Embrace Lean Startup Methodology for the Session Project

[venezuela01]

The Session project is on a solid path, thanks to the team's hard work!

As TGE is approaching, we are facing the challenges of the next 10x growth and aiming for an even higher goal. In a long term, a practical, repeatable scaling meta-process is needed.

I have been searching for rigorous and systematically applicable guidance for a long time. After numerous efforts, I've come to believe that Ash Maurya’s Lean methodology is the single best publicly available resource for addressing common startup challenges. Building upon the early lessons from Eric Ries' Lean Startup, Ash has evolved and improved the methodology based on his experience training and coaching hundreds of product teams, coaches, and stakeholders worldwide. He has distilled his wisdom into a more clarified theory presented in his books Running Lean and Scaling Lean. The more I read his books, the more valuable insights I found relevant to the Session project.

I’d love to invite the team to consider Ash Maurya's methodology and see how it can enhance our success.

Ideally, I believe that everyone involved in key decisions—whether in development, marketing, business strategy, or investor relations—should dedicate some time to reading Ash’s work. Maurya’s introduction of the ‘theory of constraints’ offers invaluable insights for uniting team members across departments to focus on the right actions at the right time.

However, I understand that we all have our own heavy daily duties, and diving into books might feel daunting right now. As an alternative, I’d like to invite the team to consider a minimal-effort approach to assess the value of Ash’s wisdom.

1. Ash offers a weekly newsletter called Lean-1-2-3 newsletter. It’s a low-pressure way to get a taste of his methodology without the commitment of reading his entire books. Just one article a week—no reason to resist. Over time, you might find it convincing enough to explore more, or if you conclude that it doesn’t suit Session’s specific case, you can simply unsubscribe at any time. How does that sound?

2. Ash has organized past posts into topics like Bootstrapping, Business Model, Continuous Innovation, Focus, and Problem-Solution Fit. These can be excellent resources for tackling specific issues we encounter. Feel free to browse and see if they convince you further.

In summary, I’d love to invite @KeeJef @jagerman and others to subscribe to the Lean-1-2-3 newsletter as a first step. If you see the value, please help encourage other team members to join the reading club. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more details on how Ash’s methodology might help the Session project. Does that sound fair?

Notes:

1. The industry's understanding of the Lean Startup methodology has evolved significantly in the past 10+ years. For anyone who has read other Lean methodology books before, I invite them to further read Ash's interpretation. His version is the best and the most clarified; even the original author of Lean Startup, Eric Ries, endorses Ash's work.
2. If you are ready to read Ash's book, remember to start with the 3rd edition of "Running Lean" rather than the 2nd edition. The 3rd edition is a blending of the 2nd edition with a little bit of "Scaling Lean," so you get almost twice as much by reading just one book. However, there are still some important insights from "Scaling Lean" not covered by "Running Lean (3rd)," but we can worry about those later.
3. Given time, Ash's framework and tools could partially address some of the concerns originally raised in https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-improvement-proposals/issues/37 and https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-improvement-proposals/issues/61. I'll explain why in future comments when appropriate.

[KeeJef]

Thanks @venezuela01 I will add that book to my reading list

[venezuela01]

Thanks @venezuela01 I will add that book to my reading list

Thank you, I'm excited to see how it works.

BTW, if you purchase Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works and forward your purchase receipt to runlean@leanfoundry.com, you can further get access to several bonuses including Lean Canvas Tool, Traction Roadmap Tool and Business Model Design Course.

[venezuela01]

Hi @KeeJef

Congratulations on the establishment and migration of the Session Technology Swiss Foundation. I think this is a positive move. I'm sure you and your team have been super busy and have done lots of hard work behind the scenes. Thank you.

I recently saw Session's official Twitter account mention the final private sale of the Session token before the TGE. This reminded me of the Running Lean book again, as it shares some interesting insights about what investors care about and how to make better pitches to them. If you've started reading Running Lean, you might have already seen this topic; otherwise, you can quickly read Fire the Business Plan. The article argues that the Lean Canvas is a more efficient tool for organizing a structured pitch to early-stage investors.

