Learning how to do a Startup — It’s like Swimming

(Or Some Thoughts on Startup Education)

October 2012

I want to learn how to “swim.” In the next three weeks, I’ll immerse myself in exciting new book called “SWIM: the revolutionary way to move through water.” It’s written by a guy who has actually moved through two kilometers of water under an hour using only his arms and legs! And he’s sharing his experience in this book. I’m really excited to try it out myself!

Learning how to swim by reading a book sounds a bit funny. If you think about it, it’s the same for startup education. By reading, you can understand the mechanics of swimming. But you’ll never get to move through water yourself unless you jump in the pool and start training.

There’s good news. Training pools that teach the science and craft of startups have been emerging in the past couple of years. The ones I’ve experienced firsthand are Startup Weekend, Lean Startup Machine and Lean LaunchPad (by organizing a version of it). There are others: 1 2 3 4 5, etc.

Here’s the short version of this post: join any of these as soon as possible! This is jumping into the pool and getting yourself trained by a swimming coach. Here’s the longer version:

• The true calling of startups
• Training pools and what makes them work
• The role of startup communities

The true calling of startups

One of the most painful and most expensive lessons in my life was finding out that REAL LIFE DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY:

Business plans work when you execute businesses that have worked repeatedly in the past, like opening a new McDonald’s franchise. A business plan is a work of fiction if you’re working on an unproven business model — in other words, a startup. Steve Blank captures this best with his definition of “startup”: a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

These are what startups are supposed to do, in other words:

Training pools and what makes them work

To go beyond mere conceptual understanding, you need to jump into the pool and start training. The quickest way is to join one or more of the following:

• Startup Weekend. Organizing one is probably the quickest way to jumpstart your local startup community. I’ve seen it happen.
• Lean Startup Machine makes you learn by experience how to search for product-market fit. I joined one a couple of months ago. They delivered on their promise: learn in 3 days what many learn in 6 months.
• Lean LaunchPad is Steve Blank’s 10-week Stanford course that teaches Customer Development and business model design and validation by hands-on experience. His lectures are now available online. Startup Weekend will soon bring the course to startup communities all over the world (see SWNext).

Many Incubators and Accelerators also have similar training incorporated into their programs.

Not only for tech Godzillas
A few months ago, I teamed up with a few other folks to organize an experimental bootlegged version of the Lean LaunchPad for non-tech undergrads (this was before the online version came out). Customer Development and Lean Startup came from the ecosystem of high-growth tech startups. Our experience shows that they also work for startups which are neither tech nor have the DNA for Godzilla growth rates.

What makes them work
As a (part-time) educator, I was eager to find out what makes experiential courses like the Lean LaunchPad effective. My experience points to three things:

• Getting out of the building. Nothing teaches you better than meeting customers face-to-face. And having reality punch you in the face.
• Mentoring. Like any practical skill, startup entrepreneurship is best learned through the guidance of a mentor. With their years of experience, mentors can help make sense of all the data you got out of the building. They also open new business model horizons and open doors using their Rolodex.
• Collaborating, competing and presenting. The best way to get people to work hard as a team is to make them collaborate to compete. And the best way to reinforce experiential learning is to have them share that experience.

Swim in the training pool before joining the Olympics
You can actually just read books and try applying them to your startup or existing business. I’ve tried doing this. Trust me: you’ll save a lot of time if you do this within a structured program with mentorship and community support.

The role of startup communities

The experiences above were available to me thanks to people who are simply passionate about growing the local startup community. It’s clear that local startup communities will be the main driver of startup education. Plus, practical skills are best passed on face-to-face. I learned more about local kinks in incorporating over lunch with an experienced entrepreneur than three months of research. Online communities are also helpful. I’ve asked a lot of questions (both intelligent and stupid) at Lean Startup Circle, and I’ve always gotten an intelligent reply.

What are you waiting for? Let’s jump into the pool, grow the local community, get out of the building, and make your product/service vision a reality!