Available only for Lean Startup Week Gold Pass holders, Startup Weekend allows attendees to collaborate in teams to create mobile, web, and software-based solutions with the goal of launching an MVP in 54 hours. This three-day interactive program is designed to teach attendees how to put Lean Startup methodology directly into practice. Participants will gain the full entrepreneurial experience by pitching ideas and building teams on Friday, experiencing hands-on mentorship and heads-down hacking on Saturday, and wrapping things up with investor-style presentations on Sunday.
Take a minute to catch up on emails, check back with the office, or share ideas with like-minded entrepreneurs during Lean Startup Week’s dedicated coworking times at WeWork and RocketSpace.
Join 500 Startups for WMD (aka “Weapons of Mass Distribution”). It’s a one-day growth conference focused on marketing and distribution hack tips for startups.
The shuttle stop is in front of the Hyatt.
The Lean UnConference allows attendees to take the reins and lead discussions on the issues that matter most to them. Sessions are presented by attendees with no set schedule or agenda, with up to eight presentations taking place simultaneously. The concept behind the UnConference is for attendees to connect with and learn from each other.
Registration required: please refer to your Lean Startup Week Survival Guide email for sign-up instructions to Gold Pass activities. Guest Speakers TBA.
Doors Opens at 10:30 AM. More information can be found here.
Based on the newest book from Eric Ries, The Leader’s Guide, this workshop is targeted toward senior leaders, decision-makers, key stakeholders and LS coaches – in summary, the enablers of a Lean Startup culture within an organization. Lean Startup Co. Training Faculty Marilyn Gorman will use the latest examples and real-life, change-management experiences to help participants understand how to leverage the systems, structures, and strategies needed to execute Lean Startup principles in a wide range of environments, while sharing an opportunity to learn from others on the same journey.
Joining Marilyn will be Janice Fraser, Director, People Team with Pivotal, who will be sharing her own examples of scaling Lean Startup in such diverse enterprises as the Federal Government, Proctor & Gamble and more.
— LUNCH BREAK: 12:30 – 1:15pm
Learn how Breather, Carbon Five, Farmgirl Flowers, Github, and Pivotal create environments for big breakthroughs. You’ll hear about their vibes and values, tour inspiring spaces, and connect with other entrepreneurs who are leading change. Gold Pass holders have the opportunity to attend up to three private Startup Tours around San Francisco. Registration required: please refer to your Lean Startup Week Survival Guide email for sign-up instructions to Gold Pass activities.
Groups meet at the Hyatt and depart from hotel.
Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf in the Atrium Lobby
Available only for Lean Startup Week Gold Pass holders, Startup Weekend allows attendees to collaborate in teams to create mobile, web, and software-based solutions with the goal of launching an MVP in 54 hours. This three-day interactive program is designed to teach attendees how to put Lean Startup methodology directly into practice. Participants will gain the full entrepreneurial experience by pitching ideas and building teams on Friday, experiencing hands-on mentorship and heads-down hacking on Saturday, and wrapping things up with investor-style presentations on Sunday.
Available only for Lean Startup Week Gold Pass holders, Startup Weekend allows attendees to collaborate in teams to create mobile, web, and software-based solutions with the goal of launching an MVP in 54 hours. This three-day interactive program is designed to teach attendees how to put Lean Startup methodology directly into practice. Participants will gain the full entrepreneurial experience by pitching ideas and building teams on Friday, experiencing hands-on mentorship and heads-down hacking on Saturday, and wrapping things up with investor-style presentations on Sunday.
Click here for Food Truck menus and options
Please inform us of any food allergies.
Learn comedy habits to be a better public speaker, consistently funnier, and help rid the world of boring presentations! Top business speakers are using humor. They are developing content using the same process as comedians. You don’t need to be a natural comedian to get laughs. David Nihill will deconstruct the process from standup comedy into habits and show you how to translate them into public speaking skills for the world of business. These comedic habits are aimed at helping you deliver a more memorable, entertaining, and engaging presentation, every time.
The attitude of the team that will work on a startup project is a critical first success factor, way before finding the product/market fit. Through a quick experiment and sharing an analysis of key startup activities, Philippe will demonstrate the value of some specific soft skills of any startup team.
