One of the biggest concerns of those who are going to start a company or those who already have one, but want to improve their business model, is knowing how to grow with simpler processes and still generate positive results.
This concern is part of any management, and it is not by chance that it has been taking over the business environment through the Lean Startup concept. In literal translation, this means “lean startup,” a business that quickly eliminates waste to leverage its growth.
How To Apply Lean Startup In A Business?
Lean Startup is closely linked, mainly to the technological and marketing sectors. However, using universal methodologies, it can be applied to any business and inserted in small, medium, and large companies.
And for this concept to develop in a company, all processes must be well-established and clear. The Lean Startup can operate in the various phases of a business — production, sales, and post-sales — and thus identify the best way to apply and execute the concept for each process.
Lean Startups does not only propose to eliminate waste but to create new possibilities to develop a sustainable product or service. At the same time, the idea is also to impact the market and thus satisfy the niche.
What Are The Stages Of Concept Development In Companies?
In any business, mistakes and successes happen all the time. In the case of mistakes, how do you deal with challenges: how long do you learn from them and develop solutions?
In the Lean Startup concept, making mistakes is allowed and is part of the process. The sooner you fail, the faster you will learn and be able to correct the practice. Testing and validating launches of products, services, and new forms of processes is encouraging learning so that positive results come faster.
Within this, some phases must be implemented to integrate the lean method into the companies’ routines. Find out what they are below.
Apprenticeship
As I said before, you can and should learn from mistakes to get it right faster, which is also linked to knowledge about your product/service. Understanding the enterprise is paramount to applying lean, and your company can do this in several ways.
Having a clear business plan is the beginning of the process. It’s where you see your company, its limitations, its objectives, and everything that needs to be understood to understand how lean will work.
There are several tools to prepare a good business plan, and one of the best-known and most efficient is the Model Canvas.
Tests
The testing phase is crucial for validating Lean Startup processes. This means that the sustainability of the business must be by what is proposed, and for this to occur and make sense, experiments must be carried out to guarantee execution.
Another important point in the testing phase is measuring customer development so that as much information as possible about the viability of the business can be collected and, thus, promote agile business development.
Build, Measure, Learn
This cycle, which means ‘build-measure-learn,’ is the key to applying and developing a lean startup.
The first part of the flow (build) is the MVP (minimum viable product), which consists of creating quick solutions with minimum resources, favoring quick learning and a better view of the demands that arise.
The second part (measure) concerns the impact generated by the company. That is, if the product or service is achieving the expected results of what was indicated in the initial proposal and if they are real.
And the third part (learn) is related to learning the whole. After applying the tests and measurements, it is essential to understand whether these results are positive for the business and whether it is worth continuing down this path or whether it is necessary to apply improvements or changes — in this case, the famous “pivoting,” which is where the Lean Startup concept makes more sense than ever.
What Are The Advantages Of Lean Startup For Your Business?
The “lean” concept is not for nothing. The biggest advantage of a Lean Startup is to reduce a company’s operating costs, which, consequently, will decrease expenses, improve the sustainable development of the business and, of course, contribute to increased profits.
What’s more, as you’ll see below, lean has other advantages. Please get to know them by following the sections below.
CRM Improvement
Getting closer to your audience encourages relationship management to be much more positive, making your company achieve greater chances of customer loyalty.
Increased Profitability
Fewer costs, more tests, more successes: all this improves business productivity, making processes fast and efficient.
However, this work is only sometimes simple, often requiring the help of specialists in the subject, as the Lean Startup concept is a management method that needs monitoring and practice until the expected result is reached.
And nothing better than being able to count on the support of those who understand and have the right tools to develop it. Therefore, research, understand the needs of your business, get to know your company, and look for ways to construct and implement Lean Startup to generate good results.
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