Founders Master Class: 7 Essential Steps for Startups from Udemy

What's inside

Learning objectives

Discover which of your assumptions are wrong (and which are right!)
Understand what your customer really needs
Hone a value proposition that combines user needs with your business vision
Measure your product's effectiveness

Make key decisions efficiently
Decide what not to build
Learn new techniques that you can use forever to make progress quickly

Discover which of your assumptions are wrong (and which are right!)
Understand what your customer really needs
Hone a value proposition that combines user needs with your business vision
Measure your product's effectiveness
Make key decisions efficiently
Decide what not to build
Learn new techniques that you can use forever to make progress quickly

Syllabus

Envision your customer

Before starting this workshop, you need to do two things:

Download the two files: zip file has all of the worksheets for the entire series, and the pdf file has all of the supplemental materials.
Gather Supplies: Sticky notes, a Sharpie or other thick black marker, blue painter's tape (it won't leave goo on the walls the way other tape does), white (printer) paper, and colored dots (or a colored marker).

Can't wait to work with you!!

Every startup has a customer in mind. Some startups have SEVERAL customers -- eBay, for instance, has buyers and sellers. This step is about choosing which customer you want to use for these workshops.

In this step, we start to get in the head of our customer by doing a quick sketch of our customer. I can't draw, but even I find that sketching helps me to think through who my customer is and what their life is like. I promise it will be easy. And maybe a little funny.

Here we get out all of that demographic information that's right at the top of our mind when we try to describe our customer - age, job, married or not, kids or not. This is about all of those things you might read in the census.

Here we begin to get to the parts of the persona that REALLY matter. What do these people DO that indicates they are a potential customer? How are they trying to solve their problem now?

This step, we think about what our customer needs. What is the problem that they are trying to solve? There are some needs that are so broad that they're not really helpful—like "Spend more time with my kids." Try to dig one level deeper, and ask yourself, what would have to change to make that possible.

With these three checks, we make sure that you've created a "plausible individual." Not someone you actually know. Not a silly caricature. You're documenting the assumptions that you have, which describe a type of person who would benefit from your product.

This step is for teams only! If you're not working with your team right now, you can skip ahead. In this step, we go from having several versions of the persona to one version.

The persona you just made records a lot of assumptions that you have about your customer. Here's the big question—what if you're wrong? Which of those assumptions might be fatal to your business idea? In this step we identify the most risky assumptions.

This step wraps up workshop number 1 by reviewing the techniques and identifying which ones were most helpful to you.

Conduct quality interviews

The most essential element in an early stage company is how well you understand your customer. This workshop prepares you to do great Customer Development interviews, so that you can make a product that hits the mark.

Now that you know how to do an interview...where do you find the people to talk to?

In this step, you will create my favorite research tool—the topic map. I use it to keep myself on track and guide the conversation toward those topics that are most useful in my research.

The hardest part of interviewing a stranger is breaking the ice. In this step, you get ready by writing out the first few lines to get the interview off to a good start.

Feeling prepared will help you to get the best data out of your Customer Development interviews.

Seriously...this is the most embarrassing scene in the entire course! Even so, doing a few practice interviews will really help. I hate approaching strangers in a coffee shop, but I've done it because it helps me to know my customer and make products that they love.

Before you head out, decide who on your team will do what. If you're working solo, you'll need to wear many hats...and maybe bring a tape recorder!

Now is the moment of truth. Go forth and research!

Learn from your customer development

Without a good debriefing process, there's not a lot of benefit from the research you've done. In this section, we're going to take a look at how to extract lessons and insights from your research. Having worked for many years doing this as a consultant, I've seen how transformational succinct research results can be for a company—and how useless research is if it's not "digested" and summarized into actionable lessons.

Obviously, the first thing you need to do is go through the notes and pull out the important observations. If you've done a great job of interviewing several people, you might feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of information you have. This step is about looking into the chaos of information.

If the prior step is about observing chaos, then this one is about finding order. Sorting is where you begin to see patterns and find some clarity.

