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Clarity

Brant Ellston Cooper

San Diego, California

Author of NYT Bestseller, The Lean Entrepreneur.
Author of The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development.
Co-Founder of Moves the Needle.
Startup veteran, selling B2B products to enterprise. Mentored and advised hundreds of startups and enterprise entrepreneurs.

Whether a startup founder or a Global 100 executive, I will help you identify and breakthrough whatever bottleneck is stopping you from achieving your next level of success.

$5.83/min

14

14 Calls

65

65 Reviews

25 minutes
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Lean startup Startups Customer Development Product Strategy Marketing Strategy Innovation Product Development Brand development

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Customer Development

Author, Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development and The Lean Entrepreneur

http://market-by-numbers.com

Just like every other element of the modern business model, the concept of branding is changing. Are you ready for 21st Century brand Innovation?

Startup veteran, mentor, author, advisor. Travel the world helping startups!

http://market-by-numbers.com

Don't let "innovation" be just a buzzword. Let me show you how to transform your company culture.

http://movestheneedle.com

Answers 4
Reviews 65

Answers

Brant Ellston Cooper answered

Is it advisable to outsource to an agency to create our MVP? Are my security concerns unfounded?

Christopher provides an excellent answer. The one thing I might add is: be wary of dev shop claims to understand what an MVP is. Despite the success of Lean Startup, I'd argue most dev shops still don't know how to build and iterate MVPs. It sort of runs counter to their business model.

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Lean startup

Minimum Viable Product

Intellectual Property

Brant Ellston Cooper answered

May I apply the term "lean" if I adapt lean startup concepts & apply them outside entrepreneurship w/o infringing on any legal protections of "lean"?

Ries owns 'Lean Startup' trademark. I doubt 'lean' by itself is trademark-able, and isn't claimed by Eric. Someone else may claim 'lean career development,' so might be worth a trademark search.

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Copyright Law

Lean Product Development

Lean Startups

Brant Ellston Cooper answered

How do we pick which customer segment to pursue after finalizing 10 interviews in each of 4 segments?

In The Lean Entrepreneur I discuss how to create a segment matrix: put your different segments in rows (hopefully these are NARROWLY defined!); in columns, come up with salient criteria to measure segment worthiness. It's ultimately up to you, but might include "Depth of Need", Budget, "Ease of Reach" (marketing), etc. Could even include things like "Matches Values." Be sure to write in such a way that a High-Medium-Low ranking is consistent across criteria. In other words a High Depth of Need is a good thing, so other high scores must be a "good" indicator. Rank each segment in the criteria High, Medium, or Low. It's OK to guess at this point, but your customer discovery should attempt to validate the values. It's likely that 1 or 2 segments will rise to the top.

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Customer Development

Brant Ellston Cooper answered

Is there a way to measure the "return on relationships"?

In our new book, Entrepreneur's Guide to The Lean Brand, Jeremiah Gardner and I tackle how relationships build passionate customers. In our view, products should fulfill a utility promise -- this functionality solves a that specific problem. But fulfilling the promise can only create 'satisfaction.' (Not always true, but generally.) It's the relationships between company and employees with customers that potentially creates 'passion,' which is required for scalable growth.

So how do you measure passion? Probably not in one particular way. Some combination of things like Net Promoter Score, Must-Have Score; social-media campaigns that measure participatory behavior; increase sharing of content; increase in viral-coefficient (OK for non-network effect business < 1!).

Early on, the best way to establish relationships is by meeting customers in person, in order to understand them deeply and develop empathy. Hypothesize 'what behavior can I expect from a customer with whom I've developed a relationship?' Measure whether that behavior is occurring.

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Marketing Strategy

Return on Investment

Reviews

Brant was great at simplifying what I should be focusing on and providing a some best practices in terms of lean learning.

Xander Schultz Source: Clarity

Brant is a vaulable adviser.

Tim Haberkorn Source: Clarity

Big thanks to Brant for helping me to figure out what my next steps should be and for sharing his experience!

Bartosz Malutko Source: Clarity

Brant is super logical and incredibly humble. He definitely provided us with unparalleled clarity to help focus in on from a perspective we couldn't see before. Thanks so much, Brant, will definitely stay in touch!

Jeffrey Sada Source: Clarity

I'm a big believer in the lean start-up methodology. In fact, I can't wait to read Brant's new book "The Lean Entrepreneur."

What a special treat it was to talk with the author!

I now have a better understanding of the lean start-up methodology. Brant gave me several actionable things to work on.

Omar Baig Source: Clarity

15 minutes to game plan! Brant eagerly shared some succinct and actionable information I can run with right away. I feel energized already! :)

Yael Grauer Source: Clarity

While at WildPackets, Brant provided the company with a consistently strong vision based on a full grasp of its strengths, its potential and an understanding of the place that we occupied within the industry. WildPackets benefited immensely from Brant's focus, ambition, and sense of direction.

Kevin McCarthy Source: LinkedIn

Brant and I worked closely for a period of 2+ years constructing a close partnership between cognio and wildpackets. Brant is one of the most intelligent, foward-looking, realistic, creative, and straight-shooting business people with whom I have worked. He has the highest integrity, and is someone I feel comfortable calling under any circumstances.

Brad Rosen Source: LinkedIn

I've had a professional working relationship with Brant Cooper since 2003. Brant is a brilliant strategist with deep technical expertise in internetworking technologies. His ability to articulate and drive corporate strategies for engineering-managed companies is exceptional.

private private Source: LinkedIn

It's clear to me that Brant thoroughly understands the market, the technology, and competitors. The platform products that Brant has championed have enabled the company to take a giant step strategically. Now, in addition to selling stand-alone tools, the company offers a enterprise-class platform for fault analysis. Brant's vision and passion are paying off for the company and its customers.

John Bennett Source: LinkedIn

Brant is one of the two best senior Marketing people I've met in my close-to thirty years in the computer industry. He is bright, technically adept, and a sophisticated business strategist.

Bill Northlich Source: LinkedIn

Member since December 2011