Figure 9-2. Help wanted: experimenters for testing the TradeYa MVP Within 72 hours of JLR Interactive’s “Help Wanted: Lean UX Apprentices” post blasting through the Twitterverse and LinkedIn, all 8 spots were filled with qualified individuals, hand-picked for this challenge. They came from all over Los Angeles and included professionals with advanced skills in architecture, marketing, engineering, and psychology, with degrees from MIT, Cornell, NYU, and UCLA. Although some of the apprentices already had an understanding of UX design and the Lean Startup approach, the intent was to take advantage of the cross-pollinating catalyst effect of their diverse expertise and backgrounds from outside of UX by throwing them into the deep end of hands-on MVP testing and optimization. We were really lucky. Our apprentices were eager and focused when they met for the first time in an intensive workshop on January 2, 2013. During a whirlwind three hours, the eight apprentices were brought up to speed (see Figure 9-3) with the history, philosophy, and MVP of TradeYa. First they learned about the principles of conversion-centric design for customer acquisition. Then we discussed how they would stay aligned through collaboration and task delegation using a cloud-based tool that I devised called The Funnel Matrix.