Yes this is about robots. Robot businesses. Robert Morris is scathing on the lack of customer development and systematic risk reduction in existing robotics businesses.

I've read the book twice, but never thought to apply it to robot businesses.

Neither have most robot businesses. :)

Well clearly that needs to change. Lean robots are the future!

It's a great book. I love worksheets!

It's harder to apply to general consumer products, where your audience can be diverse. But if your audience is fairly homogeneous it's gold out of the box. if your audience is heterogeneous, it just takes a bit of work to figure out how to effectively do customer development. But perhaps that helps startups focus. The stuff on Markets is solid gold.

and good on Reis for making the core concepts more digestible for the general populace, as well as adding his own special twist.

Agree. The book is gold - and worth any number of inferior degrees! But segmenting a market is one of those key skills that is hard to get without lots of practise. Vlaskovits and Cooper put a lot of emphasis on that aspect of lean methodology and customer development.

Speaking of lean robots - Autom the Weightloss Coach Robot is looking for Series A funding (a lead investor at least - they have the others) - Any suggestions?

Autom is a project by Dr Cory Kidd, from MIT's Media Lab, and his advisor Dr Cynthia Brezeal. It's well down the development path and for last 2 years, Cory has been in Hong Kong getting from prototype to manufacturing stage. It's also very cool and media love it.

Also, I love it. I preordered but had to join weight watchers while I wait!

http://www.intuitiveautomata.com/autom_intro.html

Series A funding for robots is tough right now.

Softbank might be a good co-investor but they cannot lead.

Will think about if I know anyone who'd be interested.

There really should be a robot fund!

You are so right! I'm working on it. :)