Whether you’re starting from scratch or simply trying out a new tactic, channel, or approach, when you’re at a startup running as lean as possible is the name of the game. Here are 20 tools and resources you can leverage to validate your hunches, test your hypothesis, and generate quick wins/results/data — all while holding onto as much of your precious time and resources as possible.
Business Fundamentals
Business Model Canvas: Plan out the essentials of your business model on one page.
Market Sizing Tool: Estimate the size of a market opportunity in minutes.
Validation Board: Test your idea without wasting time or money.
Survey & Feedback Tools
Instantly Survey Tool: Easily create and launch professional surveys for free.
Qualaroo: Develop targeted, triggered online surveys anywhere on your website.
UserTesting: Get videos of real people providing feedback while using your site or app.
Intercom: See, engage, and get feedback from customers with real-time messaging.
Quick Survey Tips
10 Essential Tactics for Creating Valuable Customer Surveys by Gregory Ciotti at Help Scout
Buffer co-founder and COO Leo Widrich explains the most important question to ask to measure product-market fit.
Landing Page Tools
Unbounce: Build, publish, and A/B test landing pages without IT.
Lander: Landing page platform offering easy-to-use tools and templates.
Launchrock: Site builder dedicated to early customer acquisition.
Bonus: Quick Landing Page Tips
101 Landing Page Optimization Tips from Unbounce
How to Successfully Validate Your Idea with a Landing Page MVP by Joel Gascoigne at Buffer
Design Tools
Flinto App: Makes it easy to create interactive prototypes from existing screen designs.
Balsamiq: Rapid wireframing tool to help you create quick mockups.
Canva: Simple visual tool for designing graphics.
Lean Marketing Tools
Marketing Fundamentals Canvas: Articulate your key messaging with this one-page framework.
Up Close and Persona: Create quick and effective buyer personas.
Content User Stories: Short template to help you qualify and prioritize your content creation.
Examples: MVP & Growth Experiments in Action
Dropbox: Lean Startup author Eric Ries examines the early experiment that drove hundreds of thousands of people to Dropbox’s website and grew their beta waiting list from 5K to 75K overnight: “How DropBox Started as a Minimal Viable Product”
Product Hunt: In two posts for Fast Company, Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover provides a behind-the-scenes account of the birth of a startup, from initial idea and MVP (“The Wisdom of the 20-Minute Startup”) to initial traction and growth (“How We Got Our First 2,000 Users Doing Things That Don’t Scale”).
Buffer: Co-founder Joel Gascoigne is always quick to share learnings and methods from his experiences at Buffer. Learn how he and co-founder Leo Widrich took an extremely lean approach to getting the company up and running in “Idea to Paying Customers in 7 Weeks: How We Did It”.
HubSpot: Brian Balfour, VP Growth at HubSpot explains why the real secret to scalable, sustainable growth isn’t your tactics, it’s your process (SlideShare below).
[500DISTRO] The Scientific Method: How to Design & Track Viral Growth Experiments from 500 Startups
Have a good tool/resource not mentioned here? Let me know in the comments below!