Stand and Deliver:Weekly Prep For Your Presentation

and Beyond

Tom Byers, Pete Newell, Joe Felter, Steve Blank

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License

Before Class - Prepare

Making a better presentation

• You team should now be smarter than everyone in the room about your canvas• You still might not have Product Market Fit, but…• if you are feeling confident that you’ve validated

portions of your canvas remind people which portions (or which portions you don’t feel confident about)

• Update past portions of the canvas and diagrams

Mission Model Canvas

• Did you update all the boxes on the canvas?• Do all parts of the canvas make sense together?• Value Prop for each beneficiary• Mission Achievement for each beneficiary • Deployment and Buy-in for each beneficiary

• Can each team member present the entire Canvas?

Value Proposition Canvases

• Do you have a value proposition canvas for each Beneficiary/Stakeholder?• Does it match the mission model canvas?• Can each team member present it?

Can You Diagram the Relationships?

• Can you draw the relationship between the beneficiaries?• Can you diagram the path of how the product gets

physically deployed?• Can you draw the relationship between the

people/organizations who need to buy-in?• Can you diagram how the product gets acquired?• ($’s, time, organizations)

Minimum Viable Product

• What is your MVP?• What are you trying to learn?• What did you learn?• Is the MVP helping you validate more of your

canvas are you still stuck on Value Prop

In Class - Deliver

Summarize Your Learning

• For the teaching team and guests, remind us:• Quickly (<2 minutes) through the key learnings to date• March us through the canvas

• Beneficiaries, Value Proposition, Deployment, Buy-in, Mission Achievement

• Then start this weeks presentation

Acknowledge Feedback

• If you’ve gotten feedback in office hours• Repeat the feedback. “In office hours we heard…”• Tell us what you’re going to do with the feedback

1. We heard it, but we’re going to ignore it (truly ok)2. We need to think about it for a few days3. Wow. That was helpful we’re going to...

• Same holds for mentor, liason and sponsor feedback...

Blow the Whistle on Sponsor Issues

• Sponsor Issues are teaching team issues• Scream loud, hard and often to the teaching team• Do not wait

• Get DIUx and Liaison help

Thinking On Your Feet

• Stall if you need more time to think on your feet• Repeat the question back by saying, “What I think I

heard you ask is”, and then repeat their question asking for confirmation

• If you don’t know the answer, it’s ok to say:• That’s a great question. We need to caucus on the

answer. When would you like us to get back to you?

• Don’t be defensive• You’re a team• Ask your team members for help answering

If the Teaching Team Doesn’t Get It

• If you actually did what we’re asking, but we don’t get it• Say, “I think we did what you asked, for but I’m probably

not explaining it correctly.” • Then try to explain it differently. Ask your team

members to help explain it.• If we still don’t get it, try to listen to us and say, “We

need to take notes and see if can get you the answer”

Take Notes

• We are giving you comments for action not just information• One or more of you ought to be taking notes• Those comments should be reflected in your work

next week

Team Problems

• There’s no shame in interpersonal conflict• Bad things happen when you deny it exists and/or

don’t ask for help• Failure Modes:• No one loves your initial idea• Thinking this is an incubator rather than a class• Inability to pivot• Team member too busy for Customer Discovery• Want to “build the product” not MVPs• …

Denial

• Bad things happen in the real world• potential customer falls through, co-founder quits,

customers aren’t buying, etc.• It’s OK to be depressed for a few days… then pick

yourself up, process what happened and come with a new plan• Don’t spread panic or doom and gloom, but …• Don’t spin it to yourself, or your co-founders or

investors• And definitely don’t spin it to your teaching team

Exuberance

• Great things happen• customers grab the product out of your hands, VCs

throwing term sheets at you, etc.

• Don’t confuse a few blips of enthusiasm with a repeatable and scalable business• Worst thing you can do is premature scaling• Have specific goals of what constitutes validation• Don’t confuse fund-raising with successful anything

After This Class – Plan

Lots of Choices

1. Good class, learned a lot about Lean and the DOD/IC, now back to the rest of my life

2. Would like to figure out how to work with the DOD/IC in some way• see DIUx or your sponsor

3. Would like to continue to work on solving this particular problem• see your sponsor, StartX, DIUx or NSF I-Corps

4. Would like to get VC funding and create a dual-use product

And then the next few weeks

• Mission Achievement• Activities• Resources• Partners• Cost Structure to Support Mission Achievement