Build, Measure, Learn — The 3 pillars

Many start-ups usually begin with a perception of a product that they believe people would be looking for. They spend years on building this product, perfecting it without ever showing the product or the proof of concept to their prospective customers.

Failure of many start-ups often occurs when they certainly haven’t spoke to the prospective customers about the product or never made an effort to reach them or even understand if customers are equally convinced about the product like they do. Hence developing products , without checking your prospective customers needs, is a big mistake which often most start-ups make.

Among several known approaches towards creating, managing start-ups , one of the most popular ones is the Lean Start Up method Build, Measure & Learn approach which can create order and prevent chaos.

What is Build , Measure & Learn?

Build Measure and Learn is one of the key components of Lean methodology. It is a highly effective approach to start up development and continuous improvement of product, ideas, cost etc.

The term itself appears quite straightforward -

· Build a product and then getting them into the real world

· Measure the customers responses and behavior towards the build

· Learn from the responses/opinions received from customers to make it better

This cycle is often repeated until we build a product that creates value to our customers. The method offers scientific approach , introducing an organised style for business owners to engage in new product development. In this methodology, start-ups test an idea with their potential customers, to build a (MVP)minimal viable product(a prototype of a product, as a software app or video game, that includes functional versions of key elements that are planned for inclusion in the final product, and that is shared with a small audience whose feedback is used to inform and direct further product development).

It will then obtain feedback over the product and adjust/enhance the product accordingly , depending on the feedback and response received by the customers.

The Build Measure Learn loop signifies the basic practice of rapid iteration based on the direct feedback received from the customers on the functional products. These iterations includes basic validation and assumptions about the market requirements and whether the products fulfilled the requirements.

The concept is very similar to may other loops found in other domains few of them are-

· Plan-Do-Act

· Think-Make-Check-in

· Observe-Orient-Decide-Act

The main purpose of implementing this cycle is to minimising the total time using the loop.

How is this done?

1) IDEAS — To start with a process ideation and planning is the most important factor, to work out on what should be the focus of the cycle.

Secondly planning and working out what experiment/test needs to be conducted, depending on the kind of work- whether its something simple or something complex like changing the entire feature. To get most out of the test one should identify the hypothesis , which should come from any assumptions made in ideation or during previous tests. Once we have the hypothesis then plan on how to test the theory. While planning these tests one needs to know how its going to be measured so that the required features are included in the build.

2) BUILD — The goal here is to build a Minimum Viable Product(MVP) smallest possible product that allows us test our hypothesis. Whatever is the MVP, whether it’s a basic home page or a working prototype one should make sure that it should show just enough core features to attract the interest of the prospective customers(the people we are targeting to use this product)

3) PRODUCT — Now that the code/product is ready to be deployed. Before deployment spend enough time making sure that all required refactoring from previous cycles are been included with all the mandatory features added to it. It is also very important to follow practices like proper tests and continuous integration.

4) MEASURE — How one plans to measure the test/experiments, can differ, based on how mature the product is. Making very sure whether there is enough interest in the proposed product to continue with developing it further. Measuring can be done through analytics or A/B Testing(shadow testing with our customers/users).

5) DATA — After measuring the tests, next step is to analyse the gathered data. Organise the data to make it easily understood to whoever goes through it or listens to it. Make the presentation of data as convincing in a way that it grabs the attention of the prospective users.

6) LEARN — This stage is all about making decisions based on the measurements gathered whether to can carry on with the same goals or change the strategy. The learn phase is all about concluding whether the product solves the problem of users or to carry out different tests in order to correct anything that went as not expected by repeating the loop using all that was learnt to test new hypothesis.

Points to remember –

· PLAN your experiment

· BUILD a viable product and test it with the target audience

· MEASURE results against your hypothesis

· LEARN and decide from the conclusion whether to persevere or pivot

In the forthcoming blog we shall talk about disciplined entrepreneurship covering topics such as-

TAM — Total Addressable Market

SAM — Service Available Market

SOM — Service Orientable Market