Categories

Monday, December 8, 2014

For Platinum Passes only.

Startup Site Visits10:00 AM - 5:30 PM

Below are some of our confirmed startup site visits. Please check back for the full list and schedule.

1) Highway1: Highway1, a division of PCH, is a hardware startup incubator and is itself a hot young company in San Francisco.

2) CreativeLive: CreativeLive develops live online workshops that you can watch for free and lets you interact with instructors in real time.

3) Pivotal Labs: One of our most popular site visits last year, Pivotal Labs partners with clients to develop software using Agile and Lean Startup methods; the company also runs widely used and innovative business platforms.

4) 18F is transforming how the U.S. Government builds and buys digital services — we focus on user needs and work in a design-centric, agile, open, and data-driven way. Our projects focus on the interaction between government and the people and businesses it serves, helping agencies deliver on their mission through the development of digital and web services. Our newly formed organization, within the General Services Administration, encompasses the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and in-house digital delivery and consulting teams. We’re doers, recruited from the most innovative corners of industry and the public sector, who are passionate about driving efficiency, transparency, and savings for government agencies and the American people. We make easy things easy, and hard things possible.

Impromptu Dinners6:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Workshops are for Platinum and Gold Passes only.

Platinum & Gold Registration9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Workshops10:00 AM - 5:30 PM

• Metrics: The Data That Will Make or Break Your BusinessMetrics
  Alistair Croll, Solve for Interesting, @Acroll
  Room: Terrace

  If you’re being methodical about growth, analytics matters. For startups, analytics is about measuring the right metric, in the right way, to produce the change the business needs most at that point in time. That’s harder than it sounds: you need a solid understanding of your business model; an awareness of what’s most at risk; and a clear idea of where to draw the line between success and failure. Metrics measure not only the health of your business, but also your journey to product/market fit; the value of your company; and the reliability of your underlying infrastructure. Join Lean Analytics co-author Alistair Croll for an all-day, in-depth look at analytics, measurement, and working with data. We’ll cover:

  *The five stages of growth every company goes through, and how they guide your choice of metrics
  *Six business-model archetypes and their unique measurement challenges
  *What “good enough” looks like for fundamental metrics
  *How to think about cohorts, segments, percentiles, and histograms
  *Measuring and aggregating infrastructure KPIs such as latency and availability
  *Using the Lean Analytics cycle to improve through experimentation

  This workshop is relevant for people working in standalone startups and for corporate entrepreneurs. It will combine presentations, case studies, and interactive discussion of the audience’s specific measurement challenges. Attendees need not be technical but should come armed with a basic understanding of web analytics, business metrics, and their current business model, plus a willingness to share with one another.
• Lean Startup 101Customer DevelopmentExperimentsReducing Risk
  Janice Fraser, Pivotal Labs, @clevergirl
  Room: Fountain

  If you’re new to Lean Startup, this lively introduction will help you get comfortable with the key terms and concepts. You’ll leave with a rich understanding to get the most out of the conference and, more important, to implement Lean Startup methods in your own organization.

  The full-day session, run by Janice Fraser, author of The Lean Product Book and expert entrepreneurship trainer, will cover:

  *Why Lean Startup methods exist
  *When to use them
  *The mechanics of learning from customers and testing ideas
  *Terms like MVP, pivots, customer development, validated learning, product/market fit, innovation accounting and cross-functional teams

  The day is packed hands-on activities to help you gain a deeper understanding of Lean Startup principles.

  This session is relevant for people from all sectors and in all roles. It is equally useful for software engineers and non-technical businesspeople, as well as leaders from established companies and standalone startups.
• Introducing Lean Startup in Your CorporationCustomer DevelopmentEnterpriseExperiments
  Brant Cooper, Moves the Needle, @brantcooper
  Room: Pavilion

  Lean Startup is a proven method for invigorating and sustaining innovation in established companies. But understanding and introducing the practice can be a challenge. This full-day workshop focuses on Lean Startup principles in the enterprise and case studies from corporate entrepreneurs, plus it includes a real-world, hands-on exercise to help you truly learn and connect the ideas with your everyday work. Led by Brant Cooper, author of The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets, and including guest speakers from enterprise corporations, the session covers:

  *Lean Startup principles for the enterprise
  *Strategies for implementing these principles within your established organization
  *Rapid experimentation tactics that you can apply to projects immediately
  *Reducing risk by identifying a “minimum viable product”
  *Key organizational systems and capabilities required for success in innovation

  This session is highly relevant for executive leadership teams; innovation groups and incubators; product managers and product teams; and functional teams such as HR, Finance, etc.
• Lean ImpactCustomer DevelopmentExperimentsGovernmentLean Impact
  Leanne Pittsford, Lean Impact & Lesbians Who Tech, @lepitts
  Room: Grand Ballroom Lounge

  Join Lean Impact leader Leanne Pittsford for a full-day workshop to learn how to implement Lean Startup methods in your social-good organization. Tailored to the unique needs and goals of mission-driven organizations, this session features guest speakers who are using Lean Startup principles to achieve greater social impact and will share specific examples from their own organizations.