Even if you don't have a team, it's very helpful to talk with another person and try to explain to them what you've learned and observed as patterns in the data. This step is where you have a good conversation about your research findings and begin to draw conclusions about what they mean and how they might affect your product.

Research for its own sake is not effective enough. The real "Win" for your company comes when you update your persona. This is what we call "validation"—is this a valid persona? What must we change to make it more accurately reflect our target customers?

Here we make sure to capture the interesting findings that were not our primary research goal.

You may have heard of approaches like Lean Startup and Agile Software Development. Both of these have "continuous improvement" as a core philosophy. Here we reflect on the process so that we can grow more effective in our work.

It's not enough to do customer development one time. At Luxr, we have two or three Cust Dev interviews every week. In this step, you decide how you want to integrate research into your fledgeling company.

Capture the value proposition

By now you've learned something about your customer, validated some key assumptions, and updated your persona. It's time, then, to transform that new insight into a product vision. This section will walk you through the process of identifying a customer value proposition that reflects your business vision and your customer's actual needs in the real world.

Once again, we take up the Sharpie pen to make some sketches. This time, we learn to add simple emotions to our drawing. It's fun, trust me!

A picture is worth a thousand words...Even if you can't draw, I can teach you to show a person, in a place, with a feeling and a thought. That complexity, even if poorly rendered, captures far more information than a simple sentence.

In this step, we create a lot of ideas. By drawing rough sketches, we capture those moments where a customer needs our product (the moment of pain), or is using our product (the moment of satisfaction).

Collaborative work is all about understanding each others' contributions. Here, a team of 3 people can look over the 18 ideas (6 each), and by discussing them gain a deeper understanding of each other and of the potential of this product.

Ultimately, you can have only one value proposition. In this step, we introduce a way to simplify decision-making when you have several options and several people.

NOTE: If you don't have the colored dots (available in office supply stores and even many drugstores), just use a colored pen.

In this final step, we reflect on the techniques from this section and decide how that might affect our work going forward.

Focus your minimum viable product

With a clear Value Proposition, we can pretty quickly determine what features to create. Lean Startup, which is a philosophy we believe in strongly, calls that an MVP, the Minimum Viable Product. The smallest thing you can make (well) that will deliver on the value proposition. That's what this Section will focus on.

Using our favorite method—the Dump and Sort—you will brainstorm the features that you could include in your product.

Choosing what to build is one of the critical decisions that cause startup companies to get stuck, sometimes creates conflict, and really slows everybody down. When you use a few special techniques, though, sorting and prioritizing features can be a rational process that respects the gut instincts that all entrepreneurs have.

In this step, we really begin to focus the features to a crisp, tight MVP. The sooner you can get a small but great version of your product out into the market, the sooner you can learn what works for your customers.

When you get down to those few things that are HARD but IMPORTANT, you need to begin making tradeoffs. This step gets you to a more clear picture of importance that will help you decide what's in and what's out for this first build.

Because we've made a TON of decisions very quickly, it's important to have a fail-safe. One easy fail-safe is to look back at the decisions you've made and do a couple of quick checks.

By assembling all of the decisions into one storyline, you can get a very clear picture of your business so far. This is where you can see the value of all of your work. From a big mass of options and choices, you have arrived at a focused story that you can test, experiment with, and execute on.

Define actionable metrics

Once you know your customer, choose a value proposition, and build an MVP, you need to observe whether it's working: Are customers getting value from your product? In this Section, we will isolate a set of metrics that specifically measure customers' connection to the product.

This step follows the established pattern: Come up with a lot of ideas about what you can measure in your product.

Using the category cards, sort the metrics according to what kind of insight they will give you.

Identify which metrics are most important for you TODAY, rather than a year from now.

Learn the tricks that make a metric truly helpful, and avoid drawing false conclusions about how well your product is doing.

This step is for teams, only. If you're working solo, you can skip this step. Here teams decide which metrics are right to move forward with.

