UX for Lean Startups

Introduction

I’m a little tired of the phrase “Get out of the building.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a wildly important concept. If you’re not familiar with Steve Blank and Eric Ries and the whole Lean Startup methodology, you should be. It’s good stuff.

Steve and Eric talk a lot about getting out of the building, and there’s an excellent reason for that. Getting out of the building is a great way to make products that people want to buy. Sadly, sometimes it’s easier to understand the importance of something than it is to put it into practice.

Of course, the goal of getting out of the building is to get you in better touch with your users. If you have a question about how your product should work or what feature you should build next, the answer is not in that airless conference room you’re trapped in. It’s not on the whiteboard. It’s not the result of an endless brainstorming session with other people at your company. Even your CEO does not have the answer.

Your answer is somewhere in the world outside the building, and your customers can help you find it. You just need to know how to learn from them. This is one of the most important concepts of Lean Startup. You need to validate things with your customers early and often in order to keep learning. If you missed that part of Eric and Steve’s work, you should take another look. It’s kind of a big deal.

If you’ve been paying attention to the rest of the talk about Lean Startup, then you’ve heard that user experience is also incredibly important. ...