  In addition to gaining an overall understanding of Lean Startup and how it can be applied within the social sector, you’ll learn how the ideas can be applied to funding structures to create greater sustainability for social good organizations and for the social good sector as a whole.
• Innovation AccountingEnterpriseMetrics
  David Binetti, dinadesa llc, @dbinetti
  Room: Crystal

  It’s common sense that established companies should judge internal innovation programs by different criteria than normal business operations. But new initiatives frequently default to existing measurements simply because product managers don’t have an alternative approach. The resulting mismatch between what the new program should be doing (learning) and what it’s judged by (execution) almost always ends in frustration and rarely generates profitable new products. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

  This workshop is designed to give product managers at established companies the tools you need to create an effective Innovation Accounting framework that sets up your program for success.

  This is a hands-on session, where we’ll cover:

  *How to seek, set, and socialize success metrics
  *Effective change-management techniques for innovation acceptance
  *Avoiding common pitfalls (such as falling back to execution-based KPIs)
  *Positioning within the organization for maximum impact (particularly against R&D labs)
  *Estimating the enterprise value of Innovation projects

  This workshop is for any organization that has or is seeking to start an innovation program within a larger enterprise.

General Registration5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

Pick up your badge in the Garden Room, then join us for the Ignite Reception in the Gold Room ! It’s open to all passholders and will be fun. Drinks sponsored by Moo.com. Music sponsored by Eigenworks.

Ignite6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Open to all attendees.

• Experiments in Humor
  Rachman Blake, FunnyBizz, @rachmanblake
  Room: Gold

  You know that people respond to humor in marketing and even in products. But you also know that you don’t want to be responsible for cringe-inducing messages that misses the humor mark. Good news: You can take the risk out of being funny. In this talk, Rachman Blake, Director of Growh at AppHeroes and Co-founder at FunnyBizz, teaches techniques for experimenting your way into funniness.
• Will They Buy It?
  Steli Efti, Close.io, @Steli
  Room: Gold

  After doing customer development, you’ve learned that your target market absolutely loves your new product idea. But will they buy it? Steli Efti, founder at Close.io, explains how to get an answer without turning off your interviewees
• Get Buy-In to Invest in Experimentation
  Nate Weisz , 3Pillar Global , @nateweisz
  Room: Gold

  One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurial employees face is getting support from your company leaders. Because when presented with proposals for user research or experimentation, corporate leaders will frequently question the value of those processes and shoot down the ideas. Nate Weisz, Director of Product Management at 3Pillar Global, shares techniques he’s developed that pave the way to organically gaining support from executives.
• Convert Gatekeepers into Advocates
  Amanda Krantz , DohJe , @amandakrantz
  Room: Gold

  When your customers are large, complex organizations, key influencers act as gatekeepers between your MVP and your end users. How do you turn gatekeepers into advocates? Amanda Krantz, founder of DohJe, shows how her team navigated this maze to launch a software pilot program at UCSF, a large teaching hospital.
• Blur the Line Between Customer and Engineer
  Charlie Scheinost , Adobe , @c_scheinost
  Room: Gold

  Live chat that’s built into a website or app for customer support is usually answered by customer service reps. But some teams use it as a direct communication line between engineers and their customers. Charlie Scheinost, engineering manager at Adobe, shares lessons from building live chat into his team’s workflow early on and using it to shape features and prioritize development.
• Lean Placemaking for CitiesExperimentsLean Impact
  Mariela Alfonzo, State of Place, @stateofplaceorg
  Room: Gold

  You may not know that cities, like startups, can run experiments to test new initiatives. Urban design expert, Mariela Alfonzo shows us how she has applied Lean Startup to urban planning to and created a tool that helps cities generate and test their hypotheses effectively.
• Make A Real Difference in 60 DaysLean Impact
  Tiffani Bell, Detroit Water Project, @tiffani
  Room: Gold

  It started with a tweet wondering how people in Detroit were coping with water shut-offs. Two months later, Detroit Water Project co-founders Tiffani Bell and Kristy Tillman have matched Detroit residents with $150K in donations. Bell explains how they moved so quickly.
• Photography as a Research ToolCustomer Development
  Megan Kierstead, Social Ergonomics, @megkierstead
  Room: Gold

  When you’re doing customer research, written notes are valuable, but they present only one perspective about the people you’re trying learn about. Megan Kierstead, Principal at Social Ergonomics, shares techniques for using photography as a user research tool.
• Lean Brand BuildingExperiments
  Laura Busche, Lean Branding, @laurabusche
  Room: Gold

  Defining a brand can be risky, especially in the early days of startup, when your market and product are still geling. In this talk, Laura Busche, author of Lean Branding, will share practical tips for useful, early-stage brand-building.
• Boost Collaboration, Improve ExperimentationCross-functional TeamsLeadership
  Julie Lorch, DoSomething.org, @joolaay
  Room: Gold

  To succeed, experimentation requires more collaboration and communication across roles than most of us are used to. How can organizations make sure that teams share information in meaningful and action-oriented ways? Julie Lorch, head of user experience at DoSomething.org, gives us advice.
• Minimum Viable Belief: Experimentation in a Faith-Based OrganizationExperiments
  Ken Howard, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, @paradoxy101
  Room: Gold

  Startups and churches share more in common than you might realize–not least of which is a high failure rate. Ken Howard, founding pastor at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Germantown, Maryland, talks about experiments he’s made with his congregation to help it thrive during times of uncertainty.
• When the Scope Is Huge, One Way to Tell You're Making ProgressMetrics
  Mark Ferlatte, Tetherpad, @ferlatte
  Room: Gold

  As the team saving the Healthcare.gov site grew, they used an unusual metric to gauge success. Mark Ferlatte, co-founder at Tetherpad and member of the Healthcare.gov rescue team, tells the story.

