Lean Startup Machine NYC Comes To An End and A New Chapter In My Life Begins

Amazing. That’s the word that immediately comes to my mind when thinking about the Lean Startup Machine experience I’ve had over the last four days. Of course I would also say it was intense, mind-blowing, and absolutely exhausting. As one VC said to us today, we did more in two days than many startups do in two months. We created an idea, talked to potential customers, killed our idea, created a new idea and did more customer development than I’ve done in my lifetime.

I know the headline of this post may sound quite dramatic, but the impact that Lean Startup Machine has had on my life is dramatic. It has changed the way I think and inspired me, and my team, to take a bold step towards something we all truly believe in and have validated with real customer feedback.

Now it’s 11:30PM and I have had a total of about 10 hours of sleep in the last three days, yes that’s just a bit more than three hours a night. So I’m going to keep today’s post short and sweet. Tomorrow I’ll share with you many of the incredible lessons I’ve learned and ways this is absolutely impacting my everyday life.

lsmnyc_1Today was crunch time. As you can imagine after working almost non-stop for three days in a row with almost no sleep this really meant pushing ourselves to the limits. One of the best things about the competition is the mentors, VC’s and entrepreneurs who walk-into your team meetings and share ideas, listed to where you’re at, and provide incredibly valuable feedback.

I am very grateful to all the incredible mentors we worked with and will be doing a completely separate post talking about the impact some of these mentors had on our projects and my way of thinking about business and startups as a whole.

lsmnyc_teamworkAs a team we all had to stretch way outside our comfort zone. We managed to do this while staying positive and unified even in the face of incredible challenges. The Lean Startup movement is much more than a movement. I can really see now where it is a new model for Startups and a new way for entrepreneurs to iterate through ideas and actually understand what customers are looking for rather than building what they think they are looking for.

Okay, now it’s really time for bed, I’ll be talking more about Lean Startup Machine NYC over the next week. There’s a ton of things I want to cover and I can’t wait to share more. For now, I’ll do something I haven’t done in a long time, sleep for more than four hours in one night. Stay-tuned, much much much more to come!

lsmnyc_2Before I go, I would like to give a huge “Thank You” to Trevor Owens and Ryan MacCarrigan for making this event possible. These are two of the most passionate, brilliant, and dedicated people I have ever come-across in my life. They have had a major impact on my life and I can’t wait to share what I learned from each of them more with all of you. Okay, now it’s really time for bed!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton