How do you discover whether that idea you have in your head will become a real company?

Last week, 35 aspiring entrepreneurs took the leap. Over the course of 2.5 days, 5 teams with different backgrounds – from students to corporate professionals – worked hard on discovering whether their product or service solves an actual problem for customers and if it could generate cash within a short timeframe. Ideas ranged from a sharing platform for classic cars to foldable coffee cups, to artificial intelligence (AI) webshops. They all shared the same challenge: how do we know if we solve a relevant problem and is there a real need for this idea?

True to the lean startup methodology, teams set up their first customer experiments and immediately ‘got out of the building’ to have real conversations with their potential customers, encouraged by their mentors from the Dutch lean startup circle, who tagged along as the teams ventured into Rotterdam. As the first customer feedback came in, the teams quickly realized that their initial idea was not going to survive first contact with the real world.

“It is so stupid we haven’t done this before (After their first problem customer conversation)” – Wesley Malcorps

By Friday afternoon, all teams had a mere 5 minutes to convince the jury they had found a problem worth solving and had real commitment from their customers as means of proof that there was demand for their specific solution to the issue.

Results of the Lean Startup Experience Rotterdam

One startup made over 500 euros in sales in the last four hours. With this commitment they actually got subscriptions for 6 months which will result in a total revenue of 5.300 euro’s. Another startup set up a webshop where they sold over 16 products and got traffic from different social media channels. Finally, one team secured 500 euros in sales with their solution around finding internships. They built a quality-certification for websites where they provide internships that are pre-approved by the university.

“If I had known this when I was running my previous business  I would have realized that it was destined to fail early on”

Do you also have a great idea? Then be sure to participate in the “Get Started” programme yourselves! You can apply at www.getstarted.nl

Special thanks to our judges:

Frank Appeldoorn – Volta Ventures;
Liduina Hammer – Uniq, Innovation Quarter;
Korstiaan Zandvliet – Symbid

And Startup Foundation & Lean Startup Circle The Netherlands for Mentors!

The Lean Startup Experience Rotterdam is a joint-initiative by Blue Whale Ventures and the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE).