The Lean LaunchPad

In Module 2, there were two important videos that we want to bring to your attention again.  They were Why Startups Fail, and Startups are not smaller versions of a big corporation. These two topics are important because most startups fail.  In fact, 80% to 90% will fail.  10%-20% will fail in their first year, and 70% before year 5.

As trusted mentors, we want the startups that we help to succeed and not fail. Many of us were trained by business schools that taught us that the way you start a business is to write a 50-page business plan spelling out every aspect of the business in advance: product, sales, marketing, 5-year financial projections, staffing, locations, etc. Then all we have to do is execute this plan and hope our initial decisions were correct.

Yet we learned that startups often fail because:

• Lack of Product Market Fit
• Denial of strong competitors
• Running out of funds

The high failure rate and the reasons for their failure tell us that there must be a better method to reduce exposure to these failure points and improve their chances of success. This is where the Lean LaunchPad (LLP) comes in.

What is the LLP?
The LLP is a new idea in startup training. It was created by a successful entrepreneur and Stanford lecturer, Steve Blank, to help fix the many startup failures in Silicon Valley. He noticed that brilliant people with great product ideas started companies that quickly crashed. LLP helps guide founders in a practical and focused direction to a better probability of success.

Fundamentally, LLP’s philosophy is that a Product is not a Business. Many founders have no idea how to find, size, and succeed in the market their product needs to survive and grow. They don’t appreciate how vital a clear understanding of their Competition is to their success. They know little about pricing, distribution channels, customer archetypes, finding customers, professional sales, and many other practical details of bringing their product to market. Also, they often don’t understand that a startup is fundamentally different from an established corporation, and startup success is a very different path than the corporate one.

Why do we ask VMT Mentors to invest their time in taking the LLP course?
The LLP has driven substantial new ideas in the startup ecosystem. Also, it approaches its subject in a way that may be new to highly experienced corporate executives. Startups are most emphatically not smaller versions of an established corporation. Techniques learned over a long career may only be slightly relevant to a nascent startup. The VMT Mentor may need to approach the startup universe with an open mind and enthusiastically embrace new ways of understanding and supporting their chosen startups. Many mentors who learn VMT principles say that “I wish I had understood these techniques when I was starting out”.