If you could ask Eric one question, what would it be?

• Would you consider an advisory role with our company?
• A startup needs to minimize overheads. If they know they need to improve marketing, but have no specialist marketing background, should they hire freelancer, employee or agency? If hiring, how senior should the first marketing hire be.
• Is there a typical / key point in a start-up’s timeline that it should raise a big round a really go for it? Any key revenue or traction metrics? This is specifically for an enterprise cloud software company..
• How do you learn focus? How do you pick the right battles, get the team to focus on same things and avoid endless discussions what the right things, features etc might be but rather build things quickly?
• Have you thought of starting another startup with the knowledge you’ve now gained?
• How can we protect our IP when rapidly iterating and testing, which would mean that IP is publicly disclosed?
• Whats the biggest “valid” MVP you have seen so far?
• What do you think is the most cost effective way to test online start-up ideas?
• What I should we do to encourage my team to adopt continuous deployment?
• Does he see any context when an entrepreneur should write a business plan?
• How do you stop engineers indulging themselves in the code instead of the company objective?
• What’s the most important thing to look for in an investor?
• What’s the best way to get valuable insight from your customers whilst protecting your product from their “bad” ideas.
• Not one question, but my interest is creating a lean start up mentality in an enterprise environment
• What are the biggest mistakes you’ve made in your startups career?
• Do you have any thoughts on the kinds of people to surround yourself with when starting up or who you can tap into for advice when launching a start-up?
• Since writing the book, what have you realised needs to be changed?
• If your business is B2B and makes a few large sales per year, what tips do you have for applying Lean Startup Theory (vs. a SW company doing releases very frequently)
• Which engine of growth do you think is the easiest one to achieve for a new startup and why? A B2B business with paid-for growth or a consumer business with viral growth etc?
• What can Lean techniques do to assist a bootstrapped startup
• Know any good investors?
• Would you like to be an adviser?
• What are your thoughts into how to introduce lean startup ideas into the enterprise.
• Does bootstrapping ever fatally constrict growth?
• Is it better to focus on the process day to day of your business or set long term goals for it?
• Do you want to see a demo?
• What would motivate you to go and build another startup?
• Is the lean upstart movement dependent on the open source software movement to work?
• In what start-up circumstances does the lean approach work least well?
• How to achieve MVP / lean methodology when undertaking Enterprise B2B sales, often with companies who expect a full set of features, no bugs, all bells and whistles etc?
• How do we apply the principles of lean to B2B focused problems, given that testing an MVP may be more challenging since there are far fewer interactions with potential enterprise customers?
• Can you share some strategies for demonstrating learning to potential investors?
• Future trends? Will a MVP model still be relevant in 2-3 years time?
• How successfully can Lean Startup principles by applied within existing organisations and larger companies?
• When is lean too lean? As the only full time employee this is something I have faced when trying to get angel investment. I am seen as a risk as so much is dependent on me.
• Are Lean Startup principles just for startups?
• How do you distinguish between a small group of people working together,acting like a business as opposed to a startup?
• Perhaps: When, at what point in your growing process would you try to get VC for your startup? When is too early/late?
• How can we get/motivate the whole startup company team into the Lean Startup concepts?
• Your book is fantastic, when’s the follow-up?
• Nationally, we spend billions subsiding banks, but virtually nothing investing in startups. How can we change that?
• When can I buy you a coffee?
• A business degree is said not to necessarily teach you what it takes to successfully run a business. How can you foster entrepreneurial skills in young people and turn them into leaders?
• Will the fall-out from next year’s mega IPO glut create a tougher post-“tech” start-up world, ie less focus on new tech but one where start-ups are simply striving to create sustainable businesses in a leaner/meaner world?
• What specific IT techniques, when necessary, has he seen provide the most value in enabling value and supporting the lean startup process?
• If you had one tip to give me about running a small company with a goal to inspire people to change the way they work – what would it be?
• what’s the airspeed of a swallow?(blogger and write for tech press and others)
• How does the lean startup model differ for existing companies v. new ones?
• How do you think Lean Startup methodologies can be best applied to the world’s currently beleaguered financial status – either through practical behaviours, or a change in mental outlook by governments/people?
• What are the three key characteristics of a lean start-ups?
• How do you overcome fears about not having enough technical knowledge to develop your product past the MVP stage.
• I would like to ask Eric about the Kanban process, I current use Agile and would like to ask him more about how it works in real life.
• The first iteration is probably the most difficult/risky one. How to overcome the fear of being copied?
• Does he write short essays?
• How do you plan to spend your proceeds from the success of The Lean Startup?
• How can you apply lean start-up principles to public services?
• What do you think the best way is to get your team to buy into what you’re doing, to give more and go the extra mile?
• When developing a business platform product which has relatively few customers (inaccessible directors), but many users (who don’t know what they want), how do you balance developing a seed of an idea into a product, and releasing and getting feedback. 1 Year ago my pitch or landing page would have got very bad feedback, whereas now because we have worked more on the product and through selected feedback we are getting great feedback yet we still haven’t gone ‘live’ with beta. When is that MVP point?
