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CONTINUOUS REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING FOR START-UPS

Requirements engineering techniques varies greatly by the size of the enterprise. For start-ups, which usually are small teams working on the products in environments of very high uncertainties, it is even more different. As these enterprises are in search of right product as well as right market, data driven and iterative continuous requirements engineering process must be in place here. Lean start-up cycle offers an iterative approach for continuous product development. Lean analytics framework complements this process with a set of key performance indicators for each start-up stage. This is a proposition for continuous requirements engineering method for start-ups in different lean analytics stages and a list of best requirements engineering techniques for each stage and phase.

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Steps in the process:

  1. Choosing the KPI and setting the goal value

  2. Finding the solution - eliciting, specifying, analysing and validating the requirements

  3. Prioritizing the requirements and validating the top requirements

  4. Choosing data mining techniques and setting goal values for specific requirements

  5. Build -> Measure -> Learn 

  6. Decision:

    1. if KPI value not achieved:

      1. do the next iteration

      2. change KPI or its value

      3. pivot

      4. or close the start-up

    2. if KPI value achieved - go to next stage or change the KPI

Please choose the Lean Analytics stage your start-up is currently at:

If you are not familiar with Lean Anlytics stages here is a short introduction:

  1. Empathy - entry point into this stage is when a real, poorly met need in a reachable market is found. Start-up leaves this stage when it has found a way how to solve the problem, which will be accepted by the market and for which market is ready to pay.

  2. Stickiness - start-ups enters this stage with a solution for the problem and leaves it when they have found the right product or features or functionality that gets users to keep using the product. Main goal at this stage is achieving a good retention and low churn, so the main metric here could be some variation of one of these two metrics.

  3. Virality - this stage starts with a right product and start-up is leaving it when the users and features fuel the growth organically and artificially. There are 3 types of virality:

    1. Inherent virality – it is built into the product, and happens as a function of use. To use the product, users usually need to invite other users;

    2. Artificial virality – it is forced, and often built into a reward system. The user can get a reward if he/she invites others to start using the product;

    3. Word of mouth virality (also called – natural virality) – it is the good feedback and conversations generated by satisfied users, independent of the start-ups product and service.

  4. Revenue - the goal of this stage is to find a sustainable, scalable business with the right margins in a healthy ecosystem. This often is a stage where start-ups reflect back on the product/market fit and can do some bigger pivots if the product/market fit is still not reached.

  5. Scale - arguably this is the stage where the start-up stops being a start-up, as the uncertainties and risks have reduced, the product is not actually new anymore, the product/market fit is found, only the growth rate stays. At this stage the start-up needs to decide whether to concentrate on efficiency or differentiation. It might also be beneficial at this stage to concentrate on several metrics. This is the stage, where a lot of start-up founders are exiting the organization.

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