i'm still finishing up my latest book
review it's of this: Influence by Robert
B. Cialdini. He's a PhD and it shows I
mean look how small this text is it's...
my heart just sank when I opened it first
but thankfully it's a really good book
today though I'd like to talk a little
bit about the lean startup
one night last week I had a bit of a
brainwave for some new videos to record
so I decided to write down my thoughts
in a sort of script or recording plan
more of a train of thought than anything
else and while I was writing that
something that in hindsight should have
been obvious started to become pretty
clear to me the lean startup is
essentially a rebranding of the
scientific method. Yes, Eric Ries fleshes
it out a little bit with innovation
accounting and pivot or persevere but
the core of the book, the build measure
learn loop, is essentially the scientific
method in different words. I mean, this
shouldn't be a surprise he states it
clearly on page 55 the way forward is to
learn to see every startup in an
industry as a grand experiment we need a
method of systematically breaking down a
business plan into its component parts
and testing each part empirically in
other words we need the scientific method
I think this raises two questions
first of all why didn't I see this the
first time I read the book? Well I did
mention in my book review that I found
the book a little bit jarring and hard
to read in parts and I'm becoming more
and more aware that this might have
actually been intentional it's almost
like mis-direction to take the user
away from what should be a very
straightforward and familiar idea
secondly why does the scientific method
need rebranding? or more importantly why
is a rebranding of such a simple and
straightforward concept so influential?
I'm going to use an example for this one
I recently had the opportunity to pitch
my own startup to a potential customer
he's the general manager of a five-star
hotel here in Ireland my product is an
asset management system with a twist it
helps businesses identify issues with
their physical assets quicker than ever
before so issues are resolved
maintenance costs are reduced and
customer satisfaction is increased
anyway the challenge we face is to put a
unique code on each asset in this case
we're going to use little QR
stickers and they're going to go on
assets such as headed paper or
branded napkins or brochures so that
staff can identify when stock is running
low and report that now the hotel is
pretty up Market. it's got a golf course
it's an old style of building an antique
interior and when the general manager
heard the word sticker he literally
recoiled he didn't really like the idea
of the stickers I mean what if a
customer saw them or a business partner
saw them and I took away the whole
mystique and the whole aesthetic of his
business thankfully however he saw the
value in the system so we started
calling the stickers bespoke asset
identification tags and very quickly his
tune started to change after a short
meeting he softened up and we're sheduled
to put a trial in place in the next
number of weeks I think in terms of the
lean startup and the build measure learn
loop those that are reading the book are
looking for a secret to success and
telling them that that secret is just a
scientific method and to do things in
small batches doesn't really cut it but
if you wrap it up in some buzz words all
of a sudden you've got a best-seller
that's transforming the way companies
are built and products are launched
except Francis Bacon discovered it in
the 16th century and Toyota brought it
to the business world in the 1930s
suppose good ideas don't get old
thanks for watching this video I hope
you enjoyed it my next book review will
be out very soon as you can see I'm
right at the end of the book. I'm really
enjoying it actually it's really good
and I'm thinking that I might actually
split some of the videos up into
chapters and because there's just so
much content in this book to discuss at
the moment I'm putting together the MVP
and as I said we'll be putting that in
place in the hotel in the next number of
weeks so I can't go very much faster
than the hotel is willing to put us in
there so that's our limiting factor at
the moment but there will be a lot more
content to that in the videos to come
thanks for watching
