Unibo
Technology Entrepreneurship · A.Y. 2026/27

Lean Startup Lab

Teams of five students are assigned an industry and have to bring a digital product to market for it, guided by the lean startup approach. They go through two main phases.

Phase 1 — problem–solution fit: prove the problem is real and that your solution addresses it, with qualitative evidence from throwaway prototypes and interviews.

Phase 2 — toward product–market fit: run a live MVP in weekly iterations and let the numbers say whether you are moving in the right direction.

Between the two phases, teams receive a practical blueprint for building a live digital product.

Phase 1 · L01–L05

Problem–Solution Fit

21 Sep – 26 Oct · qualitative

Throwaway prototypes put in front of real people. Evidence is qualitative — signal, not statistics. Nine days, on purpose: whoever has no clear signal yet keeps interviewing while the others build.

Bridge · L06–L09

Build the MVP

28 Oct – 16 Nov · construction

The technical stretch: frontend, backend, database, API, server, deploy. The question is no longer what to build but can we get something real online — reachable by anyone, instrumented from day one.

Phase 2 · L10–L16

Toward Product–Market Fit

16 Nov – 14 Dec · 3 weekly iterations · quantitative

Run the MVP in weekly iterations. Every week: updated metrics plus a retrospective matrix naming your steering actions. Four weeks won't get you to PMF — the direction is the point.

Lecture MVP checkpoint Demo Day ↻Weekly iteration Artifact due Artifact assigned
↔ Scroll the roadmap sideways · click any lesson or iteration for details
Runs under every week · all three movements

The assumption loop

FormulateName the leap-of-faith assumption and where it sits on the 2×2: high impact, low evidence goes first.
Pick the validation toolThe cheapest experiment that could prove you wrong — interview, prototype test, live metric.
Validate or changeMove the dot on the map. A killed assumption is a result, not a failure.
Assumptions Register (1.3) → Experiment Card (2.1) → Interview Guide (2.2) → Learning Card (2.3) → status rewritten in the register. Updated every session, not just at phase end.
Due every week · phase 2 only

Weekly delivery: metrics + retrospective matrix

Each iteration closes with two things handed in: the updated metrics from the live MVP, and a retrospective matrix that turns those numbers into explicit steering actions.

What worked
Keep and double down
What didn't
Name it honestly, with the number
Stop doing
Kill it this week
Start doing
Your steering action for the next iteration
The bottom row is the deliverable that matters: stop/start are commitments, not observations.