What do you think? Are you open to the idea of drafting one (or multiple) Lean Canvas(es) for the Session project and making them open source so the community can contribute different variants and diverse insights?

Thanks!

[Paul1804]

Hi @KeeJef

Congratulations on the establishment and migration of the Session Technology Swiss Foundation. I think this is a positive move. I'm sure you and your team have been super busy and have done lots of hard work behind the scenes. Thank you.

I recently saw Session's official Twitter account mention the final private sale of the Session token before the TGE. This reminded me of the Running Lean book again, as it shares some interesting insights about what investors care about and how to make better pitches to them. If you've started reading Running Lean, you might have already seen this topic; otherwise, you can quickly read Fire the Business Plan. The article argues that the Lean Canvas is a more efficient tool for organizing a structured pitch to early-stage investors.

What do you think? Are you open to the idea of drafting one (or multiple) Lean Canvas(es) for the Session project and making them open source so the community can contribute different variants and diverse insights?

Thanks!

I join in the congratulations!

[venezuela01]

Hi @KeeJef

The official Session blog recently initiated a survey about online communities. Happy to see the team taking a step forward to improve Session community design. This reminds me of another point from Running Lean: when asked to do the smallest thing to learn from customers, many founders' first instinct is to run a survey. Interestingly, Ash Maurya argues that interviewing is an underrated way to discover customer problems, while acknowledging it's hard to get right. So, he built a tool called Customer Force Copilot which trains product designers to interview customers 10x more efficiently.

Please let me know if you and your team are interested in giving Customer Force Copilot a try in the future. I'm glad to donate a license if that's helpful.

Thanks.

[KeeJef]

I recently saw Session's official Twitter account mention the final private sale of the Session token before the TGE. This reminded me of the Running Lean book again, as it shares some interesting insights about what investors care about and how to make better pitches to them. If you've started reading Running Lean, you might have already seen this topic; otherwise, you can quickly read Fire the Business Plan. The article argues that the Lean Canvas is a more efficient tool for organizing a structured pitch to early-stage investors.

What do you think? Are you open to the idea of drafting one (or multiple) Lean Canvas(es) for the Session project and making them open source so the community can contribute different variants and diverse insights?

Hey @venezuela01

I began reading Running Lean, but found much of it targeted towards early-stage startups, focusing on validating ideas and building an initial MVP. It didn’t seem particularly relevant to our current stage of growth. Perhaps there’s a more suitable book for companies at our scale?

Regarding user surveys, there may be confidentiality concerns if we process user input through AI tools. Currently, we prioritise human analysis and sorting of qualitative data. The volume of survey responses is generally manageable, so using big data approaches hasn’t been necessary.

[venezuela01]

Hi @KeeJef

I began reading Running Lean, but found much of it targeted towards early-stage startups, focusing on validating ideas and building an initial MVP. It didn’t seem particularly relevant to our current stage of growth. Perhaps there’s a more suitable book for companies at our scale?

I'm so glad you raised this question! I understand it might seem counterintuitive or even counterproductive to recommend an early-stage startup book to a scaling platform like Session with a million users. Let me clarify why I believe it holds significant value for us.

Ash Maurya has observed countless startup failures. He identifies a common pitfall: the "premature optimization trap." This occurs when startups prioritize raising funds and scaling user bases before validating their business model with paying customers. Maurya emphasizes the crucial distinction between users and customers: customers generate revenue, while users may not.

Let's consider Session as a hypothetical example. The Session network operators incurs infrastructure costs monthly. However, it's unclear whether a 10x increase in users would result in a 10x or even a 100x increase in these costs. Based on my research into network effects, I suspect our infrastructure costs might scale quadratically rather than linearly. This is because the connections between users increase quadratically as the user base grows. This quadratic function likely has a very small constant coefficient, perhaps something like 0.001. This means that initially, the growth in costs would be almost imperceptible. However, at a certain inflection point, the costs would suddenly escalate rapidly, potentially catching us unprepared.

