My Lean Startup Conference 2012 talk.

1. The Challenge of
Sustaining Disruptive Innovation
When You Meet Success

2. So you get some success...
70
52
Headcount
Revenue
28
8 6
3
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

3. What is Sharethrough?

4. What is Sharethrough?

5. What is Sharethrough?

6. Innovate or die
*disruptive innovations not sustaining innovations

7. It’s easier to innovate in a
successful startup

8. FAL SE!
It’s easier to innovate in a
successful startup

9. Product & Engineering
Resource Allocation
100
75
50
25
0
Support Existing Success Disruptive Innovations

10. Number of Internal
Customers
100
75
50
25
0
Support Existing Success Disruptive Innovations

11. Certainty of Revenue
100
75
50
25
0
Support Existing Success Disruptive Innovations

12. Balancing success and disruptive
innovation is especially hard for a
startup

13. Here’s what we did

14. Step 1:
Create the Right Environment
Identify the right resources based on
their ability to aid your learning (vs
scale)

15. Step 1:
Create the Right Environment
Isolate and clear the schedule of your
resources

16. Step 1:
Create the Right Environment
Don’t promise to (immediately)
revolutionize the business

17. Step 2:
Set Goals and Boundaries
Use internal customer development to
develop initial hypotheses

18. Step 2:
Set Goals and Boundaries
Aim to build an MVP that solves a
simple business problem

19. Step 2:
Set Goals and Boundaries
Build a usable product not just a hack -
don’t skimp on design

20. Step 3:
Milestones & Progress Checks
Keep the progress updates separate
from the existing product workflow

21. Step 3:
Milestones & Progress Checks
Use regular (weekly) customer
meetings as release markers

22. Step 3:
Milestones & Progress Checks
Re-assess high-level assumptions and
hypotheses every 3 months

23. My Learnings

24. Innovation is Hard

25. Don’t fall into old habits!
Re-do your customer development

26. Don’t fall into old habits!
Iterate differently

27. When you “finish”, have a
transition plan in place

28. Be ready for disappointment and
some pivoting

29. Thanks!
Robert Fan
@rfan
rob@sharethrough.com