Impromptu Dinners8:30 PM - 10:00 PM

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

General Registration8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Light continental breakfast to be served in the Venetian Room. Open all day,  the Venetian Room will host beverages, snacks, a livestream lounge, and our handpicked exhibitors.

• Guided Meditation | 8:30am - 8:45am
  Stacy Conlon, The Zen Media Group, LLC, @TheZenGirl
  Room: Fountain

  It’s well known in the startup community that meditation can help improve your concentration, judgment and emotional clarity. Stacy Conlon, also known as “The Zen Girl” and founder and CEO of The Zen Media Group, leads a guided meditation to start your conference day with balance.

Early Morning Talks9:00 AM - 11:15 AM

• Data-Driven Done RightExperimentsMetricsReducing Risk
  Dan McKinley, Radico, @mcfunley
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  We all hear that we should make “data-driven” decisions in deciding what to test and how to measure results. But few of us have much experience actually doing that. With real and accessible examples, Dan McKinley walks us through the process–and the simple math–he developed to test, or scrap, new ideas at Etsy.
• Test Your Way to the Right AnswerCustomer DevelopmentExperiments
  Anita Newton, Mighty Green Solutions, Adknowledge, @anitabnewton
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Brand-new startups begin with almost zero customer data–a risky position from which to build a new product. But when you have very little money, how can you acquire critical information quickly? Anita Newton advisor, investor, and marketer at Mighty Handle, reveals how her bootstrapped, non-technical startup did clever customer development online, and rapidly tested its way into the customer insights it needed to sell its consumer packaged goods to the largest retailer in the world.
• Overcome Your Own ExpertiseCustomer DevelopmentLean Impact
  Margo Wright, Yenko, @margowright
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When you’re building a new product, your own domain expertise can–surprisingly–prevent you from recognizing your potential customers’ needs. Margo Wright, founder of Yenko, shares the customer-development approach she’s used to overcome the blinders of her expertise.
• Leadership, Uncertainty, and Self-DeceptionLeadershipReducing Risk
  Dan Milstein, Hut 8 Labs, @danmil
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  What’s the biggest challenge in getting a team of people to adopt Lean Startup methods? Dan Milstein, founder at Hut 8 Labs, suggests a somewhat surprising answer: it’s the tendency of leaders to fall prey to the deep, built-in human propensity for self-deception. We’re wired to lie to ourselves in certain situations–and, in startups, those situations crop up all the time. Tying together psychology research and his own (painful) experiences on both sides of the leader/team member divide, Dan looks at the dangers of self-deception and what you can do to overcome it.
• Giving Voice to Good IdeasEnterpriseExperimentsLeadership
  Hugh Molotsi , Intuit , @hughmolotsi
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Every business leader knows that, in theory, good ideas can–and should–come from anywhere in your organization. But in reality, the voices of introverts and people far-removed from decision makers often go unheard. Hugh Molotsi, Vice President of the Intuit Labs Incubator and self-proclaimed introvert, talks about how Lean Startup methods at Intuit have helped surface game-changing ideas from quiet employees, front-line staff and unexpected corners of the organization.
• A Conversation with Ben Horowitz and Eric RiesLeadershipScaling
  Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz, @bhorowitz
  Eric Ries, The Lean Startup, @ericries
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  As a well-known startup veteran, investor and author, Ben Horowitz brings unusually deep insight to the hard questions that entrepreneurs face. Eric Ries interviews him and gives you a chance to ask questions, too.

Break11:15 AM - 11:50 AM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Late Morning Talks11:50 PM - 1:00 PM

• Bake in Cross-Functional CollaborationCross-functional TeamsLeadershipRemote Issues
  Cheryl Contee, Attentive.ly, YesWeCode, Fission Strategy

  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When you run a startup, it’s easy to assume that your small team necessarily works cross-functionally, because you all talk pretty often. But when you’re trying to move quickly, and lots of projects are run by just one person, you can inadvertently skip important collaboration across roles. Cheryl Contee, CEO at Fission Strategy and co-founder of Attentive.ly, talks about how her startups bake in cross-functional collaboration from the beginning, both to improve their products and to lay the groundwork for holistic product development as they grow.
• When Failure Is a SuccessExperimentsPivots
  Ursula Shekufendeh, AppFolio, Inc., @ursheku
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  It’s one thing to decide that you’ll rigorously test product ideas, and it’s entirely another matter to actually kill something that isn’t clearly a dud. AppFolio faced this dilemma when deciding whether to launch a new product last year. Product Manager Ursula Shekefundeh takes us through the surprising–and hard–decisions her team made at the persevere/pivot/kill crossroads.
• Getting Very Big by Being Very User DrivenCustomer DevelopmentLean ImpactScaling
  Max Ventilla, AltSchool, INC

