At Startup Weekend Omaha? If so, watch this video.

In a 2009 presentation a part of Standford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture Series, Eric Ries gave an hour-long talk on the lean startup, a topic which he’s become the leading voice, evangelist and most recently author of – Ries book, “The Lean Startup,” was released Tuesday.

Of his hour-long talk, the most important part for today’s participants of Startup Weekend Omaha is the lesson of building and releasing the minimum viable product (MVP). Of the four teams that competed in last year’s Startup Weekend Omaha, only one team had an MVP come Sunday night. That team, Call Spinner, ended up winning the competition – there’s nothing better to showcase your idea to judges (or potential investors) than a working prototype, even if it’s one-tenth of what you intend to build.

So, what is the MVP? Ries explains:

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So, sometimes I get the best question, “Well, how do you know if you’ve found the minimum, minimum viable product?” And from a theoretical point of view, this is quite challenging. You could make a really interesting argument that any given feature is absolutely, you know, 100 percent necessary to learn. But the good news is, there’s no reason to deal with this theoretical issue because if you’re like me and like every entrepreneur I know, what you think the minimum viable product is, is way too big, probably two orders of magnitude too many features. I’m not exaggerating. So the easy formula for finding out what the minimum viable product is, is take what you think it is right now and cut it in half and do that two more times and ship it back.

To restate the most important line, Ries says: “Take what you think [the minimum viable product] is right now and cut it in half and do that two more times and ship it back.”

Good luck to all Startup Weekend Omaha teams as they work to finish their MVPs in time for tonight’s pitches at 7 p.m. (Look for a post on Silicon Prairie News later today where you can watch the pitches live-streamed.)

Video below from Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner. To watch Ries full hour-long talk, visit ecorner.standford.edu.