© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 1
BY DAN ADAMS & DAVE LOOMISA WHITE PAPER FROM THE AIM INSTITUTE
Lean Startup for B2B
Lean Startup holds many attractions for
product developers. Most B2B suppliers
can do even more with a critical adjustment
seldom needed for consumer products.
Adding a Key Step for B2B Innovation
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)2
Lean Startup naturally applies to most B2C
products… but does it “start” in the right place
for B2B? The very act of creating a hypothesis
is a convergent mental activity, not a divergent
one. If you create your hypothesis too soon, are
you limiting your possibilities? In lean terms,
when you practice Genchi Genbutsu, and “go
and see for yourself,” do you really have to
bring a hypothesis or prototype with you? We
believe the answer is “it depends.”
There is much to love about Lean Start-
up. A concept conceived and refined
by Steve Blank and Eric Reis, it pro-
motes a rapid, nimble approach to starting new
businesses. Increasingly, it is being applied to
product development within large corporations.
(For more, read the HBR article, “Why the Lean
Startup Changes Everything,” by Steve Blank,
and the book, The Lean Startup, by Eric Reis.)
Here are some key elements of Lean Startup…
1 Don’t create an elaborate business plan,
which limits your flexibility and openness to
learning.
2 Instead, create a “business model canvas”
that lays out your assumptions to be tested.
3 Use “minimum viable products” to rapidly
test product hypotheses with customers.
4 Employ agile product development cycles
with many nimble “pivot or persist” decision
points.
At the heart of Lean Startup we see this prin-
ciple: Learn from your prospective custom-
ers… before you commit to what you’ll offer
them. This keep-your-mind-open-and-wallet-
shut approach boosts new product success and
shortens timelines.
Lean Startup: Adding a Key Step for B2B
IF YOU CREATE YOUR HYPOTHESIS TOO SOON, ARE YOU LIMITING YOUR POSSIBILITIES?
What happens when you test your
... with customers?
You may think you have learned about market
needs. You have not. You have learned about
market reaction... to a single idea... your idea.
In B2B, be sure to diverge to all customer ideas
before converging to yours.
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 3
Specifically, the answers to these questions
depend on your type of business. For many
consumer products, Lean Startup is fine “as-is.”
But for most B2B products, you need to engage
your customers even earlier—before you devel-
op a hypothesis. Let’s see why.
Lean Startup is based on a Build-Measure-
Learn process: Imagine you are developing a
new consumer phone app: You would create a
quick prototype, or “minimum viable product”
(Build), test this with consumers (Measure), and
use their feedback to make needed changes to
your design (Learn). You would “rinse and re-
peat”… with learning cycles that rapidly move
you closer to a winning design.
Note that the above process begins with a
hypothesis of what customers want. One of us
used to work for a brilliant Dutch business-
man who claimed those of us in marketing had
“romantic notions” of what customers wanted.
He doubted we were accurate, and in this he
was usually correct. Our worst hypotheses were
dead wrong, and our best hypotheses were usu-
ally incomplete.
Instead of Build-Measure-Learn, most B2B
teams should employ a Learn-Build-Measure-
Learn cycle. Keep everything that is good about
Lean Startup, but begin with an open-minded
exploration of the customer’s world, not your
hypothesis about their world. This, of course, is
terrible advice if you are designing a new con-
INSTEAD OF BUILD-MEASURE-LEARN, MOST B2B TEAMS SHOULD EMPLOY A LEARN-BUILD-MEASURE-LEARN CYCLE.
BUILD
BUILD
MEASURE
MEASURE
LEARN
LEARNLEARNBest for most B2B products
Best for most B2C products
Should You Expand Your Build-Measure-Learn Cycle?
Expanding the Build-Measure-Learn Cycle
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)4
sumer computer game. Until consumers actu-
ally experience your product (or its prototype),
how could they predict whether they will be
entertained? So if you are developing a consum-
er product designed to increase a consumer’s
amusement, comfort, taste sensation or sense
of self-worth, you’ll want to stick with the pure
Lean Startup approach.
Imagine you are developing a new welding
machine for auto assembly or a new polymer
for adhesives. Your customers could help you
predict their needs before they experience your
product. Most B2B customers are “for-profit”
businesses, so most of their decisions are ulti-
mately driven by hard economics. This means
these decisions can be intelligently discussed
and predicted with customers before they expe-
rience your new product. In the case of a new
welding machine, you could learn that custom-
ers wanted faster welding rates, less spatter,
reduced metal pre-cleaning, and lower energy
consumption… before they ever saw a physical
prototype or minimum viable product.
