In my previous post, I started a Lean Canvas for Bounce and hoped to have the next post ready the following day. That didn’t happen, largely because I got struck by analysis paralysis.
Phase 1 – Reviewing Bounce’s Lean Canvas
Getting a 50-page business plan reviewed is hard. Getting a 1-page business model reviewed is easy and, is an important part of the process.
It is imperative that you share your model with at least one other person – Ash Maurya, Running Lean
With that in mind, I started incorporating feedback from a couple folks. First, Hakon Verespej left some great comments on my first canvas which I’ll summarize:
- Key Metrics – Instead of several metrics, identify a single metric that best encapsulates our goal and drive decisions around that metric. See Walgreen’s “profit per customer visit” here: http://www.anbhf.org/pdf/walgreen.pdf
- Channels – Where’s Facebook?! Of course…should have been there.
- Unfair Advantage – “Exposure” isn’t sustainable. I agree. I don’t think I have a real unfair advantage at this point.
- Unique Value Proposition – “Makes being on time easy” isn’t compelling enough. I agree, largely because it’s too broad and doesn’t speak to each of my customer segments specifically. Which is where Riyaz’s feedback comes in handy.
Next up, my friend Riyaz Habibbhai shed quite a bit of light on the Unique Value Proposition box:
Basically, we need to come up with value propositions for each of our customer segments.
When it comes to Unique Value Propositions, one-size-fits-all…fits no one.
Phase 2 – Value Proposition Matrix
After chatting with Riyaz, I began to realize exactly how much of my first canvas was a total guess. Every single one of my customer segments had potentially multiple value propositions, and I had no clue which one was the most valuable.
My first thought, was to organize it all so I can get a lay of the land. With that, came the value proposition matrix:
Now I had 12 customer segments, 16 value propositions and no clue which pair was the most compelling. This is when my head started to spin.
Phase 3 – Knowing what I Didn’t Know
Before I started Bounce’s Lean Canvas, I was blissfully ignorant of what I didn’t know. Now, I was overwhelmed by it. I didn’t know…
- Who Bounce’s best customer segment was
- Why they wanted Bounce
- What features they wanted Bounce to have
- How much they were willing to pay for it
In fact, at this point, I’m not exactly sure what I do know.
Faced with a huge, empty spreadsheet of not-knowingness, I spent a couple days stuck in paralysis. I knew my energy needed to be spent filling in my knowledge gaps, but doing so by interviewing hundreds of people was too daunting of a task – so instead, I did nothing.
Phase 4 – Something is better than Nothing
For me, the worst thing about analysis paralysis isn’t that I’m not getting things done, it’s that I feel lazy for not getting things done. Feeling lazy is demoralizing and can start a pretty nasty downward spiral.
But feeling lazy can also be that kick to the ego that gets my ball rolling again. After a couple days of “mehs”, I decided come hell or high water, I was going to do something. It didn’t have to be the optimal thing, it just had to be some thing.
As luck would have it, a friend of mine needed a lift from the airport and, wouldn’t you know it, some of my potential customers are at the airport! With that in mind, I headed there a couple hours early to interview some folks:
I’ll post more details and videos about the interviews later, but the big takeaway here was that it stoked the fire again.
Phase 5 – Running Lean
The other fuel for my recent fire was Running Lean, which arrived the same day I set out to do my interviews. John Sechrest highly recommended this book to me and I’m grateful he did. It’s written by Ash Maurya, the man behind the Lean Canvas, and had I read it before my little bout of paralysis, I could have saved myself quite a bit of time.
Things I know now that I wish I would have known then:
- It’s best to make multiple business model canvases – one for each customer segment, which its own corresponding unique value propositions.
- Prioritize the business models – otherwise you’ll get overwhelmed (ahem)
If you’re in the process of testing hypotheses, I highly recommend you grab this book. Easy read with targeted, prescriptive advice on business model validation.
Phase 6 – Takeaways
So that I don’t repeat this same mistake again, I’ve thought quite a bit about what I can learn from this experience. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
- If the “optimal” next step feels too daunting to take one, take a suboptimal one. I’ll feel less guilty about doing nothing with my time and may capture enough momentum to tackle the “optimal” step next.
- Ask for help. I wish I would have asked for help from some other folks to get me out of this rut a little quicker. Help eventually came in the form of a book, but maybe it would have come more quickly in the form of a friend.
Next up: Interviewing strangers at the airport!
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