Steve Case, chairman & CEO of Revolution and the founder of AOL, sits down with Paul Michelman, editor-in-chief of MIT Sloan, to discuss the most consequential business decisions of our time. Case predicts we’re at the dawn of the next technological revolution—the Third Wave of the internet— which will transform the economy and the way we live our lives.
Global startup community Startup Grind has hosted 2,000 fireside chats since launching in 2010. During Lean Startup Week, we’ll hear from Startup Grind founder Derek Anderson and SaaStr media giant/serial entrepreneur Jason Lemkin.
Steli Efti and Hiten Shah are serial entrepreneurs who have founded multi-million dollar SaaS startups. In this Q&A session, you’ll get unfiltered insights and actionable advice straight from the trenches of startup and business life. Bring questions about your toughest, most challenging Lean Startup and business opportunities!
How can you use lean methodologies to get started in a complicated and highly regulated industry like healthcare? When lives are at stake, do minimum viable products even apply? How can lean help launch and iterate new features and customer growth in a 5 year old healthcare company?
In this opening presentation, Viv Goldstein, director of Innovation Acceleration and co-founder of FastWorks at GE, pulls back the curtain on how she and her team led a 124-year-old company through a revolutionary culture change.
Continental Breakfast to be served
Michael and Kirk will review how Clevertech partnered with Dicom, a dominant Quebec based shipping and logistics company, to reinvent how their customers interact with the Dicom technology platform. They used a lean product development cycle to rapidly ship and deploy new technology in an industry where “new” is scary and delays can mean millions in lost revenue, that allowed Dicom customers to start shipping into the United States for the first time in 30 years.
Learn how Macy’s, a 150-year-old retail giant, went from testing one Lean team to funding 22 Lean teams in two years. The retailer’s journey is one of eating its own dog food – continuously testing, learning, and using build-measure-learn cycles, customer feedback, and business results to make believers out of even the most skeptical stakeholders and partners. Cindy Peterson and Janel Wellborn will share their top ten learnings that you can apply to scaling Lean in a large enterprise.
By running a Lean hackathon for underprivileged communities in Guam and DC, Lean Mobile Apps was able to maximize visibility for their idea. By tapping into their team resources to implement no-nonsense strategies with measurable results, they brought in relevant users—who then provided solid data that appealed to would-be investors and sponsors.
How do you create meaningful relationships with your most loyal customers? By measuring and learning about their needs in order to build the right product. For B2C, one of the best ways to measure in the early days of product development is by using social analytics. The data collected can help you understand your target better, deliver the right message, and develop a tailored experience.
After the economic collapse of 2008 and a devastating writers strike, selling an original screenplay in Hollywood became a more difficult proposition than ever before. Dikran Ornekian and his partner Rylend Grant will talk about how this harsh environment pushed them into trying something different — testing their script ideas as short stories — and how this new approach opened more doors for them than any screenplay ever had.
For most people, local government is something you don’t think about unless there’s an emergency. But civic organizations touch more lives than local businesses. So why then do so many local governments get stymied by organizational cultures that publicly punish mistakes and reward safety instead of following any semblance of modern business practices? Kelly McAdoo shares the story of how the City of Hayward, California has applied Lean Startup to improve resident satisfaction, empower employees, and prioritize scarce resources while also providing the ability to measure the impact of their actions on the community.
Just Not Sorry is an international sensation used by people in over 200 countries. Its creator, Tami Reiss, attributes the company’s incredible growth to the Lean principles they employed when building the Gmail plug-in. Learn how they validated their idea, defined their MVP, and iterated their way to success during development and after launch in everything from the name and functionality to the tweets and landing page messaging.
Hear how business leaders from multi-billion dollar organizations are getting outside their comfort zone to take part in a transformational experience and embrace Lean Startup practices and principles that leave a lasting impact on individuals and their organizations.
Creating space for innovation to thrive in an existing business is challenging but possible with communication and patience, not unlike raising children. Learn how BabyCenter’s Beth Sordi has led her team to seek out, test, and validate new business models using testing dashboards, two-factor tests, and well-constructed consumer interactions without disturbing her company’s core business.
Infusing Lean Startup into a large organization is hard. This lightning talk with Travelport Labs’ design manager Nicole Shephard highlights the screw-ups, successes, and insights gleaned from years spent testing and refining a Lean Startup-centered innovation program at the $2B travel technology company.