In some cases, end-consumers are also able
When to “Learn First”A key consideration is customer foresight—the
customer’s ability to articulate needs before experi-
encing your product. Beyond foresight, four more
characteristics describe most B2B customers:
to express their desired outcomes before “the
experience.” When purchasing a new car, for
instance, buyers consider economic factors such
as fuel efficiency… before their test drive. In
The Lean Startup, author Eric Reis provides the
example of Intuit’s founder Scott Cook. He ex-
plains how Cook took to the streets and phones
to understand the needs of potential customers
in regards to managing their personal finances.
Sure enough, the people with whom he talked
were able to articulate a critical frustration:
paying bills by hand. With that, Cook had iden-
tified a key desired outcome before developing
his hypothesis or prototype.
“The goal of early contact with customers
is not to gain definitive answers. Instead,
it is to clarify at a basic, course level that
we understand our potential customer and
what problems they have.” 1
So some B2C endeavors also benefit from
Learning before Building. Clearly we need a
much better “divining rod” than a simple B2C
vs. B2B assessment. Let’s look more closely at
the nature of many B2B businesses for clues.
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 5
1 Knowledgeable: B2B customers often
employ engineers or other professionals
who think about their work 40 hours a week.
They are able to help suppliers develop
better products.
2 Interested: Consumers must often be paid
to join focus groups, but most B2B custom-
ers seek innovation from their suppliers.
They are willing to help suppliers develop
better products.
3 Objective: Unlike many consumer deci-
sions, B2B decisions often require account-
ability, involve multiple decision-makers,
and must comply with company procedures.
4 Concentration: In some B2B markets, a
small number of companies represents much
of the market buying power. This lets suppli-
ers understand market needs with just a few
interviews.
Eventually customers will experience your
product and you can learn from their reaction.
But the fundamental question you must ask is,
“Can I learn from customers before they experi-
ence my product?” The answer is a resounding
“yes” for most B2B because decision-making
is predictable, and these four characteristics
allow for deep and rewarding voice-of-customer
(VOC) interviews.
IDEA
CAN I LEARN FROM CUSTOMERS BEFORE THEY EXPERIENCE MY PRODUCT?
When Should Suppliers Learn from Customers?
B2B exampleWelding Machine
UsefulCustomer can
describe desired benefits & economics
UsefulCustomer can
suggest desired modifications
B2C exampleComputer Game
Not UsefulCustomer cannot predict what will
amuse or enterain
“Pre-Experience”Voice of Customer
UsefulCustomer can
suggest desired modifications
“Post-Experience”Voice of Customer
LEARNING
LEARNING
BUILD
Customer Experiencewith New Product
(e.g. prototype)
LEARNLEARN
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)6
So there are two factors to consider when de-
ciding whether to Build, then Learn (post-proto-
type VOC) or Learn, then Build (pre-prototype
VOC): 1) Customer Foresight and 2) Prototype
Cost. This continuum is shown in the illustra-
tion to the left. Imagine—as with most B2B
firms—your business is in the upper
right: It will be a mistake to discuss
your prototype with customers if you
haven’t first discussed their needs
with them.
Lean Startup methodology refers
to “Leap of Faith Assumptions”…
a term that aptly reflects the shaky
foundation of most suppliers’
hypotheses. Lean Startup wisely
recommends testing assumptions and
learning from customers at the first
opportunity.
For most B2B suppliers, this “first
opportunity” to learn comes before a
prototype is created… through early
voice-of-customer interviews that engage the
insight and foresight of highly-knowledgeable
customers. Why take a leap of faithwhen you
could take a leap of confidence—even more
quickly and cheaply?
A second consideration is the cost to build a
prototype. Let’s return to the example of devel-
oping a new consumer computer game. Your
software developers might be able to develop a
minimum viable product quickly and cheaply.
What about developing a new polymer in your
laboratories? This may be much more time-con-
suming and expensive. While you’ll want to
develop a lab polymer before scaling up to full
production, it probably won’t make sense to lob
polymer samples at customers until you first
have intelligent conversations with them about
their needs. (A word of caution here: Don’t
assume you must have high prototype costs.
