45-Day DV is a cohort-based workshop designed by Ash Maurya (author and creator of the Lean Canvas) that teaches you how to prioritize customer problems worth solving, design a compelling solution, and assemble/deliver a mafia offer.
mafia offer: an offer your customers cannot refuse.
Think back to a new product launch, like the iPhone.
Buying the first iPhone required a leap of faith because there was nothing remotely like it. If you were one of the early adopters who stood in line to buy the first iPhone, you didn’t get to first test-drive the iPhone. You probably saw Steve Jobs’ demo the phone on stage, fell in love with the promise of the product, and decided to buy the product.
It follows then that what customers buy isn't really a product, but a promise of something better. You don’t need a working product to promise something better, you need an offer.
Contrary to popular belief, you never need a finished product to close a sale with an early adopter Depending on your product’s level of technical risk (feasibility), you _may_ sometimes need a working prototype for your demo, but don’t assume this unless your customers specifically ask.
This is the basic premise of the DEMO-SELL-BUILD vs. BUILD-DEMO-SELL process we teach in this workshop.
There are a number of different ways you can assemble and test offers. I’ve listed some of the most commonly used offer campaign recipes below:
Most people prefer picking one of the more scalable campaigns, like building a landing page or launching a crowd-funding campaign, but this is often a mistake. Why is that?
First, because you only get one-shot at making an impression. Most initial offers fall flat and you don't want to burn your entire list with a bad offer. More importanly, when you pitch a product en masse and online, it's hard to idenity what to fix -- your headline, demo, price, copy, colors, etc. Optimizing offers is a multi-variate problem and without the right customer feedback, this can be a sub-optimial approach.
It is for these reasons that we advocate deceleration vs. acceleration with your initial offer testing. The initial goal is establishing repeatability, not scalability. And the mafia offer campaign fits the bill perfectly.
Here's how we do this:
In 45-Day DV, you learn by doing. The program is delivered over four online workshops (2 hours each) run weekly over 45 days. These workshops teach you the skills you need to acquire to build a mafia offer your customers cannot refuse.
In between workshop sessions, you'll get to apply everything you learn using a battle-tested curriculum, online tools, and activities.
WEEK 1: THE CUSTOMER FORCES MODEL
In this workshop you'll learn the behavioral science of how customers buy and use products. We'll build on this model in subsequent workshops.
WEEK 2: RUNNING A PROBLEM DISCOVERY SPRINT
This workshop breaks down the 3 steps for running effective customer interviews.
WEEK 3: UNPACKING INSIGHTS
We'll cover how to post-process your raw interview notes into actionable insights.
WEEK 4: ADVANCED TACTICS
Interviewing is a skill that gets better with more practice. We'll discuss more advanced techniques for running interviews.
This program is hands-on and delivered over 45 days.
$1,999/attendee
Add additional team members at a 50% team discount: $999/attendee
Most large companies will reimburse you (ask your manager or HR team).
If you're a student, work at a qualifed non-profit, or a startup
(with under 10 employees, less than $1 million in annual recurring revenue, and less than $2 million
in funding), you qualify for discounted pricing.
$1,499/attendee
Add additional team members at a 50% team discount: $749/attendee
If you're planning on taking more than two workshops from our validation series, you'll save over 30% with the 120-Day Startup bundle.
120-Day Startup is a product launch fast-track that combines the first three workshops in our continous innovation roadmap:
We offer this program twice a year -- in the spring and winter. You can choose to take all three workshops back-to-back or space them over the year.
The bundled workshops alone pay for the price of membership. In addition, you'll get 1 year access to an Academy membership which unlocks all our stage-based playbooks, business model validation tools, community, and coaching resources.
Learn more about 120-Day Startup
"If you're interested in entrepreneurship/innovation, forget going to Harvard Business School (FYI, I am an MBA graduate of HBS). Apply these concepts instead. Had I done so, I know I would have saved myself much time, money, and the attendant dead brain cells."
Due to the high-touch nature of this program, we only accept a limited number of participants into each cohort. As a result, we have a no refunds policy once the program starts.
We understand that circumstances change and if you find that you need to defer your participation to a later cohort, we can move you one-time to the next available cohort.
For the same reason that we attend schools and universities, or elite athletes hire coaches -- for experience, advice, and external accountability.
That's what makes this program different from traditional courses. In addition, we are constantly evolving and refining our framework. You'll learn a completely revised problem discovery process with updated interview scripts and offer testing techiques not covered in any of our books.
The coaching program is run 100% online using the LEANSTACK platform to deliver courses, tools, and livestream events. We also have coaches in (almost) every timezone region which means you can attend from anywhere.
We recommend allocating 10-15 hours a week.
We run the live workshop sessions in 3 timezones (Central US time, London time, and Sydney time). You specify your preference during registration which determines your cohort. The 1:1 coaching session will be coordinated to mutually fit. Everything else is handled asynchronously over the LEANSTACK platform.
Yes. We partner with a number of accelerators who teach our playbooks in their programs and are happy to introduce you to investors if fund-raising is part of your goal.
Just drop us an email at [email protected] or use the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
"Life's Too Short to Build Something Nobody Wants"
This program is hands-on and delivered over 45 days.
$1,999/attendee
Add additional team members at a 50% team discount: $999/attendee
Most large companies will reimburse you (ask your manager or HR team).
If you're a student, work at a qualifed non-profit, or a startup
(with under 10 employees, less than $1 million in annual recurring revenue, and less than $2 million
in funding), you qualify for discounted pricing.
$1,499/attendee
Add additional team members at a 50% team discount: $749/attendee
If you're planning on taking more than two workshops from our validation series, you'll save over 30% with the 120-Day Startup bundle.
120-Day Startup is a product launch fast-track that combines the first three workshops in our continous innovation roadmap:
We offer this program twice a year -- in the spring and winter. You can choose to take all three workshops back-to-back or space them over the year.
The bundled workshops alone pay for the price of membership. In addition, you'll get 1 year access to an Academy membership which unlocks all our stage-based playbooks, business model validation tools, community, and coaching resources.
Learn more about 120-Day Startup
