Workshop highlights key principles for building startups

Posted on  29/09/2017  |  Media Centre

September 29, 2017

| Danial Norjidi |

A LOCAL Business Development (LBD) workshop was held yesterday, highlighting the topic of ‘Lean Startup Principles’.

The workshop at the Radisson Hotel, was organised for participants from SMEs, large corporations and government agencies.

The workshop focussed on: entrepreneurial thinking and techniques used by successful disruptive startups; Lean Startup Principles, design thinking and agile development; common pitfalls for business innovation; how to test new business ideas without the need for extra budget; how an intrapreneur can effectively manage an innovation accounting process; and some of the customer discovery techniques in Southeast Asia.

Lean startup methodology advocates three key principles. It begins with the development of a business model canvas to sketch how value is created for the organisation and the people it serves.

This is followed by a customer development process where a “minimum viable product” (MVP) generates feedback from customers or users regarding its design, features, pricing and other critical aspects. This feedback is then used to innovate the product or service either by “iterating” or “pivoting” to match requirements of those it is intended for.

Adrian Tan, the Programme Director of VIISA, who has mentored and scaled over 1,000 startups and large enterprises in Asia. – DANIAL NORJIDI

The LBD workshop was led and conducted by Adrian Tan, a seasoned lean startup coach who has mentored and scaled over 1,000 startups and large enterprises in Asia.

Adrian is the Programme Director of VIISA, an accelerator and venture fund based in Vietnam with US$6 million to invest in over 100 promising young ventures to grow them into globally competitive players over the next five years. Entrepreneurs and executives also turn to Adrian for agile development, human-centred design and corporate innovation. His client list includes Schneider Electric, Manulife, Bosch, Sivantos and several other regional and global names.

Speaking to the Bulletin yesterday, Adrian shared, “Startups show that they have a scarcity in terms of time and money. So the constraints force startups to think creatively and how do you minimise waste, and how do you also know what to focus on to increase your chances of success.

“What I want to achieve from this workshop, I would say is just to give local startups and business owners a glimpse of the tools that they can potentially use on their businesses, understanding that innovation should not just be seen as a ‘mad scientist in a lab’. Innovation can happen through toolsets, it could be incremental innovation in terms of the processes that you have in your work place. It could be new product lines, but also to have a deep understanding of who you’re creating the product for. That’s my goal for the workshop.”

The LBD Workshop on Lean Startup Principles is part of a two-day LBD Programme which includes the LBD Forum that took place a day prior.

Now in its 11th year, this annual LBD Programme provides high quality learning, experience sharing and relationship building amongst local business owners and managers, corporate executives and professionals.

The 2017 LBD Programme was organised by Asia Inc Forum and its Major Partner Baiduri Bank, and supported by the Borneo Bulletin as media partner and MMW as creative partner.

Source: https://borneobulletin.com.bn/workshop-highlights-key-principles-for-building-startups/