10 Best Lean Startup Courses and Certifications Online

The Lean Startup methodology has gained popularity among entrepreneurs and business professionals as a way to efficiently launch and grow businesses. As a result, there is an increasing demand for online courses that teach the Lean Startup principles and techniques. In this article, we will explore some of the best online courses available on this topic, providing an overview of their features and benefits. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, a startup founder, or a corporate innovator, these courses can help you master the Lean Startup approach and apply it to your own business ideas and projects.

Here’s a look at the Best Lean Startup Courses and Certifications Online and what they have to offer for you!

10 Best Lean Startup Courses and Certifications Online

1. The Lean Startup: Best course on Entrepreneurship by Navdeep Yadav (Udemy) (Our Best Pick)

The Lean Startup course instructs individuals on how to turn their startup idea into a successful business and raise investment from venture capitalists. The course covers a range of topics including building prototypes, creating a business model canvas, developing minimum viable products, creating pitch decks, expanding and supporting team-building strategies, and much more. The course is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of startup innovation management, customer development, and other crucial elements of entrepreneurship.

The course is divided into eight sections, each containing several subsections. The first section provides an introduction to The Lean Startup, including a startup basics introduction, a startup roadmap, a product execution roadmap, reasons why startups fail, and why governments support startups. The second section covers the legal structure of startups, including the types of startups, origin of startups, sole proprietorship for small business, partnership firm for medium-sized businesses, corporation legal structures for startups, and small business vs. tech startup.

The third section focuses on startup idea generation, including business model canvas, billion-dollar ideas, how to think of startup ideas, the delta four theory to validate ideas, and solving million-dollar problems. The fourth section discusses how to take an idea and turn it into a product, including building a prototype and using a 3H strategy to build a dream team. The fifth section covers startup business models, including platform businesses, Uber, Amazon, Google, Facebook, fintech business models, freemium business models, and understanding software as a service.

The sixth section discusses startup pitch deck creation for fundraising, including an introduction slide, problem slide, solution slide, product demo slide, market size slide, business model slide, competition slide, underlying magic slide, go-to-market slide, team slide, and traction/milestones slide.

2. Entrepreneurship: How To Launch A Lean Startup You Love by Kevin Starke (Udemy)

The course “Entrepreneurship: How To Launch A Lean Startup You Love” is taught by Kevin Starke. The course aims to help participants find a business idea they are passionate about and get their first paying customers to prove that people need it. The course is designed to show that starting a business is not hard or scary and can be done within 30 days without quitting the day job. The course provides a roadmap and techniques that are the product of years of testing and relies on principles that successful entrepreneurs have been using for years. The course consists of seven sections, including an introduction, daily habits for success, brainstorming pains, proving customer pains, solutions for customer pain, testing solutions and getting paying customers, and bonus materials.

The course focuses on helping participants overcome their fears and start their own social ventures. The course provides a roadmap for participants to follow, which includes tactics, scripts, and techniques to help them launch a successful social venture. The course also includes strategies for brainstorming solutions that customers will love and scripts to secure the first paying customers. Kevin Starke, the course instructor, has personally used the strategies in the course to launch five successful social ventures, all securing their first paying customers within 30 days.

Participants of the course will learn simple daily habits to increase their likelihood of success and happiness. They will learn tactics for picking the best pains to solve and strategies for brainstorming solutions that customers will love. They will also learn how to test their solutions and get their first paying customers. The course includes lecture slides and images for each section, and Kevin Starke will personally respond to any questions participants may have as they go through the material.

The course is aimed at people who want to start their own social ventures but are too scared to do so. The course provides a roadmap and techniques that are the product of years of testing and rely heavily on principles that successful entrepreneurs have been using for years. The course will help participants develop the superpower of being a social entrepreneur.

3. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (Udemy)

The Lean Startup Course is designed to teach individuals how to apply the Lean Startup philosophy, which is becoming increasingly popular in the field of product development. The course is led by Eric Ries, who is known as the Godfather of Lean Startup and has written a book on the subject.

The course provides a toolset to minimize the risk of failure and increase the chances of success. Many companies, including Wealthfront, IMVU, and Intuit, have embraced the Lean Startup technique.

The course covers the key principles of the Lean Startup philosophy and provides practical guidance on how to implement it in a company. The course is curated, with Eric Ries condensing the most important aspects of Lean Startup into a single course.

The course includes bonus material from definitive conferences on the subject, as well as case studies of Lean Startup in practice. The Lean Startup Course is considered the most comprehensive resource available on the subject, providing a wealth of information and practical tips in one place.

