Page 104 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet104understanding of the business project as time progresses and we attain certain milestones. We must seek new forms of managing projects based on continuous and frequent delivery of value to customers.It is here that agile methodologies emerge for creating and developing products based on iterative cycles with the customer and comparing results for a correct incremental development, adapting to the customer’s understanding. Furthermore, customer/business development marks an about-turn in this approach and a focus on learning from customers in order to develop the product they really need, making not only the product but the whole business model hinge on the first stages of the enterprise.The key word is learning, as it is a continuous learning process (“the essence of Kaizen”) in which contact with customers should be abun- dant and speaking to them our main means of focusing product/business model development, and not only the entrepreneurs’ vision, as occurs in most enterprises.The combination of agile product development and the pursuit of a business model to underpin it in order to ensure profitability, sustainability and scalability give rise to the concept of Lean Startup, which was coined by Eric Ries in the book with the same title. Built on Toyota’s principles of Lean Manufacturing (1980s), a methodology for factories aimed at seeking efficiency and eliminating waste, its maxims are clear and concise:• Create quickly: that is, do what needs to be done at the right time and eliminate theinefficient – in other words, anything that does not provide value at the right time.• Measure quickly: be capable of establishing metrics that help us obtain knowledge of what we generate.• Learn quickly: based on the knowledge gleaned, be prepared to pivot and improve our proposition.Lean Startup is a working methodology aimed at seeking efficiency through continuous learning.Other authors have emerged in connection with the lean concept, such as Ash Mayurawith his Running Lean model that is geared more to technological entrepreneurs (web, app), and concepts such as Lean UX and Lean Sales, among others. Roughly speaking, Lean Startup is the standard for how new entrepreneurs build and launch new products; the rest provide other more detailed interpretations or processes. Basically, what Ash sums up in a great phraseis the sole objective: “Life is too short to build something nobody wants”. The focus should therefore be on discovering whether your hypothesis on the problem you are solving, the product you wish to develop and the customers you must target are valid. That is, carry out a problem-solution fit. The process offered by Steve Blank’s Customer Development is an optimal method. Four clear steps that can and should be repeated until the customer knowl- edge needed to successfully launch the product/ enterprise is gleaned.How to apply Design Thinking (DT) and Lean Startup (LS) to finding new business opportunities for the culture industries of the twenty-first century