The good news is that if we validate our business model early on and get it right, our revenue could also grow quadratically. If our unit economics are sound at an early stage, they should remain viable even after significant growth, creating a strong competitive advantage.

However, the bad news is that if we fail to establish the right business model before scaling, we risk facing unsustainable infrastructure costs with a large user base. This could lead to financial strain and operational challenges. It's crucial to recognize that an ill-fitting business model may result in linear revenue growth while infrastructure costs increase quadratically.

To address this risk, Maurya emphasizes the importance of validating the business model at a small scale, as early as possible – ideally, even before building the product ("sell before you build"). The key takeaway is how to reduce the validation cycle. If we follow Maurya's methodology, we can test a business model in 90 days and potentially invalidate 7-8 different models in 2 years. This iterative process increases our chances of finding a model that aligns with both Session's privacy principles and financial goals.

If you feel that the book is for on early-stage startups, that’s because "Running Lean" is structured around first principles. You can view the early-stage examples as a foundation for understanding the core concepts. The further I read, the more I realize the power of Ash's methodology. While we might be "mid-stage" in terms of user numbers, we are definitely "early-stage" in terms of paying customers.

"Running Lean" teaches us how to rank our assumptions about the success of a startup. This allows us to test the riskiest assumptions first and avoid wasting resources on the wrong path. Maurya observes that in the early days of the internet, the riskiest assumption used to be "can we build the product?" There weren't many people capable of building software, and users had limited choices. As technology became more accessible, competition increased, and the riskiest assumption shifted to "can we sell the product?" This is where the "sell before you build" philosophy emerged.

Session occupies a unique position. As a decentralized application, we initially faced the risk of "can we build it?" The technology was new and untested. However, with a million users, we've validated the technology. Now, our riskiest assumption is shifting towards "can we sell the product?". From this perspective, "Running Lean" becomes highly relevant, as it focuses on addressing the "selling" challenge.

Please let me know if this clarify things a little, I'm glad to engage in a more in-depth discussion about this book anytime.

I have recommended this book to 3 other founders I am close to, across different industries, in the past few months and received positive feedback from all of them. One of them was a Web3 founder who had invested millions of dollars in the past few years with a disappointing return. Everyone said they regretted not knowing about this book earlier. If you feel impatient reading the early chapters, feel free to fast-forward, but remember that if you realize something is missing in the later chapters, we can always revisit the earlier parts.

[venezuela01]

Hi @KeeJef

Regarding user surveys, there may be confidentiality concerns if we process user input through AI tools. Currently, we prioritise human analysis and sorting of qualitative data. The volume of survey responses is generally manageable, so using big data approaches hasn’t been necessary.

I empathize with the confidentiality concerns you have; I think that's a fair concern.

To clarify, the Customer Forces AI Copilot is not a big data tool; it's more of a "small data tool." You can view it as a training simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but for customer interviewing. Given that I've already wrote a long post in the previous comment, I'll find another time to raise the Customer Forces AI Copilot topic again to reduce the cognitive load for you.

[venezuela01]

I began reading Running Lean, but found much of it targeted towards early-stage startups, focusing on validating ideas and building an initial MVP. It didn’t seem particularly relevant to our current stage of growth. Perhaps there’s a more suitable book for companies at our scale?

Hi @KeeJef,

Just a quick note to make sure we're talking about the same book:

Ash Maurya wrote his book using a lean startup style, which means he published earlier drafts to collect feedback and revise the content. As a result, there are multiple revisions online. If your version has three parts called "Design, Validation, Growth," then it's the final version. If it has three parts called "Model, Prioritize, Test," then it's an early draft.