Put together a tracking system for your measurements.

Devise experiments and track trends based on what you do with the product.

Instrument your product so that you can gather metrics. Learn to observe metrics over time.

Reflect on this section and make decisions about how you want to move forward.

Prepare for pivots

A Pivot is a change in business strategy in order to better deliver on the vision of your company. To do that, you need to know what your vision is. Eric Ries says "values are the foot you leave on the floor when you pivot." So, in order to know how to pivot the company, you need to have an explicit understanding of your vision and values. That's what we take on in this final Section.

The pattern recurs in this Section: We start with a dump and sort to brainstorm values.

We use stack-ranking to get from many ideas to a small number of values that really define and differentiate your company.

If you're with a team, you will need to take some time to bring your values into alignment. If you're working alone, you have it easy!

The collaboration continues as you cluster your values and make a final decision about what matters most.

In this step, perhaps the hardest in the whole course, you will write a single statement that captures the purpose for your company and your product. To do this, you will answer questions like, Why does this matter to you?

Take as much time as you need to arrive at one purpose that the whole founding team can agree to.

Here you create a record of these decisions and statements. At Luxr, we have ours posted on the bathroom door, so that everyone can see it and reflect on it frequently.

In this penultimate step of the course, I ask you to think about all of the different ways you could deliver on that vision. If this product doesn't work out (for whatever reason), what would you do next. Every successful company has had many pivots, especially in the first two years. This step gives you the flexibility to think about the company not just as a one-product entity, but as a phenomenon that will have an impact on the world.

It's the last step—if you've made it here, you're well on your way to having a great chance at success. Thanks for the optimism, dedication, and courage that you bring to the world.

Good to know

Know what's good

, what to watch for

, and possible dealbreakers

Examines assumptions, which is standard in Lean Startup

Develops value propositions and pivots, core skills for entrepreneurs and innovators

Develops key metrics, essential for data-driven startups

Develops customer personas, fundamental for understanding user needs

Teaches qualitative research methods, which are essential for understanding customer needs

Taught by Janice Fraser, who founded an innovation lab and authored multiple books on entrepreneurship

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Founders Master Class: 7 Essential Steps for Startups with these activities:

Review “Lean Startup” by Eric Ries

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This book introduces a proven framework for creating successful startups by testing ideas quickly and cheaply, and iterating based on results.

View The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use... on Amazon

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Read through the book, highlighting key concepts and taking notes.
Summarize the main principles of the Lean Startup methodology.
Identify how these principles could be applied to your own business or product idea.

Develop a Lean Startup Canvas

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Creating a Lean Canvas will help you to validate your business idea by forcing you to think through the key elements of your business model.

Browse courses on Lean Canvas

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Gather information about your customer, problem, and solution.
Fill out the Lean Canvas template with your information.
Share the Lean Canvas with others for feedback and discussion.

Watch a video tutorial on user interviews

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Observing a tutorial on user interviews will help provide more insight into this important concept.

Browse courses on User Interviews

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Search for a reputable video tutorial on user interviews.
Watch the tutorial and take notes on the key points.

Five other activities

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Conduct mock user interviews with a friend or colleague

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This exercise can give you the confidence and practice that you need to be successful in conducting user interviews.

Browse courses on User Interviews

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Find a friend or colleague who is willing to participate in a mock user interview.
Prepare a list of questions that you would like to ask.
Conduct the interview and take notes on the responses.

Write a blog post about your Lean Startup journey

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Blogging can force you to process information in a way that you might not otherwise, which can help to improve retention of the material.

Browse courses on Lean Startup

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Choose a specific topic related to Lean Startup that you want to write about.
Research the topic and gather information from credible sources.
Write a blog post that is clear, concise, and informative.
Publish your blog post and promote it to your audience.

Join a study group or online forum for entrepreneurs

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Discussion with others and participation in online forums can increase course material retention.

