Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Bill Gross founded Idealab in 1996, making it the longest-running technology incubator alive today. He was a very early employee of Facebook , and engineering director there through the moment it blew up. He’ll talk with Eric Ries about how companies successfully scale. Aditya Agarwal has lived through startup hypergrowth--twice.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

JoAnn and I entered real estate in 1996 when interest rates were almost 9 percent. JoAnn and I found that sharing our intentions to always put clients first with our employees, with colleagues, and with clients themselves made them ‘real’. I should know. HOW-TO HINT: Practice going first.

Customer 140

Customer Non-Compete Restful Developer 140

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Freeloader — On $3m invested, sold for $38m in 1996 — shut down in 1997. .” Here’s the summary of his track record (excerpted from the Fast Company article): Forefront — IPO’ed in 1995 by CBT — CBT stock fell 85% in 1998 and prompted class-action lawsuits. Support.com — On 2.5m

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. The great thing about raising money after they’d already started was that they’d had time to validate their idea and start building a team of good employees. Start as soon as possible.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

By 1992 Research in Motion (RIM) had been in business for eight years, had 16 employees, sales of about $500,000 a year, and three or four business lines. In 1996 RIM was still in the hardware business selling packet-switched wireless radio modems to OEMs. The TiVo CEO hated the idea that customers might think of TiVo as a better VCR.

Hockey Stick 279

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 279