Course · Self-paced, ~8 lessons

How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad

Steve Blank · Udacity Free Beginner

The free course from the person who coined get out of the building, the core idea that no facts about your idea live inside your own head. Blank walks you through customer discovery step by step, testing each assumption against real people. It is a structured, no cost way to learn the whole method when you have no accelerator or mentor nearby.

  • No facts exist inside the building, only opinions
  • Test each business model assumption with real customers
  • Search for the real problem before committing to a solution
Open on udacity.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. How do I run customer discovery as an Indian founder building for Indian users?
  2. How do I validate an idea when I'm building outside the big startup hubs and don't have easy access to target users?
  3. As a solo technical founder who hates sales calls, how do I do user research without it draining me every week?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra
  4. A YC partner turns 'talk to users' into a repeatable 5-question interview script you can use this afternoon. It's The Mom Test... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky (YC / founder of Pebble)
  5. A short, practical field guide to customer discovery: who to talk to, how to find them, and how many. Pairs perfectly with The... talkingtohumans.com Book · ~80 pages (free PDF available) Talking to Humans Giff Constable
  6. The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for... paulgraham.com Essay · ~20 min read How to Get Startup Ideas Paul Graham
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