Accelerating Experiments with Continuous Delivery @ Lean Startup Meetup Munich

Over 100 people interested in entrepreneurship and the Lean Startup methodology came together last thursday at another great Lean Startup Meetup Munich . The event consisted of three talks with questions and answers in between. We provided an introduction on Continuous Delivery , Jens Pippig introduced the ProSiebenSat.1 Accelerator Program and Bernhard Tausch had some very interesting stories to tell from last year’s Lean Conf UK.

The things I found most interesting:

• The audience was very diverse, ranging from founders, over product managers and people from online marketing to software developers.
• A startup accelerator provides a young company with coaching for a limited time and a broad network in exchange for a part of equity. An incubator focuses more on a long term relationship and usually has a higher stake in the company. Both accelerators and incubators are tricky to get right because the feedback loop between supporting a company and major success (or failure) can easily span five or more years.
• More features do not necessarily mean more value for a product. However, more features do equal higher costs and complexity. Rigorously validating the necessity and value of any feature in a product is a major step towards increasing the effectiveness of product development.
• While it is important to talk to your customers, not all forms of communication provide the same amount of value. Good critique without validating a corresponding action from a customer is of low value and can lead to a false sense of doing the right thing.

The abstract and slides of our talk on Continuous Delivery:
A fast and reliable Build–Measure–Learn feedback loop is a central goal of Lean Startup after Release 1. Continuous Delivery is the ultimate method to accelerate your Build phase but it is more than just automation of manual tasks. In this talk we give an introduction to the Continuous Delivery mindset and practices and help entrepreneurs understand the benefits and challenges of the process.

Thanks everyone for the great evening and special thanks to our host YOU IS NOW.

Comments and questions are welcome!