http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/13/smallbusiness/second-startup-launch/index.html?iid=SF_SB_Lead

After Bob Diener sold Hotels.com for a highly lucrative $1.2 billion, Diener launched Dallas-based Getaroom.com two months after the five-year non-compete agreement ended.

The premise behind Getaroom.com was to be a leaner, more efficient, and focused alternative to Hotels.com. Instead of offering airfare, vacation packages and car rentals, Getaroom.com focuses solely on providing accommodations at the lowest price for the consumer. To be as cost-efficient as possible, advertisements are campaigned around social media, word-of-mouth, and e-mail.

In Why the Lean Start-up Changes Everything by Steve Blank, the lean start-up was considered by Blank to be a superior business strategy as it allows for agile development, among other benefits. In the information age, business models based around the internet are always subject to radical and unpredictable shifts in behaviour. As a result, the leaner and more dynamic a business is, the better the start-up is able to cope with major disruptions in the market or in business operation.

In addition to agile development, lean start-ups also benefit from being able to monitor and support customer development more quickly and efficiently. Getaroom.com first marketed to the consumer using expensive advertisements, but soon found that they were fairly ineffective. By switching over to leaner means of marketing, the company is able to assess which strategies were most effective, and decide whether to adopt new strategies or to push a successful existing one.