Lean StartUp Case Study: Innovate Wireless Health

Since the Tech Ranch is hosting StartUp Lessons Learned Conference Simulcast this Friday, let's take a very brief look at how lean start-up practices have the power to generate your first customers without requiring any investment at all.

Problem: Barry Beverly, of Innovate Wireless, came to a Pioneer Program meeting in March with a lack of “traction" on the road to investment and funding.

Real Obstacle: Barry had run into trouble securing funding because he had no prototype (this is a common hurdle in startups). And Barry’s plan to develop a prototype was customer-centric, not investor-centric. As in, he was answering the question, "What is the medication reminder service doing for the customer?" The investor question is, "How does the medication reminder service make money?"

Theme of the Pioneer Program: Use customer feedback to develop the product, and do this as cheaply as possible. In this situation, Kevin suggested that Barry get ten people to sign onto a free trial of the service and then manually text them medication reminders. This will get the numbers that investors crave.

Action: Barry called around, got 15 folks and is testing the reminder service by sending text messages manually from his phone; including one fellow at 6:00 AM.

Result: Within a week, Barry had a referral asking to pay for the medication reminder service.

That's a fantastic example of generating a prototype on the cheap, and how the right prototype gets you your first customers. It didn't take any heroic effort, just determination to get some early numbers to show investors, and the willingness to get up a bit earlier in the morning. How many ways would your early-stage company benefit from this set of lean practices?

Join the Austin Lean StartUp community for the StartUp Lessons Learned Conference Simulcast at the Tech Ranch this Friday from 11:00 AM till 7:00 PM.