4. Practical Customer Development by Rob Fitzpatrick (Udemy)

The Practical Customer Development Course, taught by Rob Fitzpatrick, offers a quick, practical 2-hour training on customer development and lean startup. It aims to enhance customer conversation skills, showing students how to avoid common mistakes and improve their practices.

The course focuses on the importance of talking to customers, as it is a foundational skill in customer development and lean startup. The course is designed for teams, but solopreneurs can also benefit from it. With the course’s four workshops, students will learn how to work with key decision-makers from their team, including those in product, sales, and strategy. They will create a customer learning plan, audit recent key meetings, and develop a simple process for capturing and spreading customer insights.

The course’s title is Practical Customer Development, and it is centered around the idea that everyone is lying to you. The course short description, The Mom Test with Rob Fitzpatrick, is technically true, but it misses the point. Students should not ask anyone if their business is a good idea, as it is a bad question, and people will lie to them at least a little. The course aims to teach students how to find the truth themselves.

Overall, the Practical Customer Development Course offers a practical, effective way to improve customer development and lean startup skills. Through its four workshops and practical exercises, students will develop a better understanding of their customers, saving them time, money, and heartbreak.

5. Simple Customer Development – Get your first 100 customers by Travis Levell (Udemy)

The Simple Customer Development course, instructed by Travis Levell, is designed to teach individuals how to grow their business from the ground up by understanding the needs and wants of their target customer base. The course begins by addressing the common issue of blindly starting a business without any knowledge of its potential market. Through step-by-step instruction, participants will learn how to identify and communicate with potential customers in order to create products and content that they will enjoy. By following this strategy, individuals can establish a core group of loyal customers, launch their website successfully, and increase conversion rates for email lists and sales.

The course features live demonstrations of the strategy in action, with Levell engaging in conversations with customers and showing real feedback to make necessary adjustments. The course content is designed to be concise and practical, with only 1.5 hours of video instruction that cuts out unnecessary fluff. Participants will learn how to locate potential customers, speak their language, offer value, ask the right questions, and cultivate new relationships. Additionally, the course includes a bonus section on the top-down approach to further enhance business growth.

In summary, the Simple Customer Development course offers a quick-start guide for individuals who want to start their business the right way by understanding and engaging with their target customer base. Through concise and practical instruction, participants will learn how to create a loyal customer base, increase conversion rates, and successfully launch their business.

6. Innovation Management Foundations by Jean-Luc Scherer (Udemy)

This course, titled “Innovation Management Foundations,” is instructed by Jean-Luc Scherer. It focuses on teaching individuals to adopt new mindsets and ways of working to become a successful innovation leader. The course provides a systematic approach to innovation and covers various innovation types and approaches. It aims to empower leaders and change agents through concrete methods and tools to facilitate the innovation process.

The course has several sections, including understanding innovation, innovation approaches, business model innovation, innovation strategy, people, tools & processes, design thinking, creativity, and collaborating with startups. Each section provides in-depth knowledge and skills required for a successful innovation culture.

The course highlights the importance of adopting a holistic and scientific approach to the innovation process to increase the return on innovation initiatives. With the knowledge gained from this course, participants can improve their chances of success while innovating systematically.

Overall, the course provides a solid foundation for individuals to become effective innovation leaders by developing a comprehensive innovation strategy, using the right tools and processes, and collaborating with startups to achieve their goals.

7. Lean Management A-Z : Step by Step Guide by Gunjan Subedi (Udemy)

The “Lean Management A-Z: Step by Step Guide” course, taught by Gunjan Subedi, provides an introduction to lean management tools for improving business. The course emphasizes the value-orientation of lean, which focuses on creating more value for customers while minimizing the use of resources and reducing waste. This course is suitable for anyone interested in project management, lean management, or organizational management, with no particular requirements needed.

The course is organized into several sections, including an introduction, benefits, lean tools for controlling business surroundings, identifying customers and aligning actions to meet their needs, aligning teams for action, problem-solving and root cause analysis, and lean tools for communication and breakthrough improvements. Key lean tools covered in the course include 5S, Kaizen and Kaizen blitz, work standardization, value stream mapping, pull systems, just-in-time, Kanban, KPI, RCA, Andon, PDCA, setting SMART goals, TAKT time, and JIDOKA.

Unique features of the course include more than 20 lean management tools explained through theory, problem-solving scenarios, case studies, simulated case studies, quizzes, and practice tests. Additionally, there are tutorials on how to use software such as Minitab, companion, and Excel to solve lean quality problems. The course includes four Fortune 500 case studies and over 15 simple, animated, or software-integrated simulated case studies. Students receive practice data files and templates to use in the course, such as A3 analysis working templates, Takt time Excel calculators, Fishbone Excel templates, and more.

