So Joe Womack, my CEO, decided that we should pivot and really focus on bringing additional value to our users. Of course I agree with this, but the how is more of a concern to me. Some time ago we decided to change things up a bit but could never figure out the what or the how. After some great discussion I realized that Joe had fallen in love with the lean startup. At first I wasn’t sure if it was worth the energy or effort to pivot into something so unfamiliar, but after learning the basic benefits of the lean startup I decided to look into into it myself.
The fit was perfect. I had already read Rework so that material, so the materials found in the Lean Startup fit perfectly and quickly I hopped on board. As CTO, I decided that it was a perfect fit for what we are trying to do. DIGITALGUESTLIST has always been a source for events, but to be honest we were having a hard time finding value in our 20K users. The lean startup methodology forces us to ask the right questions and allows us to discover the value for our users instead of guessing. That’s important to me considering we’ve tried several different things for the past few years with only nominal adoption. Joe and I had a few more conversations and with the Essence Festival coming up, we both concluded that this was a great opportunity to test our product for a live audience with real value.
So far developing for the pivot has been less steep than previous development so I’m already excited to see if Joe’s research pays off. The problem is I want to rebrand DGL right in the middle of the pivot and there simply isn’t enough time, period. Either way I look forward to the new methodology and to see what results we can produce. The big question is, have you tried the lean startup methodology? Do you think there are other industries that can benefit from the “Lean” concept? If so let me know in the comments.