Entrepreneur thinking is a skill and it can be taught – is the premise behind startup up business LeanStart.
What if there was a method, a system for children to use to prove their ideas gradually, and thus increase their chances of success? That is what startup business LeanStart has been showing children just what to do. How children can start and grow a business based on the fundamental principles of the Lean Methodology. Children from 9-17 years old are taught a systematic process for quickly making careful and critical examination of their ideas and a system to test how they can apply it.
The Lean Approach is a method used to start a new business and get a product or service into a customer’s hands faster. Companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Toyota have been using this approach for years and it can be applied to startup businesses of any size. These principles and methods have been adapted and condensed into fun interactive classes and activities in a practical and understandable way that children can understand and more importantly implement. Its an approach for children to be able to apply immediately to test whether their ideas are worth pursuing, before wasting time, money and resources in doing it – making the approach a better, faster less risky way of starting their own venture.
The method taught, supports building a product or service customers have already shown they want so that a market will already be in place as soon as it enters, as opposed to children trying to get money developing their idea and then ‘hoping’ people will want to buy it. By using the principles and methods taught to them, children are able to determine the interest customers show in their offering and then be able to determine how their offering can be improved. This process is known as ‘proven learning’ and it helps them steer clear of unneeded resources in creating their enterprise. Through the method, if there is an idea is likely to fail, it will fail quickly and inexpensively, as opposed to slowly and expensively. Experimentation and developing their idea with the customer are considered to be of far more valuable than spending time doing detailed plans.
Workshops are taught in class during or after hours by a team of experienced entrepreneurs know as ambassadors of the business and coached in a 5-lesson introductory phase to give children the skills they need and how to apply them. Following on from introductory phase children are placed into a 12-week Bootstart program where their ideas are taken and tested and a market created for it.
At the heart of the approach kids are shown to focus more on problems and customers as opposed to their solutions and how to uncover what they need to deliver, based on the problems their potential customers are experiencing in their community and surroundings, through running small, quick experiments so that they are able to adapt, learn and quickly respond to their needs.
LeanStart provides children with a step by step blueprint to put their ideas into action, with actionable learnings along the way. The simple action orientated roadmap, provided with templates and guides, provide children with the tools they need to start testing them ideas and getting them to a market.
Jason Newmark is a serial entrepreneur and the Leading Authority and Pioneer of the Lean Methodology for startups in South Africa. Owner of the New-mark Group of which businesses include: Co-Founder of Mompreneurs & Co-founder & CEO of LeanStart South Africa. He is the winner on the awarding winner show ‘Shark Tank’ and a mentor for the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation.