32- year old serial entrepreneur Eric Ries will be the opening plenary speaker at AUTM’s 2013 Annual Meeting.
In 2008 Mr. Ries started a blog called “Startup Lessons Learned” (of course he did—he was starting middle school at the dawn of the Clinton Presidency for goodness sakes). In his blog Eric (I am allowed to call him Eric because in his official photo he looks to be about the same age as my teenage son) began outlining a scientific methodology for successfully starting up profitable companies. After gaining a large Silicon Valley following Eric decided to share his personal experiences with a couple of failed companies together with a detailed description of the lean startup philosophy in book form (so old school). The book was called “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” and it has been on the business bestseller list ever since being published last year.
Eric graduated from Yale University (BS Computer Science, 2001. 2001!) and while an undergraduate student he started his first company. Long story short Catalyst Recruiting fell victim to the dot.com crash as did the startup company There.com where Eric signed on as a software engineer after graduation. Eric went on to found the on-line social network company IMVU and by 2010 Eric was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School. Currently Eric serves on several company and VC investment advisory boards and he is the creator of an annual technology conference called, what else, the Lean Startup Conference.
Yes he is 32. OK I know what you are thinking…..what could I possibly learn from someone who is still probably paying off his student loans and lives in a bachelor pad located above his parents’ garage? Very little I’d imagine which is why AUTM went with an über-successful Generation Y’er and not your unemployed nephew as our lead-off speaker. Eric is a leading proponent of a new business approach that aims to radically change how companies are created and how they go about developing and launching new products. Agile businesses of this type rely on experimentation, data collection and iterative product releases to shorten product development times and create products and services that customers actually want. The Lean Startup mantra, which is based on the lean or streamlined manufacturing tactics developed by the Japanese auto industry, is now being used across the globe and in a diverse range of industries.
Eric has some radical ideas for businesspeople: Test out your ideas and products before betting the bank on them. Expect to get it wrong the first time (and probably the second time too); stay flexible and don’t spend all of your funds so that you can last long enough to try again (and again) until you get it right. Don’t listen to your customers (or to focus groups); instead observe what they actually do. Come hear Eric explain the core lean startup principles and gain an in-depth understanding of key lean startup terminology such as split testing, a minimum viable product, continuous deployment, the pivot (a pivot is a change in strategy without a change of vision) and ,my personal favorite, vanity metrics. What is a vanity metric you ask? It is a measurement that shows a company in the best possible light but which has nothing at all to do with the company’s actual success (or lack thereof) in the marketplace.
Be sure to sprinkle in one or two these phrases later on when you get back to the office just to show your colleagues how smart you are and doing so will also prove to your boss that your trip to lovely San Antonio, Texas wasn’t a junket.
Eric will present on Thursday morning February 28, 2013 at 8 a.m.