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We joined the 2012 Chicago Lean Startup Challenge because we thought it would help us to execute our brilliant idea – an online wine education platform. The original idea started when we noticed the gap between people’s love of wine and their knowledge of it. We decided to create a fun, easy, and inexpensive way for people to learn about wine; which we thought was exactly what the market needed. All that was left was to do it, right?
By going through the Challenge, we learned many valuable lessons. The first was that we were wrong! The Challenge forced us to conduct problem and solution interviews with hundreds of potential customers and look at our business model in an objective manner. During the first ten weeks we validated that “people” do love wine and that they wish they knew more about it. However, we discovered that our solution wasn’t what the market really wanted. Our initial concept’s “failure” was the best thing that could have happened to us; it allowed us to focus on the bigger problem and come up with a better solution.
Instead of teaching people more about wine, we found a way to “just make wine easier.” Our new concept was aimed at helping people find the right wine for them. It also solved a huge problem for the wine suppliers – acquiring new customers. Born was our new company “savvo digital sommelier solutions,” a digital wine matchmaker with the ability to drive wine sales where it is most important – in the aisle. Our Digital Sommeliers™ are touchscreen kiosks placed in grocery store wine aisle to do just that. Today, we have successfully developed a commercially viable version of our software, recruited our first customers, and are generating revenue from some of the biggest names in the wine industry.
The Challenge truly saved us from wasting time on our original (“wrong”) plan. It forced us to see a greater opportunity that we would not have realized on our own, and it taught us the methodology needed to identify the true product-market fit. Moreover, the connections we made through the Challenge have been invaluable. The program provided structure, forced discipline, and gave the additional drive to push through the process at an accelerated pace. No matter how motivated you are, I guarantee that you will move faster and harder if you have the CLSC team measuring your progress!
The Challenge is all about learning, so if you have an open mind and are really interested in creating a startup, joining the CLSC will be the best thing you can do for yourself. Even after almost a full year working on our startup, we continue to utilize the Lean principles that we learned from the Challenge. Creating a startup is hard work. Why waste your time going down the wrong path from the beginning. Apply now – The Chicago Lean Startup Challenge starts June 22 with an all day bootcamp: http://chicagoleanchallenge.com/
Dominic Blank and Joseph Sheahan
Co-founders, savvo digital sommelier solutions
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