In the technology startup world, lean is a way of life.
Being lean is not just a mantra, to many technology startups it’s how they operate day to day.
“Running lean is a systematic process for innovating from Plan A to one that works before you run out of money,” said Ash Maurya, founder of Spark59 and author of Running Lean.
Most startups fail just like most products fail, Maurya told about 50 people gathered Thursday afternoon for a Lean Startup meeting at Geekdom, a San Antonio collaborative workspace at the Weston Centre downtown. Many of the entrepreneurs in attendance belong to the TechStars Cloud, which kicked off on Jan. 9 and is based at the Geekdom.
“The odds of success are really stacked against new products,” Maurya said. “I would suggest not focusing on the failure rate but focusing on this statistic: 66 percent change their product along the way. What separates a successful company is not finding that perfect plan but perfecting that plan along the way.”
Eric Ries coined the term Lean Startup and trademarked it. His 2011 bestselling book has a similar theme of Running Lean. Ries teaches about how to use build, measure and learn cycles to identify what customers really want.
Lean comes from lean manufacturing or lean thinking, Maurya said. The key there is eliminating waste.
Companies fail because they fail to find markets for their products and they fail to find the right customers, he said.
First, entrepreneurs need to ask themselves if they have a problem worth solving. They can do this by interviewing potential customers. Next, they must create a demo to put in front of a customer as quickly as possible. It’s also important to stay focused.
“We have this myth of the visionary entrepreneur,” Maurya said. “The most visionary of our times is Steve Jobs who recently passed away.”
But Apple has a string of innovation behind its successful products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad that goes back to the first Newton, a tablet computer that Apple built that failed twice.
But Maurya said that product development actually gets in the way of learning. The best way to learn is from customers and markets in the earliest stage.
“We get some learning at that point, but the real learning occurs when we release the product into the market,” Maurya said. “Lots of companies build something hoping there will be a market for it. That’s where they go astray.”
The Running Lean process shortens the time from idea to product release. The key to success is building a product people want and knowing how to listen to customers to adjust the product.
For example, if Henry Ford asked people what they wanted for transportation they would have said faster horses, Maurya said. But Ford was able to identify the hidden problem embedded in there. People wanted faster transportation and he was able to create an alternative.
“All the customers can do is tell you what their problems are,” Maurya said. “Define what that ideal solution is for them. That’s what running lean can be boiled down to.”
One of the most important parts of Running Lean focuses on the activities entrepreneurs do to engage with customers.
“You need to get out of the building and engage with customers throughout that development process,” Maurya said. “The answers don’t lie on your computer or in the lab. You have to engage with customers and talk with them.”
Startups need to run small experiments and find ways to do 10 to 20 releases in six months to refine the product and path to one that works.
“Business plans fall short,” Maurya said. “It goes from critical thinking to fiction writing. You start making up stuff. The format for a business plan is a bad one. We call it a form of waste in the lean terminology.”
So Maurya created a shorter version to distill down the most important concepts behind a startup. He calls it the Lean Canvas format. It’s a one-page adaptation of the original business model plans. To date, more than 8,000 startups have filled out a Lean Canvas format on his site. He’s also sold 15,000 copies of his book in a combination of PDF formats and traditional publishing. The second edition will be released in March.
“Because it’s a single page it gets conversation going whether it’s good or bad,” Maurya said. “ If you put it in front of someone they can’t help but read it.”
Startups are about risk mitigation initially. If an entrepreneur is trying to raise funding, it’s not about solutions yet, Maurya said. Investors look at your business model from a completely different lens.
“What we are doing here is taking a very complex product like building a company and breaking it down to its components in manageable sizes,” Maurya said.
Tag: San Antonio (Page 15 of 17)
Greenling's marketing director Kathryn Hutchinson shows off the company's locally sourced produce
By EOGHAN MCCLOSKEY
Special contributor to Silicon Hills News
Greenling has tapped into the growing interest in sustainable, organic, seasonal and locally sourced food by providing an alternative to traditional grocery stores and instead focusing on an increasingly sophisticated, organically inclined clientele.
