Dr. Constantina Katsari-Muston
Last night we held a Lean Startup Meetup at Colab (a co-working space) in Athens, Greece. Despite the heat and the humidity, we had a room full of startups and other entrepreneurs, who were eager to learn more about their own customers.
Constantina Muston started talking about the basic principles of customer development and the main protagonists who promoted the idea (eg. Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Ash Maurya, Rob Fitzpatrick and others). Then she elaborated on the benefits the entrepreneur or intrapreneur gets, when s/he conducts customer interviews early in the process.
Lean Startups Athens
It soon became clear that the group had a LOT of questions. Despite the fact that lean startup methodology is becoming widely acknowledged, most of the people in the Meetup could not immediately grasp how customer development was to be used. After a heated debate and a lot of back and forth, we postponed the battle for the next Meetup.
The networking meeting continued for another hour, during which time we became aware of the great potential some of the startups have. By 9 in the evening we were all happily starving and headed for one of the gourmet restaurants in Athens (To Filema). You can see below a selection of the most delicious dishes.
Filema in Athens
Since the Meetups proved to be extremely successful, we decided to turn them into a regular series of events. They will be held once a month at Colab (Petraki 28, Athens) and everyone who is interested will be welcome!
If you are interested in finding out what happened in the First Lean Startup in Athens, just click on the title.
For more information on lean startup methodology, you could take a look at my other blog posts.
An Entrepreneur’s (Permanent) Failure
How Can you Come Up with a New Business Idea?
Best Social Media for Lean Startups
Why Personal Branding is Essential for Lean Startups?
Direct Benefits from Customer Development
Common Excuses to Avoid Customer Development
Simple Pricing Strategies for your Products or Services, the Lean Way
The No. 1 Mistake New Entrepreneurs Make
“How to Get 10000 of Facebook Likes”. Is this the Lean Way to Start a Business?
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