Overview of the Lean Startup Approach in the Belgian Entrepreneurial World

Details

Supervisors

Paque, Bernard

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en Ingénieur de gestion

Abstract

The Lean Startup is a unique combination of two concepts. On the one hand the Startup, which we refer to as “new venture” throughout the thesis. On the other hand the Lean, which originates from Japan and the Toyota Production System. We first reviewed the literature related to both concepts separately before characterizing the specificities of the Lean principles applied to the innovation process of new venture creation. Doing so allowed us to pin down, from Joseph Schumpeter to Steve Blank, all the prominent contributions to the field of entrepreneurship. The latter being characterized by uncertainty, of which Hugh Courtney grasped the subtleties, flexible approaches such as the Lean Startup one have emerged. Does the latter, as it name suggests, allows the entrepreneurs to develop their venture without muda, i.e. waste? Indeed, Ries and his peers have developed Lean Startup tools and practices that, according to their words, should allow entrepreneurs to avoid waste by developing a product or service that will be favourably received on the market. This involves concepts such as the Minimum Viable Product or the Pivot. These should speed up the development process, supply the entrepreneurs with the learning needed to achieve Product-Market Fit and decrease the risk inherent to their new venture by providing them the tools needed to make the necessary steep turn when things go wrong. All of this in a “cheap” way. Do Belgian entrepreneurs expect the Lean Startup approach to deliver on all of these dimensions? That is the first question we aimed to give an answer to. We found out that, while not being shared to the same extent, Belgian entrepreneurs’ expectations regarding Lean tools and practices were matching the theory. The next logical step was to determine whether these were realised. By reviewing the realisation of each of their expectations, we concluded that the Lean Startup methodology had, with a few exceptions, fulfilled most of Belgian entrepreneurs’ expectations. While our sample did not allow us to generalize from those results, we can learn from the new ventures’ Lean Startup experience. What emerged is the importance entrepreneurs attach to the general Lean Startup mindset, which consists in listening to customers, start small and experiment to maximize the odds of building a sustainable business.