„From ‪#LeanStartup‬ Conference in SF: It took Hilton 93 years to build to 610,000 rooms. It took AirBnb 4 to build to 650,000!“

„From ‪#LeanStartup‬ Conference in SF: It took Hilton 93 years to build to 610,000 rooms. It took AirBnb 4 to build to 650,000!“

The tweet quoted above was twittered by Bill Gross – and originally spoken on stage by Robin Chase (founder of Zipcar http://www.zipcar.com) during the Early Morning Talks of the Lean Startup Conference* that is being held San Francisco this week.

The Masonic Center in Nob Hill is huge, impressive and it has filled up with at least 500 people participating in the conference. Indeed, many of them are young and eager founders of the “next big thing” to come in Silicon Valley. But, more surprising, there are also a lot of corporate managers from all over the world – trying to implement the principles of the lean startup movement (http://theleanstartup.com - we talked about this earlier, see Katrin’s Blog-Post dating Nov. 5th).

In his opening remarks, Eric Ries tries to set the stage for what is to be discussed during the next few days. He askes the young entrepreneurs around him: “If you hate big companies so much – why are you trying to build a new one?” So what is this all about?

This conference is about creating companies and environments that seek new chances of sustainable growth through continuous innovation.

Growth companies are NOT about young startup entrepreneurs experimenting in a garage. They are NOT about corporate dudes in a boardroom – they ARE about bringing together the best of all worlds.

Eric suggests: “Let’s start with management.” Entrepreneurship is the management discipline that deals with high uncertainty. The 20th century was about planning and forecasting. The 21st century is about uncertainty. There is a need for a new entrepreneurial management.”

What does it look like, what does it feel like, to be in a company today? How do we manage teams? How do we hold people accountable? What is the future of a modern company about?

These are the questions that are to be addressed not only by young entrepreneurs and well established management practitioners – but also by Universities, Non-Profit-Organizations, and institutions working with girls to teach them how to code and so on.

By the end of the Morning Talks on Monday, Dec. 9th, one point is clear: The topic this conference addresses is a topic that touches the core of today’s society.

The Evening closes with a session how GE implemented the lean startup principles in this huge company. It started with a question which is nowadays relevant for all companies and all entrepreneurs:
“If you want to be successful for the next 150 years, you have to find out, what society needs next. How do we re-invent ourselves?”
That is the main question!

Katrin Glatzel und Tania Lieckweg

*The conference is followed in livestream sessions that are held all over the world (http://leanstartup.co/livestream) - in Germany you will find livestreaming-events in Hannover and Stuttgart.