Follow the spirit of Lean Startup in creatively
pursuing minimum viable products.)
INCREASING
INCR
EASI
NG
BUILD, then Learn
(Post-Prototype VOC)
LEARN, then Build
(Pre-Prototype VOC)
Cust
omer
For
esig
ht
Prototype Cost
Minimizes“Leap of Faith”
Assumptions
When Does Pre-Prototype VOC Make Sense?
Requires“Leap of Faith”Assumptions
WHY TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH WHEN YOU COULD TAKE A LEAP OF CONFIDENCE—EVEN MORE QUICKLY AND CHEAPLY?
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 7
There is a special case where B2B suppliers
should almost always meet with customers to
understand their needs before sharing a proto-
type. This is when the supplier is pursuing a
concentrated market, i.e., there are just a few
potential customers in the target market seg-
ment.
In highly concentrated markets, the top ten
potential buying accounts may represent 50 to
100% of the total market buying power. For
such markets, the supplier should add a second
objective to that of understanding market needs:
engaging potential customers in a manner that
“primes” them to buy their
product when launched.
This leads to two reasons
why it’s a mistake for a sup-
plier to begin its customer
interaction with a minimum
viable product (instead of an
interview). First, the B2B
supplier only has one chance
to make a good first impres-
sion. Consider how B2C
differs: If you are develop-
ing a new computer game,
you have a huge pool of individuals to test
iteration after iteration. If some of them “burn
out” on poor designs, others can step up to take
their place.
Special Case: Concentrated B2B Markets
THE B2B SUPPLIER ONLY HAS ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION
How deep is your pool of MVP testers?
You have a much smaller pool in concentrated
B2B markets. Sure, you can represent your
prototype for what it is… a work in progress.
But it’s often an expensive and time-consum-
ing affair for B2B customers to evaluate your
product, so you could quickly “wear out your
welcome.” Such customers will be more im-
pressed if you try to understand what they want,
than if you “guess and lob” prototypes in their
direction.
Second, well-crafted interviews are highly
engaging for B2B customers. Abandon your
questionnaire and let the customer lead you to
what they care about during the interview. The
B2Cusually deep
B2B often shallow
Don’t frustrate a small pool of prospects with
careless prototypes
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)8
next section of this paper describes how this is
done in qualitative Discovery interviews.
Consider two scenarios: First, someone tells
you they just had a great idea and want you to
review it. Second, someone says they respect
your opinion and would like your advice before
they do anything. Aren’t you more engaged in
the latter case? Don’t you feel more “owner-
ship”? When you engage B2B customers in this
manner, you can leave them eager for you to
launch your new product. If just a few inter-
viewees represent much of your target market’s
buying power, it would be a shame to miss this
“engaging” opportunity.
Next we’ll see how B2B suppliers can conduct
voice-of-customer interviews before a prototype
is developed… to both understand customer
needs and to engage them. These interviews
should be conducted in two phases: qualitative,
divergent interviews followed by quantitative,
convergent interviews. For this, we’ll explore
New Product Blueprinting, a methodology that
has “reinvented” VOC specifically for B2B.
Qualitative B2B VOCBlueprinting methodology begins with qualita-
tive Discovery interviews, followed by quan-
titative Preference interviews. Here’s a key
feature of these interviews: In addition to gath-
ering customer insights, they fully engage B2B
customers to take advantage of their knowledge,
interest, objectivity and so on. Discovery inter-
views build engagement in eight ways:
1 Use a top team: Don’t send “hired guns”
to interview. Take your own team—with
a technical representative—so customers
know they’re talking to someone who can
innovate for them.
2 Drop the questionnaire: Never bore cus-
tomers with a questionnaire or survey. How
excited are you when someone comes to
your front door asking you to complete a
survey?
3 Project your notes: Display customers’
comments on a screen or wall, so they can
see them, make corrections, and begin to
“own” the conversation.
4 Focus on the customer: Discuss only the
customer’s desired outcomes, not your prod-
ucts. It’s all about them and their needs.
5 Don’t discuss hypotheses: Don’t “lead the
witness” to validate your concepts. Custom-
ers may sense you are more interested in
confirming your ideas than understanding
their needs.