Greenling is a start-up organic grocery delivery service which allows customers to shop for produce, meats, dairy, prepared foods and other products online and have those groceries delivered to their homes or workplaces up to four times per week.
Greenling’s mission is to provide home cooks with fresh, healthy foods in a manner that minimizes environmental impact, said Kathryn Hutchinson, Greenling’s marketing director. By delivering produce to customers’ homes, customers burn less fossil fuels than if they were to drive to the grocery store. The majority of Greenling’s produce is locally sourced, and those products not from Austin or surrounding areas are certified organic and sustainably produced. Produce that is out of season or that sells out quickly is pulled from Greenling’s webstore immediately, a practice which contrasts sharply with that of other, larger grocery stores, whose need to provide produce year-round leads to reliance on unsustainable and non-organic producers.
Lately, Greenling is seeing a big uptick in demand for its meal kits, which feature pre-cut and pre-measured ingredients ready to heat and serve. Kits are delivered in compostable or recycled containers and can even be tailored to customers’ unique dietary needs. So popular are Greenling’s meal kits that Greenling is currently expanding to a larger prep kitchen in order to accommodate demand.
Greenling was founded in 2005, funded by $5,000 investments each from Mason Arnold, current owner and CEO, and two co-founders. Since then, Greenling has raised $1.5 million from a range of investors and grown into the largest produce delivery service in central Texas, servicing roughly 5,000 customers along the I-35 corridor from Georgetown to San Antonio and everything in between. This year, Greenling is planning an expansion into the Dallas market, working with a network of farmers and producers to bring sustainable, organic produce to Dallas customers. At the heart of Greenling’s success is a simple and intuitive online store which displays available produce as large graphical icons—locally sourced produce marked with a prominent green tag—and allows customers to specify delivery dates and times. Its webstore and other innovations have allowed Greenling to succeed despite the capital-intensive nature of working with and delivering highly perishable produce. Customers who are interested in organic and sustainable produce tend to be more tech-savvy, notes Christine Blank of Supermarket News, and consumers in this demographic increasingly have less and less time to spend on going to the grocery store but still want to provide their families with healthy food options. Shopping online at Greenling only takes 10 to 15 minutes, notes owner Matthew Arnold in Blank’s piece “Organics Online,” as opposed to dealing with traffic congestion, parking and large crowds at a grocery store. Satisfying the needs of these time-strapped, net-savvy consumers has allowed Greenling to flourish on delivery services alone without the need to open a storefront. A lack of free time to shop for healthy food was what drew Patrick Condon to start shopping with Greenling, and their success in delivering such foods compelled him to invest in the company several years later. “They do all the research and vetting of farmers for me and then deliver the best of the best to my doorstep, “ Condon notes. “It is truly a farmer’s market on my doorstep.” Condon praises in particular Greenling’s plan to move into the Dallas market. “[Greenling is] positioned incredibly well for the changing tide happening in American’s taste in healthy and sustainable food alternatives,” since Greenling has been able to combine consumers’ nascent passion for sustainable foods with a successful business model.
Of course, online grocery shopping is nothing new. PeaPod, Safeway.com, Plumgood Foods, Planet Organics, MyWebGrocer and other businesses have all built successful online grocery shopping markets. Nor is interest in online grocery shopping confined to the US; global grocery giant Tesco this year rolled out a virtual grocery shopping smartphone app in Thailand and online grocery sales are expected to double in the UK over the next five years, all but overtaking traditional grocery shopping. But Greenling is unique in part because of its focus on regional geography, delivering Texas produce to central Texas eaters. Limiting business to Texas is an asset rather than a hindrance, Arnold notes, because “sometimes [Greenling has] a better timeframe for delivery” than distributors that focus on larger areas. Greenling’s marketing strategies are also very regionally focused, rarely relying on more than word of mouth to advertise their services.
“Growth has been spectacular,” Arnold remarks, noting the humble beginnings of the company running out of one of the co-founders’ garage. Seven years and $1.5 million raised from a range of investors later, Greenling is poised to continue growing and continue attempting to change the way we eat for the better.
