Lean Startup

Lean only in resource. With limited time and money you have to focus on the bare minimum to build a strong core. When I ran across the Lean Startup Bundle, I became thrilled that I could add many useful features that I wouldn’t have been able to touch otherwise. My startup, Style du Jour, will be able to implement many of the offers within the next few weeks that will help me get an edge.

In my prior post, I gave a brief history of how I got here with Style du Jour.  A good amount of progress has been made since then.  We built out the commerce and referral system, got involved in creating a community on Twitter and Facebook, started to build a sales system and team, and have a clear vision of how to implement our patent pending system. 

For those new to my blog, Style du Jour is focused on your personal style. We are launching with daily style deals and then rolling in our personal style management system. Finally, your wardrobe will be at your fingertips and shopping will never be the same. 

There is also a contest going on called the Lean Challenge.  Winning a little of the prize money would go a long way in getting us to the next stage faster.  Improved UI, increased marketing and sales, and the completion of a fun marketing tactic (a mobile fashion game) that we have 70% completed. 

Here are some of my immediate thoughts on how to use this bundle:

  • Twilio - I really like Twilio. Their service will make creating custom SMS messaging for our deals. 
  • Pivotal Tracker - I’ve used PT before, but not for this startup. As the project gets bigger and, hopefully, the team grows, I would like to start using PT again.
  • Postmark - MailChimp is great for marketing campaigns. Postmark will be very handy for everything else.
  • HipChat - Excited to try something new. A lot of GTalk and Skype is used for communication. A more robust communication system will be welcomed. To be honest, because we are running lean, without this bundle, I would have tried HipChat.
  • Ask Your Target Market - Always a good idea to quiz your target market. Always.
  • Pandaform - Rapid data acquisition for the non-techies? Might help out a lot. 
  • Ginzametrics - Already use them from a prior bundle. We recently started some SEO strategies and used this service to easily measure the effect. 
  • Feefighters - Would have been great for my previous startup, but could be helpful in the coming months. 
  • Crazyegg - Heatmaps = good. Crazyegg = easy. 
  • Slidedeck - I’m looking to build a new landing page. Slidedeck could make this powerful and easy.
  • Saucelabs - Being lean and low on resources it is hard to find time to cross-browser check use cases. This will be very helpful in making sure we have a consistent experience.
  • uTest - This will become helpful for the mobile game. 
  • 99Designs - Nice if we can fund a new design in the near future.
  • Batchbook - This will help as we grow the sales pipeline. 
  • Texting.ly - I want to compare to Twilio. Might make more sense for group SMS and use Twilio for a more personal touch.
  • Infochimps - Lots of data to mashup. I love data.
  • Education offers - A great set of resources to learn from. All of them look very interesting and could be worth the price of the bundle alone. 

Huge value and potential in this bundle. Time to get started implementing these helpful tools and services.