  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When you’re tackling a hard problem, the solution rarely comes from what you do initially. Rather, it emerges from what you do continuously–provided you set up systems to learn as you go. Max Ventilla, founder at AltSchool, explains how his organization is staying very close to its customers as its key mechanism for scaling up a large network of independent schools.
• Getting Closer To Your Customers In StartuplandCustomer Development
  Mikkel Svane, Zendesk, @mikkelsvane
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When you’re moving fast to build and grow a new company or project, you’re bound to make mistakes as well as unexpected discoveries. Mikkel Svane, CEO & founder of Zendesk and author of Startupland, shares real stories from the front lines of starting Zendesk that explore how you stay in touch with the human side of customers and your business as you scale.
• An Experiment on StageExperiments
  Bill Gross, Idealab, @Bill_Gross
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  As the founder and CEO of Idealab, Bill Gross has started more than 100 companies, with MVPs of all kinds. This afternoon, he’ll share his best advice for making them successful–and this morning, as an experiment within the conference, he’ll share a preview of that talk from the main stage.

Lunch1:00 PM - 2:10 PM

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 12:10 PM - 2:50 PM

• MVPs You Can Learn FromExperiments
  Bill Gross, Idealab, @Bill_Gross
  Room: Gold

  As the founder and CEO of Idealab, Bill Gross has started more than 100 companies over the last 20 years and has seen MVPs of all kinds deployed. He shares the best ones and best practices to help you make the most successful startup with the MVP methodology.
• Balance Compliance and ExperimentationEnterprise
  Joanne Molesky, ThoughtWorks, @jemolesky
  Room: Fountain

  In heavily regulated industries, compliance is non-negotiable, and for many product teams, governance can be a deterrent for launching experiments. Is it possible to balance innovation with compliance? Joanne Molesky, principal consultant at ThoughtWorks, answers this question with key lessons learned from her experience in the IT industry.
• Identify and Validate Your Riskiest AssumptionsExperimentsReducing Risk
  Laura Klein, Hint Health, @lauraklein
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  MVPs are great–unless you’re building them to test assumptions that aren’t really mission-critical. In this hands-on session, Laura Klein, author of UX for Lean Startups and head of product development for Hint Health, breaks down the kinds of assumptions you should look for and a process for developing hypotheses that reveal your true barriers to growth.
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Lean Startup, Hardware EditionHardware
  Elaine Chen, Founder, ConceptSpring, @chenelaine
  Room: Hunt
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Finding Early Customers and Building Trust to Run ExperimentsCustomer Development
  Kevin Dewalt, SoHelpful, @kevindewalt
  Room: California
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Using Digital Tools -- YouTube, Facebook, Google and More -- to Drive Early Sales and Validate MVPsCustomer DevelopmentExperiments
  Emmanuel Eleyae, COO, satinlinedcaps.com, @satinlinedcaps
  Room: Grand Ballroom Lounge

Break2:50 PM - 3:05 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 23:05 PM - 3:45 PM

• Design Your Way to Product/Market FitProduct/Market Fit
  Christina Wodtke, Wodtke Consulting, @cwodtke
  Room: Fountain

  Finding product/market fit is the key to success for new ventures. But it’s often elusive, and understanding the needs and desires of your potential customers is harder than many of us expect. Christina Wodtke, of Wodtke Consulting, shares design techniques to help you glean meaningful insights about your target market.
• Constraints That Help You Build Valuable SoftwareReducing RiskTechnical
  Jocelyn Goldfein, Investor, Advisor, Entrepreneur, @jgoldfein
  Room: Crystal

  More than you know, your software’s business model and technology stack shape your appetite for risk, creativity and pace. Jocelyn Goldfein, former Engineering Director at Facebook, explains the constraints you face with various kinds of product DNA–and how you can embrace those constraints to build valuable software.
• The Diesel Engine MVPEnterpriseHardware
  Cory Nelson, General Electric, @CorwinNelson
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When you have long product cycles or you’re building big physical things–or both–you typically face significant risk, as a lot can go wrong between drawing board and customers. In theory, Lean Startup methods help you reduce that risk. But it’s not always obvious how you can apply them. Cory Nelson, Sr. Executive Product Manager at GE Distributed Power, talks with Eric Ries about how GE has used Lean Startup methods to develop a new diesel engine more quickly and with less risk than it had for similar products in the past.
• Live, No-excuses Customer DevelopmentCustomer Development
  Cindy Alvarez , Microsoft, @cindyalvarez
  Room: Gold

  When you have an untested concept, it’s easy to come up with reasons to avoid customer development or ignore the qualitative feedback you’re getting. Cindy Alvarez, author of Lean Customer Development and head of product design and user research for Yammer (a Microsoft company), leads several entrepreneurs through a live problem-solving session, highlighting actionable approaches to customer development challenges.
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Attracting Early-stage Investors Who Will Accept Lean Startup Methods
  Jose-Luis "Jou" De Alba, Chairman and Co-Director, Atma SC and InnoHub Guadalajara Accelarator, @Jou_DeAlba
  Kriss Hammond, Managing Partner, EasyStreet Ventures