San Antonio-based Sigma Solutions
announced that it has bought a division of Laurus Technologies, based in Chicago.
The division is Laurus’ server, storage and virtualization business with 80 customers. Earlier, Sigma bought the Midwest assets of Artemis Technology, also in the Midwest. Now Sigma, which provides computing software and services to large companies, has a bigger presence there.
“We have been making acquisitions to help accelerate Sigma’s growth while executing our strategies in the broader geographic, enterprise IT market,” stated Dave Miller, CEO of Sigma Solutions.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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At the Capital Factory’s Demo Day, Mason Arnold gave a quick pitch on Greenling, the organic grocery delivery service.
“Our food system is broke,” Arnold said.
He estimates more than half the population in the U.S. will die from food-related disease, primarily obesity-related illnesses. He founded Greenling to change the way people eat. And he says Greenling “makes it easy, fun and delicious to change the way you eat.”
If you’re making resolutions for the new year to eat right and exercise, you might want to check them out. The Austin-based startup has more than 5,000 customers. Some of their most popular products are their seasonal veggie boxes and complete meal kits. Greenling recently partnered with Austin-based Whole Foods, which also works with local and organic farmers to bring fresh produce to customers in the Austin and San Antonio region.
This video is from the Capital Factory’s Demo Day.
And if you still want to know more, check out Greenling’s video.
Jason Seats, managing director of the TechStars Cloud, says hundreds of companies applied to the program. In the end, TechStars choose 11 companies. All of them are from outside of San Antonio. Seats is not revealing the company names until April 6th at TechStars Cloud Demo Day.
Nicole Glaros, one of the founders of TechStars in Boulder, will also move to San Antonio for the 13-week program with her family. Seats says the program will serve as the catalyst San Antonio needs to ignite its high-tech startup community. All of the companies will be located at Geekdom, a collaborative workspace at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio.
Nick Longo, head of Geekdom, a co-working and collaboration space at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio, created this video to provide insight into the mission of the nonprofit organization.
Geekdom opened a few months ago and has held three Startup Ignite Hackathon events along with a 3 Day Startup San Antonio Weekend and TechStars Cloud for a day. It will also host the companies selected to participate in the inaugural TechStars Cloud program. Already companies like Zippy Kid and Alan Weinkrantz Public Relations have offices there.
Geekdom from The IMG Studio on Vimeo.
Jim Plant, president and CEO of NewTek
On the small screen, current TV shows like Terra Nova, a sci-fi drama and Hawaii Five-O also use the software.
Although NewTek is far from Hollywood, the San Antonio-based company is often an integral part of any movie or television show using computerized special effects. And that means the privately-held company is booming.
NewTek now occupies two buildings on San Antonio’s Northside with 120 local employees and 250 overall. It’s doubled in size since Tim Jenison, a pioneer of desktop video, moved the company to San Antonio in 1997 from Topeka, Kansas, where he founded it in 1985.
“2012 will be the biggest year in NewTek’s history,” said Jim Plant, its president and chief executive officer.
And the growth isn’t just coming from NewTek’s software. It manufactures the NewTek Tricaster, a 42-pound portable production system that fits into a backpack and allows anyone to produce broadcast-quality video from remote locations.
The Tricaster appeals to a wide array of customers from the National Basketball Association to production professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists and corporations.
Heng Dai Media, producing Music City Roots, has a TriCaster-equipped RV to travel the country and stream concerts live. Technology reporter Leo Laporte at Twit.TV has recently expanded his Tricaster-based studio.
NewTek has a long history of bringing video to the masses.
NewTek’s flagship product was the Video Toaster, released in 1990 for the Commodore Amiga computer. The product officially went away with the demise of the Commodore in 1994.
But occasionally a NewTek customer sends one in for repair, Plant said.
“People held on to them for a long, long time,” he said.
With the demise of the Video Toaster, NewTek poured all of its energy into developing and selling Lightwave, a special effects software program aimed at television shows and moviemakers. That product drove NewTek’s bottom line for a long time, Plant said.
