Deck for PivotCamp#1.

1. PivotCamp #1
A start-up event focused on trying to make
more successful startups
in Montreal
Fred Lalonde & Hugh McGuire

2. Confession:
Book Oven was a disaster
for hundreds of reasons,
but the most important one:

3. I didn’t know what matters.

4. Things that don’t matter
What technology you use How much money you raised
Your “development methodology” Having big wigs on your board of
Patents directors/advisors
Your business plan P&L & Pro forma budgets
Your marketing strategy How many Twitter followers you have
“Viral Anchors” Traction on your blog
Usability Articles about you in the NYTimes
Graphic Design Presenting at SXSW
Branding User signups
Working 80 hours a week Getting great response at
Flexible office hours Democamp
Free expresso & a foosball table How many employees you have
An Employee Stock Option Plan How much you pay them
Get Satisfaction/Uservoice How many features you build
Surveys If you are funded or who funded you
Winning Start-up awards Integrating Facebook Connect
Whether your friends like your idea Adding features
Whether anybody likes your idea Articles about you in TechCrunch
How robust your servers are Financial projections
Whether you like your idea

5. Things that do matter
Product/Market Fit
Traction
Running out of money

6. A Better Way
Problem/Solution Product/Market
Scale
Fit Fit
Finding a plan that works. Accelerating
that plan.
Build - Measure - Learn - Pivot Expend capital.
Grow.
Optimize.

7. Stage 1: Problem/Solution Fit
Do I have a problem worth solving?
1. Solve a problem that a lot of people have.
2. Solve problem that is close to large amounts of money.
3. Find a better way to do something that a lot of people
do.
4. Invent something new that a lot of people want.
Document your “Plan A”.

8. Stage 2: Product/Market Fit
Have I built something people want?
• The customer is willing to pay for the product.
• The cost of acquiring the customer is less than what they
pay for the product.
• There’s sufficient evidence indicating the market is large
enough to support the business.
* or *
40% of users saying they would be “very disappointed”
without your product.

9. The Goal: Minimum Value Product (MVP)
A product with the fewest number of features required to get
users to pay*.
*with some form of a scarce resource.

10. A validated what?

11. The Validated Learning Loop
Build Measure
Learn

12. Building a validated learning loop
1. Formulate falsifiable hypotheses
2. Design a time-boxed experiment
3. Validate Qualitatively, Verify Quantitatively
BAD:
We want to become market leaders in mobile blah-blah-blah
for the blah-blah segment.
GOOD:
If we build a free iphone app that does blah, can we get 1
out of 10 people who download it to use it every day?

13. So what happens
when you realize
you messed up?

14. Pivot!