Magoosh, a company that creates web and mobile apps to help students prepare for standardized tests, embedded Lean Startup principles into its core values to great success. CEO Bhavin Parikh will provide a concrete example of how those values helped an individual on his team use Lean Startup to invalidate a feature hypothesis.
The team behind a new product is the most important ingredient to its success. But how do you pick the right team? What do you look for? And if you are in a large enterprise looking to field multiple innovation teams, how do you maximize your chances for success? This talk looks at the lessons Janet Bumpas learned running selection processes for internal innovation efforts at large enterprise companies.
You have a vision for how your venture is going to change the world. But how do you align that big picture with the practical elements of running a business? Lynn Johnson will speak about the importance of creating a “Culture Code” as a framework for integrating your vision and values into every aspect of your day-to-day business operations.
Join world-class ultra runner Zoë Romano for a morning wakeup run along the wharf. Zoë is the only person to have ever run the entire Tour de France course, and the first female to run alone across the US. During this activity, she’ll share some of the most salient lessons learned from the road and scrutinize components of the goal-setting process. There will be a brief intro and warm-up, a moderate run, and several high-intensity calisthenics designed to push you creatively and physically. The activity is conversational, feel free to come with questions and expect to sweat, jump, stretch and reflect for 30 – 40 minutes.
Stacy Conlon, aka Zen Girl and part of the Lean Startup family, leads a guided meditation followed by a discussion on the benefits of meditation. It’s a great way to start a week of learning and immersion in Lean Startup and you’ll leave with a quick, useful mindfulness action plan.
Join us for a live Q&A with Eric Ries and Jason Calacanis, two of Silicon Valley’s most influential businessman, as we kick off Lean Startup Week with a special event in the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. They’ll be talking about the state of startups, what it means to build a modern, sustainable organization, and the evolution of Lean Startup. Moderated by Dan Costa, Editor in Chief, PCMag.com
Limited attendance. Shuttle leaves at 8:30AM from Shuttle Stop in front of Hyatt
Learn the techniques that freedivers, big wave surfers and other extreme sport athletes use to remain calm and focused in any situation. Robert Lee has taught these techniques to Red Bull athletes, fire & rescue teams, special ops, and Silicon Valley executives. He now brings these actionable methods to Lean Startup Week. Learn applied meditation for real-life situations!
David Cunningham is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, CEO of Lean Startup Summit EMEA, and a trained yoga teacher. He specializes in yoga for professional athletes and established five yoga studios in Europe. David started teaching yoga to entrepreneurs specifically at Websummit 2012. Come experience instruction from our resident yogapreneur and you’ll take home a practice to that helps sustain both your entrepreneurial activities and healthy living in general. Note: This class is particularly beneficial for people who suffer from stress, stiff backs, and ridiculous workloads, and who are involved in either getting a startup off the ground or innovating an enterprise organization. Bring clothes you can easily move in.
Speed mentoring is one of our most popular offerings. It gives you the opportunity to tap into the amazing expertise at Lean Startup Week and apply that expertise to your specific challenges and situation. Participants consistently tell us that they were amazed at how much they accomplished in such a short time. Spots are very limited so if you’re ready to commit to this experience you’ll want to sign up right away. More info here.
The years you spend creating a startup is often time filled with regret, joy, pain and — hopefully someday—success. In this presentation, Rand Fishkin, founder and former CEO of Moz, will talk about how his company, which started as a personal blog while he was deeply in debt, evolved into a $40m+ revenue/year software business. Rand won’t pull punches or hide the truth. Instead he’ll offer an unvarnished, transparent look inside the hardest and rarely-talked-about aspects of building a company.
Matthew Brimer is a social entrepreneur, community builder, and general mischief instigator with a penchant for turning experiments into businesses and art projects into global movements. He’ll share his entrepreneurial journey and lessons learned from building GoCrossCampus, General Assembly, the global Daybreaker dance party series, and beyond.
Melinda Jacobs, co-founder of Lucent Sky, gathers sales and product feedback from customers on three continents. She’ll describe the impact cultural customs and norms have on how feedback and customer development take place, with a focus on how to adapt Lean methodologies into diverse cultural settings.
“I feel great when I’m treated badly,” said no one ever. People are the nucleus of any successful business. Breather Co-Founder and CCO, Caterina Rizzi, talks about why your business is nothing without the people who use your product and why treating them like it’s their birthday is the secret sauce to a strong, relatable and memorable experience. At Breather, they’ve built empathy, humility and service into their core brand values and have found that the more you give, the more you get.