  Room: Hunt
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Embedding Lean Startup Ideas in a Local Startup Community
  Justin Souter, Managing Director, Souter Consulting Limited / Lean North East, @souterconsults
  Room: Grand Ballroom Lounge
• Attendee-Led Conversation: In Corporations, Integrating Innovation Projects Back into the MothershipEnterprise
  María Olano, Telefonica R&D, @mdomata
  Susana Jurado, Telefonica R&D, @sjapru
  Room: California

Break3:45 PM - 4:00 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 34:00 PM - 4:20PM

• Create a Culture of ExperimentationEnterpriseExperimentsLeadership
  Manuel Rosso, Scripps Networks Interactive, @manuelrosso
  Room: Crystal

  What happens when your team uses Lean Startup methods, but other people in your organization don’t? Manuel Rosso, VP of Commerce at Scripps Networks Interactive, explains how his team taught coworkers to value experimentation over expertise.
• Mobile Experiments: Easier Than You ThinkExperimentsMobile
  Sheena Allen, Sheena Allen Apps, @whoisSheena
  Room: Fountain

  Mobile development presents particular challenges for experimentation. With competing operating systems and app stores to contend with, how can you move rapidly? Sheena Allen of Sheena Allen Apps walks us through the framework she used for launching–and learning from–six mobile apps on various platforms.
• How a 30-Year-Old Hardware Company Is Bringing Products to Market 3x FasterExperimentsHardware
  Kevin Ellsworth, Cirris Systems Corp

  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Hardware companies face particular challenges testing and iterating on their product ideas. It’s often cost-prohibitive to get an MVP in the hands of customers, and it can be seemingly impossible to ramp up production cycles. But you can push the boundaries of convention. Kevin Ellsworth, Product Manager at Cirris, explains how his team has built systems for consistent learning that have helped them release new products over a matter of months rather than years.
• Build a Culture that Outsmarts PerfectionismLeadership
  Seppo Helava, Nonsense Industry, @nonsenseind
  Room: Gold

  The build-measure-learn loop is often accompanied by the frustration-confusion-failure cycle. In other words, implementing Lean Startup methods is hard–particularly when your experiments invalidate a lot of your ideas. In this talk, Seppo Helava, founder at Nonsense Industry, teaches us how he’s led his team to overcome perfectionism and become more comfortable with grey areas and failure.

Break4:20 PM - 4:30 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 44:30 PM - 4:50 PM

• Learn from Every A/B Test
  Hiten Shah , KISSmetrics , @hnshah
  Room: Gold

  Experimentation can generate important insights, but it can also bury you under an avalanche of irrelevant data. Hiten Shah, founder at KISSmetrics, shares key tips and plenty of real-world examples for structuring A/B tests to ensure that you derive useful data every single time you run them.
• Get Comfortable Shipping Imperfect ProductsExperimentsLeadership
  Lauren Gilchrist, Pivotal Labs, @lgilchrist
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Top product managers must have great customer empathy–but too much of it can slow you down. On the one hand, you need empathy to understand your customers, so that you can build products that solve their problems. On the other hand, too much empathy can prevent you from releasing a product that doesn’t solve all of your customers’ needs at once. Lauren Gilchrist, Product Manager at Pivotal Labs, gives five tips for shipping less-than-perfect MVPs so that you can all learn from end users, fast.
• Use Lean Startup Techniques on a Remote TeamLeadershipRemote Issues
  William Donnell, SodiumHalogen, @sodiumhalogen
  Room: Fountain

  A lot of distributed companies use Lean Startup techniques for product development. But it’s challenging to successfully run customer development and cross-functional experiments with remote colleagues. William Donnell, lead design and UX specialist at Sodium Halogen, teaches creative techniques for very effective Lean Startup approaches on a virtual team.
• Integrate Customer Feedback Into Your ProductCustomer Development
  Greg Nelson, Hudl, @gregjnelson
  Room: Crystal

  Your team is committed to customer development and conducting user research, but how do you integrate the information you collect into your product development? Hudl Product Manager Greg Nelson explains how his company ensures that the entire, cross-functional product team understands and can act on customers’ needs.

Break4:50 PM - 5:05 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Closing Session5:05 PM - 5:50 PM

• Lessons from Experimentation at the Biggest Organization in the USGovernmentLeadership
  Todd Park, White House

  Room: Grand Ballroom

  The US federal government is the country’s largest employer and does not have a reputation for moving quickly. But Todd Park, who served from 2012 to 2014 as United States Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President and is now a technology advisor to the administration in Silicon Valley, is bringing an entrepreneurial approach to government and continues to make real change. He and key U.S. technology leaders describe their most challenging projects and share advice for experimenting in large organizations.

Office Hours at The Fairmont6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

For Platinum and Gold Passes only.