The course comes with an unconditional Udemy 30-day money-back guarantee. Course content includes an introduction, several sections on lean tools and techniques, a final exam to test knowledge, certification, and a conclusion.

8. Test Your Idea and Build an MVP quickly without coding by Jonathan Chak (Udemy)

The course titled “Test Your Idea and Build an MVP Quickly Without Coding” is designed to teach individuals how to validate their ideas and build a minimum viable product (MVP) without the need for coding. The course will be instructed by Jonathan Chak, a serial entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience who has built five businesses from scratch. Chak is also a startup coach at the University of New South Wales and teaches strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney, Australia.

The course aims to equip participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to launch their ideas with minimum investment of time and money. Participants will learn how to validate their ideas, find potential target markets, conduct lean customer development, create pitch experiments, and run them effectively. Additionally, participants will learn how to stitch up a functional MVP and become better entrepreneurs, startup founders, or product managers.

The course is divided into nine sections, starting with an introduction and moving on to topics such as being lean, setting up experiments, target markets, customer development, pitch experiments, and functional MVPs. Each section is structured to help participants understand the concepts and apply them effectively.

Overall, the course is designed to help participants quickly validate their ideas and build an MVP, without the need for coding. By the end of the four-week course, participants will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to become better entrepreneurs, startup founders, or product managers.

9. Actualizing and Marketing Products for Profit by Jeri Cafesin (Udemy)

The course titled “Actualizing and Marketing Products for Profit” is designed for entrepreneurs and business professionals who want to develop and market their products effectively. The course is a step-by-step marketing process that aims to build a marketing foundation for efficient development, maximum growth, and sustained business success. The course is appropriate for anyone who wants to become their own boss or grow an existing business.

The first workshop of the course, “Productization,” focuses on turning ideas into products, services, and startups while marketing them for profit. The workshop teaches the RAF Marketing Method, which allows individuals to plug any idea into the methodology to produce offerings of value that sell with marketing efforts. Productization is the process of analyzing product/market fit to assess if an idea is sellable before producing it. The workshop covers target markets and users, competitive analysis, and identifying differentiators that make the offering better than competitors. At the end of the workshop, individuals will be able to turn most any idea, product in development, or existing product into a unique offering of value and effectively market it for profit.

After completing the “Productization” workshop, individuals can proceed to the “Branding” workshop, which must be purchased separately. The workshop covers developing a brand identity for offerings and businesses, including startup and product names, logos, and taglines. The workshop also covers graphic design, from color theory to layering, grid-system layout, and responsive UI/UX design. Individuals will learn how to create stunning visual content, websites, targeted videos, landing pages, PPC, and organic social media campaigns at little to no cost. The workshop also covers traditional and trending content marketing techniques, including SMM/SEM best practices.

The final workshop of the course, “Launch,” covers creating campaigns for product and lean startup launching of websites, print and digital advertising, email campaigns, and social media marketing (SMM) strategies.

10. Lean Startup: Power and tactics of focus for entrepreneurs by Chang Liu (Udemy)

The course titled “Lean Startup: Power and Tactics of Focus for Entrepreneurs” is being taught by Chang Liu. The short description of the course indicates that it covers the three steps of lean starting and how to be most effective when capital is limited. The long description explains that the lean approach entails finding traction quickly and focusing on a niche to dominate it, before expanding further. The emphasis of the course is on finding what customers demand, rather than forcing them to buy a product that doesn’t meet their needs.

The course explores six steps that successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs have taken. It emphasizes the importance of starting and committing to learning, while still keeping one’s job or studying. Selling is a crucial skill to acquire, and starting with a small niche and dominating it is recommended. Learning to pivot and grow, making and surviving mistakes, and studying market dynamics are also essential. The course warns that teaching the lean startup approach is challenging, and first-time entrepreneurs must balance patience with speed.

The course dispels the myth that people only buy what they need and emphasizes the importance of providing exclusive benefits and overwhelming value. The focus should be on discovering what people buy, rather than selling a unique, original new offering. The course stresses that startup is not about one’s own idea but knowing what customers want when they are in the market. The course teaches that one must have an open mind, let go of secrecy, and be willing to try any idea.

The course teaches three critical issues that are often missed in the “lean startup” book – market, demand, and benefit/promise/trust. It provides practical guidance on how to build a business with a lean budget and avoid time-consuming mistakes. It emphasizes that time is the most significant expense in the lean startup approach, and one must validate and grow correctly. The course offers a recipe for designing a playbook to live with certainty and confidence.