Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Embrace technical debt Financial debt plays an important and positive role in our economy under normal conditions. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. Remember Hamlet?

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. Luckily, I now have the benefit of a forthcoming book, The Principles of Product Development Flow. February 21, 2009 12:10 AM Harold Fowler said. Interesting post.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 1, 2009 The Steve Jobs method Image via CrunchBase Its been a long time since I did a post that was primarily a link to another blog with commentary, but I came across something today that I really want to share. August 1, 2009 7:39 AM Ravi Mohan said. August 1, 2009 8:11 AM Michael said.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Own the development methodology - in a traditional product development setup, the VP Engineering or some other full-time manager would be responsible for making sure the engineers wrote adequate specs, interfaced well with QA, and also run the scheduling "trains" for releases. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) Unintended Lessons » 6 Responses Twitter Trackbacks for Let’s Fire Our Customers « Steve Blank [steveblank.com] on Topsy.com , on September 24, 2009 at 7:19 am Said: [.]

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. krasicki April 3, 2009 7:19 AM control valves said.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. I agree with the less is more product development approach, but for a different reason. Now that is fun.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 2, 2009 How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis In the lean startup workshops , we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the technique of Five Whys. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 15comments: Anonymoussaid. July 3, 2009 7:49 AM Eric said.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Reply Michael Alan Miller » Crash , on August 24, 2009 at 8:47 am Said: [.] | Posted by Chill on 24 Aug 2009 at 11:47 am | Shattered. [.] Reply Neil Ellis , on August 24, 2009 at 10:56 am Said: Life is so short, do we really want to spend it making it miserable for ourselves and others? Reply Michael F.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. February 14, 2009 11:12 PM Eric said. May 15, 2009 1:17 AM neocoder said.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. January 2, 2009 8:54 AM mancjew said. January 2, 2009 8:57 AM Abbas said. Abbas February 22, 2009 3:33 PM cwillu said. Would love to get in touch.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 15, 2009 Why Continuous Deployment? Changes queued for over a year, meetings to decide if a change was safe to release, and changes would still fail in production. June 15, 2009 7:41 AM William Pietri said. June 15, 2009 8:24 AM Stevesaid. June 15, 2009 8:20 PM Anonymoussaid.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

A few of the many quotations that struck me: “Most startups fail due not to the failure of product development but due to the lack of customers”. Learning and discovering who a company’s initial customers will be and what market they are in, requires a process separate and distinct from product development”.

Japan 305

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 305

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

But first I think we need to save the product manager from that special form of torture only a waterfall product development team can create. Labels: product development 8comments: Vincent van Wylick said. This post has been removed by the author. one more thought, where were the code reviews?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. And what of the product development team?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown, and the key to success is building an integrated team that includes product development in the feedback loop with customers. 2008 09 06 Eric Ries Haas Columbia Customer Development Engineering View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. Sure, Id be delighted to.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Sometimes we have the attitude that the Product Development team is the one responsible for Activation and Retention (hey, a great product would do that naturally) or that the Marketing team is responsible for Revenue and Referral (hey, go get me some money or free customers already). Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

February 7, 2009 5:40 AM Major_Grooves said. May 6, 2009 3:03 PM Ivan Acosta-Rubio said. We run a web development company and we start by creating a splash page very similar to what is describe here. June 22, 2009 6:30 AM Anonymoussaid. June 28, 2009 2:51 PM beorn said. Great post - I think Ill try this.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. March 14, 2009 8:34 AM Can Sar said. April 11, 2009 1:22 AM CeeTee said.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

This gets me into trouble, because it conjures up for some the idea that product development is simply a rote mechanical exercise of linear optimization. You just constantly test little micro-changes and follow a hill-climbing algorithm to build your product. March 26, 2009 6:15 PM Will said.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Continuous deployment and continuous learning At long last, some of the actual implementers of the advanced systems we built at IMVU for rapid deployment and rapid response are starting to write about it. It would be hard to argue against this product development strategy, in general.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Employees should be masters of their own time Every startup should have a culture of learning. March 3, 2009 9:54 PM surya said. March 3, 2009 10:02 PM Sean Murphy said. March 3, 2009 11:15 PM kareem said. March 3, 2009 11:28 PM Jon said. Dont even go there.

Employee 146

Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review 146

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Thank yo u January 3, 2009 4:07 PM BillSeitz said. May 8, 2009 2:27 PM Eric said. May 8, 2009 2:39 PM VictusFate said. There is much work that I need to do (the only developer so far) before we have something customers can use. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

the version that would facilitate the investment of real money) was planned for late-2009. the version that would facilitate the investment of real money) was planned for late-2009. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. The result? The result?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Geoffrey Moore Author of Crossing the Chasm and four other books, Geoffrey Moore has been thinking about high-tech product development longer than most of have been doing anything on a computer. Simplicity is mostly a way to avoid looking like you’re releasing a product that lacks features. Subscribe via RSS On Twitter?

Software Review 47

Software Review Software San Francisco RSS 47

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Martin , on May 7, 2009 at 9:36 am Said: The caveat would be for undergrads at a school like Stanford or Berkeley. Reply Thomas Finsterbusch , on May 7, 2009 at 2:24 pm Said: I’m a PhD Student in CS at UT Austin, and Austin too has all the crucial resources necessary for startups (VCs, angels, law firms, top talent, etc.).

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

February 11, 2009 8:05 AM Anonymoussaid. But also, the ETL doesn't change much anymore (except when integrating a new system), now that the warehouse is in production most of the change occurs in the marts and analytic products. June 15, 2009 9:27 PM Mark Graban said. link] June 20, 2009 2:52 PM Anonymoussaid.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, February 22, 2009 Please teach kids programming, Mr. President Of course, what I really mean is: let them teach themselves. February 22, 2009 5:54 PM CapnCleaver said. February 22, 2009 10:14 PM Aleks said. February 23, 2009 2:22 AM Clement said. February 23, 2009 9:23 AM Clement said.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. September 3, 2009 12:25 PM Omar Ead said. Great points Eric.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? Over at PBwiki, our general policy is to conduct a marketing launch after the product is already a success. March 13, 2009 1:50 PM dan simard said. Great article.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 27, 2010 Good enough never is (or is it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 7, 2009 Fear is the mind-killer Fear is an emotion that slows teams down. link] May 11, 2009 9:04 PM Ian Wilson said. May 11, 2009 9:42 PM Artem said. May 11, 2009 10:12 PM Nicholas Kormas said. May 13, 2009 6:38 AM Jason Lander said. May 14, 2009 10:05 PM Jeff said.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131