Group Dinners at Local Restaurants6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Evening Session8:30 PM - 10:00 PM

• Create Great Videos--the Lean Startup WayContent StrategyExperiments
  Bill Grundfest, Hollywood Content, @BillGrundfest
  Room: Crown Room

  Video provides a powerful way for businesses to attract customers. But with so much video and other content out there, how can your productions compete? Golden Globe Award winning writer-producer Bill Grundfest leads a fun, hands-on session teaching you to use Lean Startup methods as you create compelling business videos.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

General Registration8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Light continental breakfast to be served in the Venetian Room. Open all day,  the Venetian Room will host beverages, snacks, a livestream lounge, and our handpicked exhibitors.

• Guided Meditation | 8:30am - 8:45am
  Stacy Conlon, The Zen Media Group, LLC, @TheZenGirl
  Room: Fountain

  It’s well known in the startup community that meditation can help improve your concentration, judgment and emotional clarity. Stacy Conlon, also known as “The Zen Girl” and founder and CEO of The Zen Media Group, leads a guided meditation to start your conference day with balance.

Early Morning Talks11:00 AM

• Live Lean Startup ExperimentsEnterpriseExperiments
  Brant Cooper, Moves the Needle, @brantcooper
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Team leaders from Brant Cooper’s December 9 workshop, Introducing Lean Startup in Your Corporation, share real-time conference experiment results, giving you a chance to see what evidence-based decision making looks like.
• How HP Shipped Faster--Much FasterEnterpriseExperiments
  Kathryn Kuhn, Hewlett-Packard, @kathryn_e_kuhn
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  It’s no secret that product leaders in big companies who need to test new ideas quickly are often stuck with slow release cycles and rigid team processes. How can you overcome the legacy approach? Kathryn Kuhn discusses the calculated tradeoffs her Hewlett-Packard innovation team made in order to speed up its product development cycle, bringing a complex product to market in a matter of months.
• A Conversation with Mitch Kapor and Christie GeorgeLean ImpactMetrics
  Mitch Kapor, Kapor Capital, @mkapor
  Christie George, New Media Ventures, @christiegeorge
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  What can any startup learn from mission-driven companies? From focus, to metrics, to impact, to team, the lessons are deeper than most of us expect. In this conversation, Mitch Kapor, of Kapor Capital, talks with Christie George, Executive Director of New Media Ventures, about building a profitable company that solves real-world problems.
• Will They Buy It?Customer Development
  Steli Efti, Close.io, @Steli
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Expanding on his Ignite talk from Tuesday night, Steli Efti gives examples of how he’s tested pricing with real experiments that didn’t turn off customers.
• A Conversation with Melissa Bell and Sarah MilsteinExperimentsLeadershipScaling
  Melissa Bell, Vox, @melissabell
  Sarah Milstein, Lean Startup Productions, @SarahM
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Vox.com has been one of the most closely watched media launches of the year–and it took the team just nine weeks to develop the high-profile site. As its Senior Product Manager and Executive Editor, Melissa Bell has been responsible for leading a lot of Vox.com’s success. Sarah Milstein interviews Melissa to learn how the company has moved unusually quickly and how it continues to experiment on a scrutinzed site.
• Convince Colleagues to Use Lean Startup: The Stealth ApproachEnterpriseLeadership
  Blair Beverly, Google, @blairbeverly
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When a team at Google felt uncertain about which pieces of their work drove real value for customers and had an impact on the bottom line, Blair Beverly, a Manager in Google AdSense, suggested they try Lean Startup methods. He explains how he’s working to win over colleagues and management, using a counter-intuitive process to adopt the ideas.
• Reinvent Decision Making at Established Institutions
  Allison Dulin Salisbury, Davidson College, @amdulin
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Higher education has legendarily long decision-making cycles, which create a real tension for teachers and administrators who want to test curriculum ideas in new digital markets. Allison Dulin, Special Projects for the President at Davidson College, explains how the 177-year-old college has shifted its decision-making processes and used experimentation to face down the uncertainty that’s rocking education markets.
• Launch a New Product that Doesn't Hurt Your Existing BrandEnterpriseExperiments
  Andrew Homeyer, Rally Software / Waffle.io, @andrewhomeyer
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  When established companies experiment, you have to figure out how to test ideas without harming your existing brand. Andrew Homeyer, Engineer and Intrapreneur at Rally Software, explains how his team launched a new product under a fresh brand and reached an entirely new customer segment.
• An Experiment on StageEnterpriseExperimentsHardware
  Susana Jurado, Telefonica R&D, @sjapru
  María Olano, Telefonica R&D, @mdomata
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Telefonica, a Spanish broadband and telecommunications company, is one of the largest mobile network providers in the world. What happened when the employees wanted to experiment with a new handset idea? Susana Jurado and Maria Olano, Innovation Managers at the company, have a detailed and instructive story to tell this afternoon–and in an on-stage experiment, they preview that talk from the main stage.

Lunch1:20 PM - 2:20 PM

Silver passes – please go to the Venetian room

Platinum and Gold Passes go to the Tonga, Terrace or the Pavilion rooms

The Intuit lunch is still happening in the Crown room.

