Comments on: ManyWheels: A Lean Startup Case Study on Vetting Opportunities

By: Why 13,956 heads are better than one. | Marc Gunther

Why 13,956 heads are better than one. | Marc Gunther — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:34:11 +0000

[...] pick one example, Many Wheels was a start-up technology company, backed by a National Science Foundation grant,, aimed at [...]

By: startupbug.com

startupbug.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:43:46 +0000

ManyWheels: A Lean Startup Case Study on Vetting Opportunities…

Vetting the opportunity – not just the market need – is critical for the lean startup. In ManyWheels we successfully used lean approaches to identify a market need and a solution that solved it. In retrospect we could have saved ourselves months of wor…

By: Jay Neely

Jay Neely — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:04:54 +0000

In early product phases the sale doesn’t matter as much as customer learning from trying to sell.

This is awkwardly phrased, as it’s not clear who’s learning what. And it’s not really learning about customers that you’re saying is important, but learning how hard it will be to sell to them. A suggested revision:

“In early product phases, successfully selling to customers doesn’t matter as much as learning what it will take to successfully sell to them.”

Great post!

By: EventSession

EventSession — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:12 +0000

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the write-up (I wrote the Google Group Lean Startup Study). As it happens to be, I am looking for a lead developer who is oriented towards Customer Development. Perhaps some of your readers are interested or know of someone who may be.

http://eventsession.com/customer-development-oriented-lead-developer-for-start-up/

By: Matt Collins

Matt Collins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:46:06 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience and learnings. It’s extremely helpful to hear accounts of this sort. Best of luck with your next venture.

By: kevindewalt

kevindewalt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:44:03 +0000

Thanks a bunch Dusty. Meeting you, matt, and everyone else in Omaha was one of the best parts of ManyWheels. You've got a collection of talent there and I look forward to working with you guys in the future.

By: iotr

iotr — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:42:30 +0000

@kevindewalt I also look forward to hearing about what’s next.

By: iotr

iotr — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:34:52 +0000

@kevindewalt Very interesting case study. I’d love to catch up and hear more about your lessons learned.

By: Dusty

Dusty — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:06:55 +0000

Kevin,

Thanks for the very candid and well written account of your experience here. As a new follower of the whole Lean Startup process, its fascinating to read and (hopefully) learn from the Many Wheels story. Its even more fascinating as I’ve been following your progress for some time. Thanks for the writeup, stay in touch and best of luck at your next startup!

Dusty