Jason Fried, co-founder & CEO of Basecamp, joins us to talk about leading business teams in a way that supports the Lean Startup practice – collaborative, productive, efficient.
IBM is on a mission to create a sustainable culture of design and to bring a human-centered focus to its thousands of products and services. Since 2013, the company has hired over 1,100 designers to work alongside engineers and business leaders across the company. In this multidisciplinary setting, how does the Lean Startup approach interplay with design thinking? How can teams bridge the gap between user experience insights and real business opportunities? Phil Gilbert, General Manager of IBM Design, will discuss how IBM’s approach to continuous innovation at a global scale is transforming the way the company works.
Design has the power to shape how we think and feel. It’s also the tangible manifestation of intention. Conversely, how we create and what we design are the culmination of who we are as individuals coming together to make something for others. In this talk, Irene Au, Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, explores how our inner state manifests in design, and why the best thing we can do to become better designers may be to work on ourselves.
When Lean-curious companies get stalled implementing the practice, they’ll often cite organizational complexities, politics, and dependencies as insurmountable obstacles. The methodology can be scaled, though — not just as culture and philosophy, but as tactical process. In this practical presentation offering detailed case studies, Jeff Gothelf (author of Lean UX and the upcoming Sense and Respond) will share several methods for scaling Lean Startup techniques in large organizations. Jeff will cover knowledge management, intra-team dependencies, infrastructure requirements, and several other elements of ensuring successful Lean Startup practices in companies of any size.
Click here for Food Truck menus and options
Please inform us of any food allergies.
Conference emcee Thuy Vu has a fireside chat with Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Michelle Lee about driving innovation in the US and why Lean Startup is a critical methodology for entrepreneurs and organizations.
Hillary Hartley joins us to deliver an update on how 18F is applying Lean Startup to innovate and change government, and the key lessons that any organization can learn from their examples.
As Tren Griffin will explain, the entrepreneurs founding startups with the biggest impact are missionaries who are laser focused on implementing the insight at the core of their business. Mercenaries are driven by monetary rewards and fame. Mercenaries seldom have the necessary desire to change the world, a desire that would otherwise enable them to persevere through hardship and create a world-changing business.
Across industries, the ability to grow your business without overinvesting resources is of utmost importance. Nonprofits face a unique challenge in being forced to run a lean ship without the safety net of VC money. The Sama team has turned constraints in resources into lessons on being mindful in how they run and build their business. Wendy Gonzalez, SVP & Managing Director of Samasource, explains how to apply nonprofit tactics to ensure the long-term success of your company, regardless of your funding source or the type of business you run.
Looking to save your team countless hours and dollars? To get unstuck? Learn how the design sprint can give you a superpower: the ability to build and test nearly any idea in just 40 hours. The sprint—a five-day process for answering critical business questions through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas—is a “greatest hits” of battle-tested business processes any team can use. Sharing this shortcut to learning and innovation is Jake Knapp, creator of Google Ventures’ sprint process, co-creator of Google Hangouts, and author of The New York Times bestseller Sprint.
Eric sits down with Lean Startup Labs faculty member Phil Dillard to discuss the state of Lean Startup, what every organization should be thinking about as it moves into the next decade and beyond, and the influence a long term innovation strategy has on the way products get built today.
Restaurants: Hunan, Thirsty Bear, and Fior D’Italia
Kara Goldin, founder of the multi-million dollar company Hint Water, shares the story behind Hint’s phenomenal growth. She’ll explain how she’s managed to turn her business into a social mission, what she’s learned from Silicon Valley, and she’ll share advice for entrepreneurs.
Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple, explains the lessons he learned from Steve Jobs and how they apply to startups.
Sam Parr is founder of Hustle Con Media, one of the fastest growing media companies in the U.S. Sam joins Lean Startup Co. contributing editor Jennifer Maerz to talk about how he grew his brand to 3 million readers in eight months, and how he continues to push the boundaries through experimentation and relentless community development.
Your company culture comes to life in your company meetings. How you plan, run, and follow-through on your team sessions impacts almost every aspect of how your people work together. Mamie Kanfer Stewart, founder and CEO of Meeteor, describes how to align your meeting practices with a Lean Startup mindset to support a culture of innovation and collaboration.