Also, this is your chance to meet with Todd Park, 18F and the US Digital Service in the Fountain Room.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 12:20 PM - 3:00 PM

• Case Study: Lean Product Development in a Very Big OrganizationEnterpriseExperimentsHardware
  Susana Jurado, Telefonica R&D, @sjapru
  María Olano, Telefonica R&D, @mdomata
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  Telefonica, a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider with operations in Europe, North America and South America, is one of the largest mobile network providers in the world. What happened when the employees wanted to experiment with a new handset idea? Susana Jurado and Mario Olano, Innovation Managers at the company, have a detailed and instructive story to tell.
• Look Past Biases to Measure the Right MetricsCustomer DevelopmentLean Impact
  Ellynita Hazlina Lamin, Developmental Strategist

  Room: Fountain

  In 2012, social-impact consultant Ellynita Lamin launched a recovery program in a war-torn, economically depressed area of Indonesia. Early in the project, she realized that her own biases were preventing her from measuring progress accurately. She explains the steps she took to truly understand the community’s needs and focus on the right metrics.
• Use Remote Tools for Customer DevelopmentCustomer DevelopmentRemote Issues
  Holly DeWolf, DeWolf LLC, @HollyMDeWolf
  Room: Gold

  You understand the importance of engaging directly with your customers as you develop products for them. But what happens when your user base is very far away? User experience consultant Holly DeWolf shares practical, cost-effective techniques for overcoming distance challenges and engaging with lots of customers remotely.
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Once You've Found Product/Market Fit, Scaling the Business with a Lean Startup MindsetScaling
  Zach Nies , Rally Software , @zachnies
  Room: Hunt
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Capturing Metrics for a B2B Product (When You Don't Have Funnel Metrics)Metrics
  Russell Olsen, VP Innovation, Phytel, @russgolsen
  Room: Grand Ballroom Lounge
• Attendee-Led Conversation: Teaching Managers to Become Lean Startup MentorsLeadership
  Carlos Oliveira, Senior Strategy Manager, TELUS, @userprofile
  Room: California

Break3:00 PM - 3:10 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 23:10 PM - 3:50 PM

• Invite-Only Interactive Enterprise SessionEnterprise
  John Paul Farmer , Microsoft , @johnpaulfarmer
  Dan Ward , Dan Ward Consulting , @thedanward
  Room: Crown Room

  You spoke and we listened. This invite-only workshop is designed specifically for enterprises seeking guidance & inspiration on implementing Lean in their organizations. Join our distinguished guests John Paul Farmer (former White House Deputy CTO), Dan Ward (Author “Fire” and formerly of the US Air Force) and Simeon Sessley (Innovation Leader, GE).

  These leaders in the Lean community will help us navigate through 3 key areas of interest: Organizational Change, Lean Teams, and finally, Lean Tools. The session will be moderated by Drew McManus, VP Product Management at Pivotal Labs. The session is designed to be interactive and the success of it depends on your participation. Please come prepared with your questions & comments.
• Find Product/Market Fit Through Customer ConversationsCustomer DevelopmentProduct/Market Fit
  Des Traynor , Intercom, @destraynor
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  You know that gathering customer feedback is critical to building a successful product or service. But how do you find potential customers to interview? And how do you ensure that your limited time with them will lead to meaningful insights that help you reach product/market fit? Intercom founder Des Traynor explains how to find the right customers, ask the right questions, and avoid common mistakes.
• Become a Better Listener, Build More Profitable ProductsCustomer Development
  Jana Eggers, Jana Eggers, @jeggers
  Room: Crystal

  Leaders often focus on becoming better communicators and speakers. But becoming better listeners may be more important in running profitable companies. In this talk, Jana Eggers–consultant, former CEO at Spreadshirt, and former General Manager of Intuit Quickbase–teaches actionable tips for becoming a better listener and and thus ensuring that your customer development thus has a much deeper impact.
• Attendee-led Conversation: Applying Lean Startup Methods in Developing Services (Delivered by People) and Physical Spaces
  Newton Cheng, Health and Performance Innovation Manager, Google

  Room: Hunt
• Attendee-led Conversation: Talking About Lean Startup with Foundations and Granting OrganizationsLean Impact
  Dominique Aubry, Aubry Consulting/Impact Hub, @aubrybella
  Room: California
• Attendee-led Conversation: Accounting for Failure and Keeping Track of What You've LearnedExperiments
  Elisha Tan, Founder and CEO, Learnemy, @elishatan
  Room: Grand Ballroom Lounge

Break3:50 PM - 4:00PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 34:00 PM - 4:20 PM

• Build a Technical Infrastructure that Supports InnovationExperimentsScalingTechnical
  Florian Motlik, Codeship, @flomotlik
  Room: Crystal

  When you’re building a new product, you have to experiment quickly and change constantly. If your product is digital, and you have a technical infrastructure that isn’t built to deal with these conditions, it can stonewall any kind of innovation. In this talk for technical team members, Codeship co-founder Florian Motlik introduces different ways to build your infrastructure and processes for constant change, experimentation and innovation.
• Use Experimentation to Build a Thriving CommunityExperiments
  Anthony Frasier, The Phat Startup, @anthonyfrasier
  Room: Fountain

  Fostering an active local community is easier said than done. It’s hard to gain momentum, and people often say that they want something but then do the exact opposite. Anthony Fraiser, founder of The Phat Startup, teaches the experimentation process and metrics he used to build a vibrant entrepreneurship community in Newark, NJ, from scratch.
• The Questions You Should Be Asking Customers but Aren'tCustomer Development
  Zachary Cohn, Wonful Consulting, @ZacharyCohn
  Room: Gold

  When you interview customers, you don’t know what you don’t know–and you don’t know what questions you should be asking but aren’t. Zac Cohn, founder at Wonful, runs an exercise to teach you how to ask the right questions and uncover exactly what you need.
• Turn Lawyers into AlliesEnterprise
  Sean Butler, Cisco Systems, Inc., @spbutler
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably found lawyers to be more a barrier to innovation than a boon. But by actively reframing their role, you can transform the legal function into an asset rather than a liability. Sean Butler, Senior Corporate Counsel at Cisco, explains how.