• As a startup perspective, if you have amount of money for international expansion, what is your first move for that? And how?
• how can you ensure that Founders retain the passion that inspired their startup whilst iterating and employing lean customer development?
• How to REALLY apply lean methods to non-profit/big organizations?
• Can I ask it on the night?!
• How can you launch your product and make it as viral as possible in the least amount of time.
• Early adopters are good at identifying and allowing the Lean process to validate/improve or change your product. However how can a startup distinguish the needs of a seasoned early adopter from that of a typical non early adopter end user. The non early apopter may be less technically orientated and may even have a different take on your product. The non early apopter approach or feedback may be something that early adopters cannot relate to and hence an opportunity to improve or enhance the product may be missed. How can this situation be managed?
• Can the principles of Lean be delivered for business opportunities that require real scale from the get go?
• Do you think that the market for web based news aggregators is oversaturated?
• What is the best way to find customers to interview and how many do you need to interview before you start developing a product?
• How would you apply the Lean Startup methodology to Professional Services companies in an emerging technology (cloud computing) context?
• How would you apply the Lean Startup methodology to Professional Services companies in an emerging technology (cloud computing) context?
• Why did Aardvark fail?
• We are a start up that sells to other businesses and have difficulty gaining feedback, good or bad, on our product.What ways have you found most effective at gaining feedback on products or services from other businesses?
• Deciding on metrics (KPIs) which really prove traction in engagement and conversion is hard. Where can companies get help on fashioning the right KPIs?
• How much of a role does a finance director really have in a lean start up?
• Do you have any success stories yet about using the Lean start-up methodology to develop new ways of delivery public services? What lessons can be drawn from these?
• How did you come up with the concept of lean start-up and how long did it take you to create it?
• Lean Start-up. Highly regulated medical device. Discuss.
• Why companies which are market leaders in their industries (e.g. IMB for mainframes computers)did not pioneer nor dominate the minicomputes and later the PC market even if they had the the know-how and the resources to do it? Why did they miss the next wave of incremental innovation?
• What advice would Eric have for businesses that started the ‘fat’ and wish they’d heard of the ‘lean’ approach 5 years ago!
• What is the biggest start up mistake you have ever made and what did you learn?
• Do you think all business ventures are suited to the lean startup model. If not, why?
• In all your experience working on the Lean Startup methodology, what’s been your biggest surprise?
• Please give case-studies (example / successufl resolutions) of Persevere v.s. Pivot dilema .
• How do you stay lean when growing at a huge pace.
• Which of London, Berlin, Paris or other city has the best chance of becoming the “digital capital of Europe” and why?
• How can we apply these ideas to innovation in government policies?
• Terran, Zerg or Protoss?
• Are there any industries / sectors in which Lean is not appropriate?
• When shouldn’t a startup be lean?
• The book contains a lot of indepth knowledge, but even with reading it over and over there are parts that will be missed. Whilst a cheat sheet should never be used without an understanding of what the purpose is, why wasn’t one included to help ensure those applying the practises aren’t missing essential parts?
• Does your business have to be profitable to raise funding? (ie you see companies running at a losses, raising millions of dollars).
• In what areas of a startup does he still recommend splurging?
• Is being ‘lean’ particularly relevant and important in certain industries more so than in others?
• How much do the principles in the book apply to non tech start-ups?
• What is the importance of branding in bringing out successful products?
• At a much discussed Le Web presentation recently Sean Parker and Shervin Pishevar made the case for only being interested in start-ups that had BIG vision (a la Facebook presumably) – do you agree?
• Do you have any unfulfilled dreams?
• Can you see the London start up scene competing with the Bay area in the near future?
• do you see any advantages to being in London rather than Silicon Valley and, if yes, what are they?
• What are the best metrics for a content-driven site?
• How do you manage balancing customer centric design versus making profitable business decisions?
• There are still many advocates of the “fat” startup, saying that for certain things you need a lot of money and time until they work. Are there any cases where this is true?
• Will he join our board?
• What experiments did IMVU do to test different models for growth
• Could Eric speak about applying Lean Startup methodology outside of the web startup world.
• Do you see any parallels/connections in the Lean Startup with GenFlux?
• In your book you talk of the importance of learning and learning from your mistakes. But is there one specific mistake in your business life you regret or would change?
• How does a bootstrapped startup with MVP legitimise itself in the enterprise software market.
• Is there an abridged version?
• Could you ever apply lean methodology for physical production techniques?
• I’ll think about that!
• Some ideas on how to go about breaking down a product idea in order to build a MVP.
• Should I take my digital marketing technology start-up to the US (from London) – for funding, for growth, for collaboration opportunities?
• What is the level of critical mass you need to obtain in-order to achieve consistent hardship, and how can you define this for a company i.e. over 20 people? This would change for each company though.
• Do you remember me from class at Berkeley? (blank’s)
• More value being created through disruptive startups…or just more startups?
• How to be a Lean Startup company when working as a work for hire?