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 9
6 Trigger more ideas: Spark fresh thinking
with “trigger maps.” For example, a map
could display trends potentially impacting
the customer’s future. This helps generate
more outcomes.
7 Listen skillfully: Signal your interest and
learn more by recapping, appreciating
silence, making affirming comments, asking
open-ended questions and probing thought-
fully.
8 Let customers lead: After customers give
you a desired outcome (and you understand
it), simply ask “What else?” This lets your
customer discuss outcomes they care about.
The last point is often overlooked. One of us
was working with a B2B supplier anxious to
query customers with a long list of questions:
They wanted to confirm facts, validate hy-
potheses, and fill in gaps. We told them, “You
know what you know (facts). You know what
you think (hypotheses). And you know some
of what you don’t know (gaps). But you don’t
know all you don’t know.” Suppliers putting
themselves in a position to be surprised find
that these epiphanies—not fill-in-the-blank
interview guides—provide the real spark for
innovation.
This leads us to an inherent risk in premature
hypotheses: The Build-Measure-Learn cycles
help you avoid the error of commission—creat-
ing a product no one wants. But there’s a com-
pletely different error you may make, which
is seldom considered: the error of omission.
Imagine you go into customer interviews with
nothing but an open mind—no hypotheses,
no solutions, no prototypes—and you let the
customer lead you to whatever interests them.
You’re much more likely to discover unimag-
ined customer needs than the supplier who just
wants to talk with customers about a prototype.
SURE, YOU’LL AVOID THE ERROR OF COMMISSION… BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ERROR OF OMISSION?
Quantitative B2B VOCAfter a round of market-facing, qualitative Dis-
covery interviews, the supplier conducts quan-
titative Preference interviews. Imagine your
Discovery interviews on automotive welding
uncovered maximize welding speed, minimize
spatter, minimize energy consumption, etc.
Then, in Preference interviews, you ask two
questions for each key outcome: 1. How im-
portant is it to maximize welding speed (on a
scale of 1-to-10)? 2. How satisfied are you with
your ability to maximize welding speed (on a
scale of 1-to-10)? The only outcomes customers
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)10
might pay you a premium to improve are the
important, unsatisfied ones. The AIM Institute
developed the Market Satisfaction Gap metric
to measure customers’ eagerness for improve-
ment. The more important and unsatisfied an
outcome is, the higher its
Market Satisfaction Gap.
In more than ten years of
using this method around
the world in a broad range of
B2B industries, here’s what
we find: If an outcome scores
a Market Satisfaction Gap of
~30% or more, customers are
eager to see the outcome im-
proved. This doesn’t just tell
a development team what to
work on; it also reveals what
not to work on. If all Mar-
The Marriage of Lean Startup and New Product Blueprinting
Welding Speed
Welding Spatter
Energy Consumed
Portability
Range of Metals
Bead Uniformity
Bond Strength
Metal Prep Time
Post-Weld Cleanup
Rapid Data Access
Market Satisfaction Gap (MSG)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
MSG = Importance x DissatisfactionMSG = IMP Rating x (10 - SAT Rating)
Example: Avg. IMP = 8; SAT = 6MSG = 8x (10-6) = 32%
32%
21%
12%
13%
11%
8%
35%
25%
16%
36%
ket Satisfaction Gaps are well below 30%, the
market is over-served, i.e. customers are content
with what they have today… except of course,
lower price. This is usually a splendid time to
kill the project and move on to another.
So what do you do if you have a B2B business
with relatively high Customer Foresight and/or
high Prototype Cost? Our advice: Don’t remove
anything from Lean Startup. Add to it using
B2B-optimized VOC.
In The Lean Startup, Eric Reis suggests four
important questions to ask of a team.2 (See page
11.) For most B2B situations, New Product
Blueprinting can help teams answer the first
three.
Lean Startup suggests following the scientific
method, in which hypotheses are tested. Good
advice, but where does the hypothesis come
from? Scientists must first skilfully study their
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 11
subject to formulate these hypotheses. Consider
using Blueprinting Discovery and Preference
interviews to study your subject—your custom-
ers. In a nutshell: For most B2B, use Blueprint-
ing VOC at the beginning of your Lean Startup
journey.
And do this VOC rapidly. We’ve been im-
pressed with both the specifics and spirit of
Lean Startup. Frankly, we’re learning from it.