Break4:20 PM - 4:30 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Concurrent Afternoon Talks 44:30 PM - 4:50 PM

• How We Funded 1,000 ExperimentsEnterpriseExperiments
  Mark Randall, Adobe, @markran
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  What would happen if your organization funded every single new product idea from any employee, no questions asked? This past year, Adobe did exactly that. Mark Randall, Chief Strategist, VP of Creativity, shares surprising lessons and tangible results from Adobe’s new Kickbox process–including details about how experimentation has transformed good staff into great innovators.
• Talk About Risk Without Causing FearLeadershipReducing Risk
  Adam Josephs, Celerity Consulting Group, @celeritycg
  Room: Crystal

  Risk and uncertainty define startups–they’re the very qualities that make new initiatives different from established projects. But few of us have productive ways of discussing risk, and in fact, bringing it up can cause fear and undermine morale. How can we make coworkers comfortable addressing risk? Adam Josephs, Principal Consultant of Celerity Consulting, shares advice for discussing it early, often and constructively.
• Tactics for Truly Effective Experiment DesignExperiments
  Grace Ng, Javelin.com, @uxceo
  Room: Gold

  It’s deceptively easy to test the wrong aspect of your business, wasting time and money while you head down the wrong path. Rather than test the wrong hypotheses or an inappropriate risk for your stage of product development, learn from Grace Ng, co-founder at QuickMVP, as she lays out road-tested tactics for truly effective experiment design.

Break4:50 PM - 5:05 PM

Join us in the Venetian Room to meet our sponsors, network with other attendees, and enjoy coffee service.

Closing Session5:05 PM - 5:55 PM

• A Conversation with Bob Sutton and Eric RiesScaling
  Robert Sutton, Stanford University, @work_matters
  Eric Ries, The Lean Startup, @ericries
  Room: Grand Ballroom

  How do successful companies grow? Bob Sutton, author of “Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less,” has done deep research in start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare, and he’ll talk with Eric Ries about what it takes to scale up quickly and effectively.

Office Hours at The Fairmont6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

For Platinum and Gold Passes only.

Group Dinners at Local Restaurants6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Evening Session8:30 PM - 10:00 PM

• Groundhog Day (plus Q&A with John Roman)
  William Pietri , , @williampietri
  John Roman , Spinnaker Films, Inc, @johnlroman
  Room: Gold

  Groundhog Day is the uiltimate A/B testing movie. It doesn’t just show how iteration and user testing leads to better products. It demonstrates how these practices push us to understand things about ourselves, to become better people. That’s why we’ll be showing Groundhog Day at The Lean Startup Conference on Thursday, Dec 11 and encouraging the local Lean Startup comunity to attend as well.

  Even better, we’ll have a special guest. John L. Roman, film and television producer and Adjunct Professor at USC, was an assistant director on Groundhog Day, and says that making the movie was its own set of experiments. He will be answering your questions about the making of the film and what Lean Startup practitioners can learn from movie-making.

  There will be a cash bar, some Groundhog Day DVDs given away, and other shenanigans. Come and meet your fellow Lean Startup practitioners who share your taste for fun!
• Jazz Improv, with a Side of Team Collaboration
  Jim Kalbach , Citrix , @jimkalbach
  Room: Crown Room

  Great team collaboration is the secret sauce of successful companies. At its core, collaboration comes from the culture of your company and the dynamics of your team. This entertaining session by Mode Shift intends to demonstrate empathy, embracing uncertainty, and following patterns. It weaves live jazz improvisation with exercises designed to teach:

  – What makes up an effective team
  – The power of empathy and listening
  – The importance of a iterative exploration
  – The role of following patterns and conventions
  – How great collaborators never make mistakes

  Mode Shift is:
  Jim Kalbach, bass
  Jeff Gothelf, keys (absent for this event)

  With special guests:
  Vic Wong, guitar
  Benny Torres, tenor sax
  Riley Bandy, alto sax
  Rolf Wilkinson, drums

Friday, December 12, 2014

This workshop is for Platinum and Gold Passes only.

Workshop9:00 AM - 1:00 PM

• Live Q&A with Eric Ries
  Eric Ries, The Lean Startup, @ericries
  Room: Pavilion

  Eric Ries will hold a live Q&A with entrepreneurs. Not only will you have a chance to ask him your toughest questions about running experiments, measuring success, knowing when to pivot, understanding customer feedback and more–you’ll also hear about the challenges other entrepreneurs face and the advice Eric gives them.

Lunch1:00 PM - 2:30 PM