“We made Lightwave work on everything,” said Donetta Colboch, director of public relations, who has been with the company for more than 20 years.
“The 3-D market was lot different back then,” Plant said. “People had to spend $20,000 to $30,000 for the software and another half a million for a refrigerator-sized computer to run it on.”
NewTek’s mission was and is to make video production affordable and easy, Plant said.
“It’s not hyperbole to say that Lightwave and the Video Toaster changed the entire industry,” he said.
NewTek created the next generation of the Video Toaster based on a personal computer platform and released it in 2001.
And in 2005, NewTek launched the first Tricaster.
“That’s really been the rocket booster that has propelled us through the years,” Plant said.
Schools and colleges also use the Tricaster to cover live events. Brands like the NBA use it along with media companies, entrepreneurs, companies and nonprofit organizations. Individuals like Dick Van Dyke and Adam Carolla have Tricasters to produce their own shows.
“Anybody can start a television studio,” Plant said. “Live production is accessible and doable like never before.”
NewTek is even working with Yoko Ono and the John Lennon Tour Bus to take the Tricaster on the road next year, said Philip Nelson, NewTek’s senior vice president of strategic development.
And every year NewTek holds a contest for high school students to cover the Alamo Bowl. It selects four students to produce the event live using its Tricaster.
“It’s like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket,” Plant said.
Nelson recounts how NewTek’s Founder Jenison was quoted a long time ago saying “In the next 20 years, your favorite TV show will be made by you or someone you know.” That day has arrived and Tricaster makes it possible, Nelson said.
With the Videotoaster, NewTek aimed to democratize media through video tapes. NewTek sent out more than 300,000 copies of its “Revolution” video in the early 1990s, Donetta Colboch said.
“On the average each of those copies was seen by seven additional people,” she said. Then along came the Internet and everything moved from video tapes to digital production online.
Donetta Colboch, director of public relations for NewTek, gives a tour of the San Antonio-based company’s office. The privately held company makes Lightwave 3D software that TV and movie makers use. The software was used in Avatar, Titanic, Monsters Inc. and dozens of other movies. NewTek also makes a portable production studio called a Tricaster that makes broadcast-quality production more affordable and accessible to the masses.
We’ll publish a story later on today interviewing Jim Plant, NewTek’s president, about the company’s growth and its outlook for 2012.
The shortage of technology workers in the Silicon Hills region continues. The Austin American-Statesman today reported that the recent trip technology CEOs from Austin took to California didn’t result in any new employees moving to Texas. Perhaps that’s why San Antonio-based Rackspace recently opened an office in San Francisco. The technology companies have to go where the talent resides. Also on Saturday, Rackspace held a recruiting event called Rackerpalooza at its Austin office. Rackspace also recently expanded its San Antonio headquarters.
On Friday, Dirk Elmendorf, one of the founders of Rackspace, gave a talk at San Antonio’s Startup Ignite’s third monthly Hack-a-thon at the Geekdom in downtown San Antonio.
On Wednesday, Austin-based Portalarium, which makes games for social networks and mobile platforms, announced its first social network game, Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale. Gaming Legend Richard Garriott is developing the game, which will be available for a beta release later this year.
Also on Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that a group of investors including San Antonio Billionaire Red McCombs has invested $1.75 million in an Austin-startup called Bypass Lane, which has created an app that lets people order food and drinks from their seats in a stadium while watching an event.
On Tuesday, the University of Texas honored 40 inventors including Professor John Goodenough and Professor Adam Heller, pioneers of lithium batteries, according to this post from University President Bill Powers.
On Monday, Gowalla’s founder Josh Williams officially announced that Facebook had acquired the Austin-based start-up, but it didn’t acquire the company’s data. It mainly wanted their development team. The Austin American Statesman had a story on the acquisition and didn’t mention anything about the $10 million Gowalla raised in venture capital. But Michael Arrington at Uncrunched reported that the deal might be a liquidation and it was uncertain if investors would get their money back.
On Monday, Globalscape of San Antonio bought Tappin of Seattle in “a deal worth up to $17 million,” according to this story in TechFlash.