Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

This article previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Metrics are used to manage process rather than creation of new capabilities, outcomes and speed to deployment. The type of disruption most companies and government agencies are facing is a once-in-every-few-centuries event. are obstacles for innovation.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. Labels: customer development , split-test 7comments: Editor said.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And the results weren’t the traditional PR metrics of number of articles or inches of ink. We were constantly creating metrics to see the effects of different PR messages, channels and audiences on end-user purchases. It wasn’t measured by how busy you were, it was measured by results. I couldn’t care less about those.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. Ive linked to your article from mine.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. You can learn more about the event here. Its hosted by Kontagent and sponsored by Intel.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Great article youre now in my rss feeds :) October 2, 2008 4:37 AM kamilski81 said. While reading this article Ive been thinking about my role as "CTO". Hi Eric, Great article - Ive added you to my regular RSS reads. Great article! Wow I think you just wrote my job description for me. Great post, very educational.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Leading up to a pivot, each cycle, despite our best efforts, the metrics werent good enough. In a customer problem pivot, we try to solve a different problem for the same customer segment. It was painful.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 A new version of the Joel Test (draft) (This article is a draft - your comments are especially welcome as I think through these issues. I am an avid reader of Joel, and your article here is a great addition to his already brilliant check-list. Please leave feedback!)

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Since we hadnt shown him much in the way of progress recently, we actually brought in the article to show off. Know what the success metrics are for the launch. Great article. excellent article although it breaks the whole concept of Launch now worry later. reject them?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 15comments: Anonymoussaid. Great article as always, Eric. Great article, Eric. I have one comment on style: could you break up your articles with subheadings? It would make article more approachable initially, and easier to scan when I go back to reference it.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 8, 2008 Continuous integration step-by-step Lets start with the basics: Martin Fowlers original article lays out the mechanics of how to set up a CI server and the essential rules to follow while doing it. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , Test-driven development 3comments: Chris said.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

What led you to become a subscriber, versus just reading an article and leaving like everybody else? (or, Labels: listening to customers 19comments: Ben said. In order to convince me, Id to see another link to an article here somewhere that I enjoyed. Read some articles, liked what I saw. How did you hear about it?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

I really enjoyed this article, my first time reading any of your stuff. Also SJ's obsession with better taste (positively) contributes to the overall product development process. Thanks for another great article! The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Im excited to have just published the first of several articles on entrepreneurship for the Harvard Business Review online. Unlike previous cross-posting Ive done for blogs, where a lot of the discussion happens here, Id like to ask you to take a minute and click through to read the full article.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Third, the company expected hundreds of amateurs who performed poorly in the game to realize they weren’t good at investing and therefore become customers. in fact only five people converted into paying customers. in fact only five people converted into paying customers. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

This is a fantastic article. Sounds very similar to agile development which is the way. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No doubt about it, small batches are the way to go RT www.anonymity.eu.tc February 21, 2009 7:39 AM Rocky1138 said.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Eric, Great article - provides context and vocabulary for dialog on a very interesting tension in startups. Excellent article. " And, as I tried to outline in the article, process improvements that reduce overall batch size might be a better choice. " [link] July 29, 2009 10:18 AM David Draper said. Eric, great post.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

where an initial bad impression affects a significantly larger percentage of potential customers. Interesting article, Eric. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Whatever fear-reducing tactics you try, share your results in the comments. Well do our best to help.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. 1] For more on SBCE, see this MIT Sloan Management Review article. So, in that spirit: thanks, Mitch.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

All of the incentives described in the article focus on making it easy and highly desirable to launch your product: [He] claimed that launching projects is the natural state that Googles internal ecosystem tends towards, and its because they pump so much energy into pointing people in that direction. What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

ConversionXL

MAY 22, 2014

What follows is the first in a series of articles that will include some of the most common areas where optimization strategies can be applied to achieve better results for your company. For Acquisition, we’re primarily asking how do first time visitors & potential customers find you? So Where Exactly Does “Conversion” Happen?

Software Review 116

Software Review PPC Analytics Search 116

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high. In another study, Wistia dug into the visitor data for their own homepage video & found that roughly 30% of their video views came from prospective customers. What Is An Explainer Video?

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

Dave McClure’s conversion metrics visualize where different conversion optimization opportunities lie—including those for acquisition. If you don’t have customers, our articles on customer development and how to write compelling copy without customers can help you get started. Image source ).

Acquisition 111

Acquisition Software Review PPC Analytics 111

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Unfortunately, this content-less decision-making process is inhibiting the ability of media companies to develop interesting new content at the very time when this supposed expertise should serve as their one true competitive advantage. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

And the final lesson was that we were keeping score on our packaging with the wrong metrics – it wasn’t about awards, it was about sales in the retail channel. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. image source.

Analytics 98

Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

That’s because many of our reports feed us vanity metrics: numbers that make us look good but don’t really help make decisions. Yet even among those who have access to good actionable metrics, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that prevents taking maximum advantage of data. Too much of this data is non- actionable.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 8comments: William Pietri said. As usual, a fantastic article. In a future article, Id love to see more about what goes into that mentoring process. Another great article. Very nice article, thanks a lot. Great article. Many thanks for posting it.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Their recent article suggests that startups led by women are actually more successful, on average, than those led by men. Their recent article suggests that startups led by women are actually more successful, on average, than those led by men. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

See Paul Grahams Why Nerds are Unpopular to learn more) Take a look at this article on a programming Q&A site: How old are you, and how old were you when you started coding? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

The core of the article is my first attempt to articulate the key metrics (in graph form) that I believe demonstrate customer value. When startups ask me what to measure, I always come back to these three as a starting point: Revenue per customer. You can read the article to find out why. Thanks for the article.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. Luckily, we also discovered that certain other metrics, like LTV and CPA were much better than we initially projected. An excellent article and responses. June 8, 2009 6:11 AM Jason said.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t know how to define your target market, read Tim Berry’s article on how to do it, or read this article that explains what target marketing is and how to use it to your advantage. If you want to learn more about how to develop your own unique tone of voice, check out this article by branding expert Elicia Putnam.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. First of all, it’s not fair to say that how much capital you’ve raised is a vanity metric, because it is real, right? Jason: All right.

Widget 204

Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204