I learned that from Ash Maurya in the Power MBA

Career, founded companies & learnings of Ash Maurya

Profile Ash Maurya:

Country of birth: Nigeria

Founded Companies: Leanstack

Published Books: Running Lean, Scaling Lean

Current Job: Speaker, Unternehmer

Career:

Ash Maurya is best known for his two books Running Lean and Scaling Lean. The entrepreneur was born in Nigeria, his parents come from India. After studying electrical engineering, he went to the USA. Due to his work visa, he was not allowed to found his own start-up, so he first joined the start-up Nortel. After 2 years he was drawn to the company telecom technologies inc, where he spent almost 4 years. The company was bought by Sonus Networks.

After this time he was finally able to found his first company: WiredReach. The startup enabled the creation of peer-to-web applications. In other words, the sharing of large data without having to upload it. The company was sold in 2010.

The next start-up was Spark59. A platform that helps entrepreneurs to realize their ideas. Through his blog and his books, he has become an internationally sought-after speaker and mentor. Spark59 has become LeanStack. The company where he still works as Founder & CEO.

5 Learnings from Ash Maurya

1. Idea – Hypothesis – MVP – Learn. Don’t jump into an idea without validating it. First, work out the business model on paper. Then create hypotheses that you check with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Draw your lessons from it and start all over again.

2. Types of Hypotheses. At the end of the day, hypothesis generation always revolves around three areas: Desirability – Will customers be interested in your product at all? Viability – Can you win customers and earn money with them. Feasibility – Are you able to build the product at all?

3. Use the Lean Canvas. Ash Maurya is the inventor of the Lean Canvas, a modification of the Business Model Canvas. It is, so to speak, an overview of a business model for startups. The tool helps me enormously because it shows the big picture of the startup on a piece of paper.

4. Talk to your customers. One of the things you should be doing once you have an idea for a startup isn’t creating business cards or building a website. No! Get out on the street and talk to your potential customers. Do they even have the problem you want to solve? And addresses your solution. The feedback you get in such conversations is priceless.

5. The three phases of a startup. It was only through Ash Maurya’s book that I found out about the three phases of a startup. Problem-Solution Fit = The phase in which you turn your idea into a product and optimize it again and again until it is the right solution for the customer. Product-Market Fit = After you have a functioning product, the task is to bring it to market with a suitable business model and to find the right marketing channels. Scale = In this phase you scale your company upwards in order to either sell it or continue it yourself.

The Story of Leanstack

Leanstack is Ash Maurya’s newest company. Originally the company was called Spark59. According to a study, it takes 58 product ideas to manufacture a successful product. Spark59 is the abbreviation for finding successful product ideas faster. I don’t know exactly why the company is now called Leanstack. I think it fits better into Ash Maurya’s book series and is more catchy.

Apart from the title, nothing at the core of the work has changed in the company. The aim is to help entrepreneurs to become successful with their ideas and startups. The focus is on the product. The company has three pillars on which it is built.

Software tools
Content
Coaching

The software tools include Lean Canvas, Customer Forces, Lean Sprints, Traction Modeler, Goals, Playbooks. With this software you can quickly and easily test your ideas, validate hypotheses and track the growth of your startup.

The content is mainly about Ash Maurya’s two books and his blog. All of these are valuable sources of knowledge that can be acquired for little money. On top there are free video courses and playbooks.

The coaching includes a 90-day startup course, Coach Certification Workshops and Leanstack Coach Directory. The 90-day startup course is specially designed for founders who have an idea or who have already started to realize it. In 90 days, Leanstack will help this startup to find a functioning business model and generate more sales.

The Coach Certification Workshops are training to teach the contents of the two books by Ash Maurya and to help other startups grow.

The Leanstack Coach Directory is a listing of all certified coaches that you can book to help your startup move forward.

You can learn that from Ash Maurya at the Power MBA:

Ash Maurya is one of many lecturers in The Power MBA online continuing education program. He teaches in the module Testing Business Ideas & Lean Startup. There he can be seen next to the inventor of the lean startup movement Eric Ries. The modules with Ash Maurya mainly focus on the following content:

Testing of business models
Lean canvas
Types of hypotheses
Startup stages & challenges
Metrics to achieve product-market fit

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