using lean startup to ace your job search

DEBBIE MADDENCEO, STRIDE

Using Lean Startup To Ace Your Job Search

About Me

2004 2014

2002

Fetch-a-Flick ???TireLabs

19971996 2001

Last Time I Looked for A Job, 15 years ago. Aghhh!!!

How Did You Feel?

Finding a New Job Is Hard

You Have Conflicting Feelings

You Need a Plan to Find THE Perfect Next Job

Use Lean Startup to Ace Your Job Search

1 32Fail Fast Pivot Know When To Go All

In

Fail Fast

What Is Lean Startup?

What This Talk is Not

A Lesson in Lean StartupRead:

Lean Startup

Shorten product development cycles

The new product you are trying to launch is you.

The cycle you are trying to shorten is your interview cycle.

Lean Startup

Validated learning

The validated learning you are going for is learning what you love to do.

Make More Pots

Lean Startup

Reduce risk, and reduce cost of failures by learning fast and failing fast.

Reduce risk of:Having no

paycheck for too long.

Taking a job that’s not a good fit.

Customer Development

Identify a market for your product

Identify a market for you.

Customer Development

Build features that solve a real need

Build a resume and online profile that solves a real need (aka. That there are jobs for)

Why Customer Development?

Rapid Feedback is the quickest way to learnFailing Fast minimizes your chance of…

__________________ Taking a job you will dislike Spending months applying for jobs that

you’ll never get interviews for Missing out on an opportunity you may

otherwise not have thought of (This is what happened to me)

Pivot

50,000 Coaches

“You should start an agile consulting company.”

50,000 Coaches

“Do something that's 90% familiar and 10% new.”

“I want to work for you.”

“I’d hire you for a software development project.”

“Start Cyrus 2.0”

Pivot #0

Feedback

Great support in the NYC Tech Community both from potential employees and potential clients.

I discovered my heart wasn’t in it.Loved Cyrus, yet wanted to do something

new.Pivot.

Feedback

“You have kids you need income.”

“You should get a job.”

“Use your network, you’ll have a job in a week.”

And so I did.

Pivot #1

I had a job, for exactly 3 days.

50,000 Coaches

“Why would you work for someone else when you can run your own business?”

Hmmm….

I do like running a small business. But what business should I start?

50,000 Coaches

“You should be exec coach for women”

Pivot #2

Executive Coach for Women CEOs

Pivot #2

Customer Development

Reached out to every woman exec I know.All 5 of them.

4.6 percent of Fortune 1000 CEO 10% of VCs are Women 3% of Tech Startups are founded by Women

(What??!!) Women-led startups have 12% higher revenues than

others. Atta girl!! (But I digress.)

50,000 Coaches

“You'd hate coaching.”

“You need to be part of a team.”

“Get a job. Use a headhunter.”

Pivot #3

ResumeJob Search

Executive Headhunters

Feedback

Sent my resume to 20 NYC exec search firms. Heard back from exactly zero of them.Awesome.

Exasperation Sets In

50,000 Coaches

“You need to meet VCs.”

What I Learned From Failing Fast and Pivoting

Getting a job is going to be giantly harder than I thought.

Starting a business is easier than I feared.

I am uncompromising in: I will only work with people that match my passion and integrity.

What Can You Learn from Failing Fast?

__________________Confirm or fail your hypotheses, your fears.Uncover new avenues you didn’t know were

feasible.

Pivot #4

Fractional CXO

Stride

50,000 Coaches

“I've been begging someone to do this for years”

Ahh haahhh!!!!

Next steps: Refine, and then Scale.

Know When To Go All In

Fake It Till You Make It

Put Your Best Foot Forward, Just Make Sure It’s One of YOUR Feet

Aka – Don’t lie, but do be your own best advocate

Refine

Tweak: Resume, Website, Interview Questions

Transition from pivoting to refining once you find your personal product/market fit.

***Don’t Scale too early.*****

Don’t Scale Early

Business make this mistake all the time – scale only when they haven’t found a product /market fit. Don’t blast your resume to everyone you know until

you have a sense you are ready to scale. Instead, send it to a few people, get feedback Don’t update your LinkedIn and Blast the update to

everyone. Instead update it and turn the Blast feed off

Scale

Tell everyone and their mother.Tell your mother.Tell my mother.ASK FOR HELP. (Customer Devlopment is not

over, always learn and reach out to people)

It’s Ok to go back to Pivot

Customer Development ExerciseLet’s Help Each Other

Me Acquire

Customers: CEOs of Companies with Complex Sales.

You Acquire

interviews? Acquire

customers? Acquire

connections?

debbie@stridenyc.com

Use Lean Startup to Ace Your Job Search

1 32Fail Fast Pivot Know When To Go All

In

DEBBIE MADDENCEO, STRIDE

WWW.STRIDENYC.COM

@DEBBIEMADDEN200DEBBIE@STRIDENYC.COM

Questions?