Browse courses on Entrepreneurship

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Search for a study group or online forum that is relevant to your interests.
Join the group or forum and participate in discussions.

Develop a minimum viable product (MVP)

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This deliverables shows that you've not only understood and internalized the materials, but were able to construct something new with them.

Browse courses on Minimum Viable Product

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Identify the core features of your product.
Build a prototype or mock-up of your product.
Test your product with potential users.
Iterate on your product based on feedback.

Contribute to an open source project related to Lean Startup

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Get practical and hands-on with the process of Lean Startup.

Browse courses on Open Source

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Find an open source project that is related to Lean Startup.
Contribute to the project by submitting a pull request.

Career center

Learners who complete Founders Master Class: 7 Essential Steps for Startups will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Product Manager

As a Product Manager, you'll be responsible for bringing new products to market. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to identify customer needs, develop product roadmaps, and manage product development teams. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to measure the success of your products.

See salaries and explore the career path for Product Manager

Data Analyst

As a Data Analyst, you'll be responsible for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to help businesses make informed decisions. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use data analysis techniques to identify trends, patterns, and insights. You'll also learn how to communicate your findings effectively to stakeholders.

See salaries and explore the career path for Data Analyst

Business Analyst

As a Business Analyst, you'll use your understanding of customer needs and business processes to help organizations improve their operations. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to conduct thorough customer research, identify areas for improvement, and develop effective solutions. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to measure the impact of your work.

See salaries and explore the career path for Business Analyst

Customer Success Manager

As a Customer Success Manager, you'll be responsible for ensuring that customers are satisfied with their products or services. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to build relationships with customers, identify their needs, and resolve their problems. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to measure the success of your customer success efforts.

See salaries and explore the career path for Customer Success Manager

Consultant

As a Consultant, you'll be responsible for providing advice and guidance to businesses on a variety of topics. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to conduct research, analyze data, and develop recommendations. You'll also learn how to communicate your findings effectively to clients.

See salaries and explore the career path for Consultant

Marketing Manager

As a Marketing Manager, you'll be responsible for developing and executing marketing campaigns that reach and engage target audiences. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to conduct market research, develop marketing strategies, and manage marketing budgets. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

See salaries and explore the career path for Marketing Manager

Financial Analyst

As a Financial Analyst, you'll be responsible for analyzing financial data and making recommendations to businesses on how to improve their financial performance. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use financial analysis tools and techniques to analyze financial data. You'll also learn how to communicate your findings effectively to stakeholders.

See salaries and explore the career path for Financial Analyst

Sales Manager

As a Sales Manager, you'll be responsible for leading and motivating a team of sales representatives. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to develop sales strategies, manage sales teams, and close deals. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to measure the performance of your sales team.

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Human Resources Manager

As a Human Resources Manager, you'll be responsible for managing the human resources function of a business. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use human resources management tools and techniques to manage employees effectively. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for Human Resources Manager

Operations Manager

As an Operations Manager, you'll be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of a business. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to manage teams, processes, and budgets. You'll also learn how to use data analysis techniques to improve the efficiency of your operations.

See salaries and explore the career path for Operations Manager

Project Manager

As a Project Manager, you'll be responsible for planning, executing, and closing projects. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use project management tools and techniques to manage projects effectively. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for Project Manager

Web Developer

As a Web Developer, you'll be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining websites. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use web development tools and techniques to create high-quality websites. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for Web Developer

Software Engineer

As a Software Engineer, you'll be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining software applications. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use software development tools and techniques to create high-quality software applications. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for Software Engineer

Graphic designer

As a Graphic Designer, you'll be responsible for creating visual content for a variety of purposes, such as marketing materials, websites, and social media. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in this role by teaching you how to use graphic design tools and techniques to create high-quality visual content. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for Graphic designer

MBA

As an MBA, you'll have the skills to manage a business. This course can help you develop the skills you need to succeed in an MBA program by teaching you the fundamentals of business, including finance, marketing, and operations. You'll also learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

See salaries and explore the career path for MBA