated to weekly check-ins and designs and feature requirements thrown over the fence. Drew will talk about how to build cross-functional teams that actually function and can test ideas at market pace.

The key to running effective experiments is to first frame the experiment thoughfully. This takes time, but the investment pays off many-fold. Zach will guide you through the key steps of framing, which, when done properly, reward your brain–and your organization–with learning.

Getting Customer Feedback When Your Product Doesn't Live On The Web | Ari Gesher by Lean Startup

When Microsoft acquired Yammer last year, one of employees it gained was Cindy, an expert in applied Lean Startup techniques. Cindy will be joined Microsoft principal program manager Ethan Gur-esh to talk about how they’re transitioning teams into a Lean Startup mindset and away from the three-year planning waterfall cycles of the past.

A strong speaker last year, Navarrow returns with the origin story of his new initiative. He’ll talk about how using Lean Startup principles helped him understand how to engage new audiences and create more diverse teams within an organization.

With unmatched experience as entrepreneurs and investors, Marc and Chris have insights to share that are directly useful for almost any business trying to innovate. Eric Ries will interview Marc and Chris.

Closing Remarks: The Lean Startup Conference | Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries by Lean Startup

What’s the reality of building an audience for your product or company? Kathryn’s story of getting initial users when she needed feedback early on is instructive.

How to Build the Product When You're Not the User--and You Don't Even Know Anybody Who's the User Alexis is interested in solving big problems, which means building products for people who face daily challenges very different from hers. She’s taken unusual steps to explore untapped markets and understand the users in them, giving her excellent insight into customer development.

Palantir is a traditional software company in that it ships software that runs on its customers' networks. That makes it hard to get direct feedback on which features need iteration. Ari will talk about the strategies the company has taken, ranging from the automated to the person-to-person, to gather the valuable information that guides their product–and company–development.

Steve is a perennial favorite at our conference–for good reason. A natural teacher and storyteller, he gives talks that always illuminate entrepreneurship in unique, useful ways.

Back to the Roots sells kits for growing edible plants. Their business involves physical products and isn’t one that obviously lends itself to intense experimentation. And yet, as we learned in a popular talk from Nikhil and Alex last year, they test everything. This year, they’re back to talk about a Kickstarter campaign they used as an MVP for a new product–during which they learned a lot more than they expected.

ElectNext is a young startup that’s not only learning about its potential markets, it’s also learning how to learn. Keya will reveal the changes the organization has gone through to be able to move more quickly, with less friction and greater success.

Continuous deployment–small, frequent, and continuous changes to the production website–let marketplace giant Etsy iterate quickly and experiment with new features rapidly. But it’s not an approach that every engineer is comfortable with. John will talk about how Etsy does continuous deployment and gets the team behind it.

With a long history at the Lean Enterprise Institute, John brings an incredibly rich view of innovation in the corporate world. As our community pushes Lean Startup ideas forward, he brings a valuable ability to ground our greater understanding.

Patrick is a longtime leader in the Lean Startup community. In this talk, he’ll redefine and explain growth-hacking in a way that takes us beyond SEO tricks and helps us understand patterns we can leverage for growth.

Intuit has been at the forefront of incorporating Lean Startup methods across a very large company. CEO Brad Smith will lead a conversation with two senior Intuit executives, Laura Fennell and Hugh Molotsi, about how they’ve fostered and rewarded an environment of experimentation and how they’ve transformed how decisions are made in their businesses.

A perennial favorite speaker at The Lean Startup Conference, Laura will make sure you know when and how to use not just landing pages, but also concierge tactics, Wizard of Oz setups and content strategies like blogs and email newsletters. You will leave her session smarter.

Based on his experience running thousands of experiments with entrepreneurs around the world, Trevor–founder of Lean Startup Machine–will discuss how to avoid biasing both your data and yourself.

The Biggest Implementation of Lean Startup on Earth Stephen Liguori @stephenliguori GE Jeffrey Schnitzer GE ENERGY MANAGEMENT – INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS Eric Ries @ericries THE LEAN STARTUP Michael Mahan @michaelbmahan GE HOME & BUSINESS SOLUTIONS Sarah Broderick GE GE has been in business for more than 130 years in part because it has always been able to reinvent itself. The company has enlisted Lean Startup principles as one of the ways to harness its entrepreneurial spirit and improve the way it works. Steve Liguori, GE Executive Director of Global Innovation and New Models, will lead a conversation with three GE project leaders on how they’re using Lean Startup methods.