Playing Lean, the Lean Startup board game funded in hours

Playing Lean, a board game that teaches Lean Startup, was successfully funded on Monday, only 10 hours after launch. Earlier this year, Eric Ries, the author of The Lean StartupTM ran a very successful campaign for his next book. Now, this new project follows on its coattails.

Playing Lean is a business board game that teaches the fundamentals of the Lean Startup in less than 90 minutes. It plays as a classical board game and ignites a competitive startup spirit. The concept has been developed in collaboration with Ash Maurya, the author of the best-selling book Running Lean and the creators, Simen Fure Jørgensen and Tore Rasmussen.

Kickstarter relaunch

The success comes after a failed Kickstarter earlier this year.  “We’re eating our own dog food”, says Simen Fure Jørgensen. “While failing the first campaign was a blow, we still sat down and took in all the learning we could.” They made a lot of improvements between the campaigns:

• Improved design. The team reached out to Holger Nils Pohl, the illustrator. They knew his style and it turned out that he already loved the game. “The results speak for themselves”, says Rasmussen. “Never underestimate the value of great design”.

• Improved game. During the first campaign, the game was played over and over. This led to some great improvements. “It was one of those moments”, says Jørgensen. “We saw that we could remove some concepts from the game and replace others.” This led to a game that was even faster to set up, quicker to learn and more fun to play.

• Strengthened team. Ash Maurya first got to play the game in Oslo in February. “I was blown away by both the game’s simplicity and its effectiveness at teaching core Lean Startup principles”, says Ash. He has contributed to the development of Playing Lean and will continue to do so as a member of the team.

The Kickstarter for Playing Lean will be live until June 4th. “We have planned a lot of great rewards and stretch goals”, says Jørgensen. He encourages Lean Startup enthusiasts everywhere to pay attention in the coming days and weeks.

About the creators

Simen Fure Jørgensen is the founder/CEO of Iterate, one Europe’s top Lean Startup consultancies. Tore Rasmussen is a Lean Startup mentor and a serial entrepreneur.

For more information see http://playinglean-press.strikingly.com/

(Lean Startup is a registered trademark owned by Eric Ries and has no affiliation with this project.)

Simen Fure Jørgensen phone: +47 920 30 173 - jorgensen@iterate.no

Tore Rasmussen, phone: +47 411 63138 - tore@playinglean.com

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