Here’s one example of how Lean Startup think-
ing can accelerate your interviews: At the end of
each qualitative Discovery Interview, schedule
a web-conference Preference Interview. Our
clients have found web-conference interviews
to be highly effective, especially when they’ve
already met the customer face-to-face. Don’t
wait to schedule Preference interviews: Your
customers are usually in a helpful frame of
mind at the end of Discovery interviews. This
simple practice can remove several weeks from
4 Lean Startup Questions
Finding Answers with New Product Blueprinting
Do consumers recognize they have a problem
you are trying to solve?
Use divergent, qualitative Discovery interviews to uncover a full
range of customer outcomes. At the end of each interview, ask
for their “top picks”… to begin isolating which customer problems
to solve.
If there was a solution, would they buy it?
Use convergent, quantitative Preference interviews to gain an
unbiased, unfiltered view of any important, unsatisfied
outcomes… the only ones customers would be eager to see
improved.
Would they buy it from us?
Customers only pay premiums for products offering more than
their next best alternative. Uncover customer “test methods” in
Preference interviews so you can accurately test competing
alternatives.
Can we build a solution for that problem?
Blueprinting helps suppliers focus on the right questions… not
develop the answers. Most of this “solutions” work takes place
after Blueprinting… and is best done using Lean Startup
principles.
OUR ADVICE: DON’T REMOVE ANYTHING FROM LEAN STARTUP. ADD TO IT.
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com)12
your timeline in a market-facing project.
Here’s another way to “marry” Lean Startup
and Blueprinting. Imagine you’re ready to let
customers experience your product. Perhaps
your technology allows rapid creation of min-
imum viable products… or your technology is
already in an advanced state… or you simply
seek customer reaction to a concept drawing.
Try scheduling a two-part customer interview
on the same day. Tell the customer you’d like to
get their reaction to your technology, but before
you “taint” them with your ideas, you’d like to
hear their views. Have a “Part A” Discovery in-
terview, take a short break, and finish with “Part
B,” in which you get feedback on your design.
There are several advantages to Part A/Part B
meetings: 1) The customer appreciates being
listened to (in Part A) when they are in control.
2) Customer feedback in Part B is typically
richer because it can be linked to fundamental
outcomes discussed in Part A. 3) This promotes
superior products by wedding new design ele-
ments from Part A to the original Part B design.
We’ll close with these insights from The Lean
Startup by Eric Reis:
“A startup is a human institution designed
to create new products and services
under extreme uncertainty.3 The goal of
a startup is to figure out the right thing to
build—the thing customers want and will
pay for—as quickly as possible.4”
To this we would add: When it comes to B2B
customer needs, extreme uncertainty exists in
the minds of suppliers, not their customers. The
faster you move from your conference rooms
to customer interviews, the more rapidly you’ll
reduce this uncertainty. You can still hypothe-
size, build prototypes and iterate, but taking this
important initial step of discovery boosts your
likelihood of making the right product—even
faster and more profitably.
FOR B2B CUSTOMER NEEDS, EXTREME UNCERTAINTY EXISTS ONLY IN THE MINDS OF SUPPLIERS, NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS.
THE FASTER YOU MOVE FROM YOUR CONFERENCE ROOMS TO CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS, THE MORE RAPIDLY YOU’LL REDUCE THIS UNCERTAINTY.
© 2015 The AIM Institute (www.newproductblueprinting.com) 13
Learning MoreThe AIM Institute has created a science of B2B
customer insight, and refined it while working
primarily with Global 1000 companies since
2005. Thousands of practitioners worldwide
have learned practical New Product Blueprint-
ing tools through workshops and e-learning…
and now apply these methods using software,
job aids, and acquired skills.
Dan Adams
Dan is the Founder of The AIM Institute, and created New Product Blueprinting after working 29 years in B2B firms. A chemical engineer with many patents
and innovation awards, he’s listed in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He authored, New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth.
Dave Loomis
Dave has trained hundreds of Blueprinting learners annually in every region of the world and has also trained clients in AIM’s LaunchStar® product launch
methods. He has led marketing excellence at major corporations, taught MBA-level marketing and consulted on distribution channel strategy.
1 Eric Reis, The Lean Startup, p. 89.2 Ibid., p. 64.3 Ibid., p. 8.4 Ibid., p. 20.
Download the free e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B
Visit www.newproductblueprinting.com for videos, white papers and more.
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