Lean Startup Geek Smackdown In DC

Jimmy Gardner March 6, 2010 Tweet

Last night, I attended the DC Lean Startup Circle in Arlington, Virginia, hosted by Kevin Dewalt and Ken Yarmosh, featuring a couple of industry heavy weights, Dave McClure and Eric Ries, talking about everything “Lean Startup.” The group was in town for the Startup Visa Act which we covered previously. The duo spoke for a bit and then answered some questions from local entrepreneur about the lean startup mantra. I had always thought that lean startup = bootstrapping. I was way definitely mistaken.  Lean Startup encompasses some great principles that Eric, who writes a blog called Startup Lessons Learned, was able to really break “lean startup” down for the audience and give some real world examples to further solidify the principles.  In a nutshell, there are three principles that define lean startup:

1. How to measure progress
2. What’s the cycle time of having the idea and validating it
3. Minimize cycle time

Most of the event was captured on video, but due to some technical difficulties, we didn’t get “all” of it. But here is a good 56 minute Lean Geek Smackdown video (below) of the discussion. They will have to come back to DC sometime soon for more.

The Lean Geek Smackdown was a great event. The feedback was terrific and we congratulate Kevin and Ken.  For a better blow by blow recap of the event check out some of the Twitter feed from last nights crowd.