Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. When a startup encounters difficult technical problems, this is the guy you want solving them. As the company grows, hes the go-to person for almost everything technical, and so hes very much in demand. All is not lost, though.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Refreshing to finally see lean and agile thinking emerge in product/business-floors and not only in technology. Critical also, as the lean company/start-up can not be lean by just using lean principles in IT and not in Product Development/Management - a common misinterpretation of the Toyota Production System. Thanks Eric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

And a special thanks is due to all of our presenters, panelists, and mentors. When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. If thats true, its primarily due to your hard work, building companies and testing new ideas. We all owe you.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Recent economic events, technological change, and the rapid diffusion of information about the old models have combined to help us all realize just how important entrepreneurship is - and just how little we really know about it. My success is due in no small part to their early and enthusiastic endorsement. Please share in a comment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

That’s because Five Whys will often pierce the illusion of separate departments and discover the human problems that lurk beneath the surface of supposedly technical problems. But if we stay stuck at the technical parts of the problem, and never uncover the human problems behind them, we’re not going far enough.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

If you watch the video/audio below, youll get to see some of the questions I was asked after my presentation. And do your customer development. Im also excited to share two long-form reviews from actual attendees. Labels: audio , events , slides , video 4comments: TSFalls said.

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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. It had a pretty good technical design. That "good design" turned out to be technical debt, after all.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

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. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason.

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San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

So when we start checking in code more often, release more often, or conduct more frequent design reviews, we can actually do a lot to make those steps dramatically more efficient. Junior developers tend to take a more traditional approach and have to be coached into following this line of thinking.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Playing with new technologies. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. One approach to the issue you bring up that's worked for us is to set an initial due date that’s overly aggressive, and expect that we’ll probably blow through it (while suspending disbelief as much as possible).

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. But the same technologies that make life difficult for traditional marketers also offer them unprecedented new opportunities.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Heres the short version: hire people from the online communities that develop free software. Yes, you may be more familiar with the term open source, but lets give credit where credit is due , at least for today). Ignore the famous people who are busy giving lots of speeches about how technology X will change the world.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

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Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Part of this is due to their determination to overtake us, but part is due to structural changes in the nature of entrepreneurship. For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

That data is completely consonant with the people I know who are successful technologists today, and similar patterns are documented in each recent wave of technology innovation. There would be no Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, or countless other job-creating tech companies today if early computers required corporate authorization to use.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

From a technical point of view, its amazing. But from a customer experience point of view, Im not yet sold. All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. The reviews are all over the map. Ive also been playing around with the App Store. I cant really tell.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Many times when I interview a development team caught in the pincers of this situation, they want my help "fixing people." So developers stuck in this world tend to think the other developers on their team are either, deep in their souls, plodding pedants or sloppy coders.

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Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

Or w hat if none of the other key players in their industry use explainer videos, so comparison shoppers watch simply due to the novelty of it all? Also, always do qualitative research & conduct customer development interviews to help your script address as many pain points as possible. It’s not the technology.

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I joined a financial services tech startup in 1999. For now, Id like to ask a favor.

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Lean San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Its design goals arent geared towards efficiency in terms of technical costs. For example, its quite common that we dont know the exact set of assets a given customer is going to want to use. It would carefully monitor their behavior, and especially their technical metrics, like crashes and freezes.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 68

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

We have an extensive list of good business podcasts here, so if this is your learning style, go enjoy your audio blast. It’s structured around a model that Steve has become famous for—the Customer Development Process. If you want to find out more about starting a business, review the Bplans Startup Checklist.

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Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Heres my diagnosis of his problem: He has some automated tests, but his team doesnt have a continuous integration server or practice TDD. And has the tension goes down, it will be easier to get the whole team (including the MBAs) to embrace TDD and other good practices as further refinements. I'm a die hard believer in TDD.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

” Introduced a few months ago as an Austin event, I’m now doing this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

If you are passionate about business, good at writing, decent at scheduling, can learn to edit audio, and want to help Jason share more interviews, then contact me to see if you could be the next producer of Smart Bear Live. They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. Jason: Nice.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Due to an interaction effect between your hardware, solar flares, and quantum flux, this virus will crash your computer and erase your hard drive sometime soon. And I’ve seen companies fail the other way – the so-called Friendster effect: having a high-profile technical failure just when customer adoption is going wild.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Code reviews and pairing Great practices. They’ll increase code quality, prevent defects and educate your developers. However, hindsight indicates we forgot to do something important when developing IMVU: When the product changed, we did not update the code to reflect the new product, leaving us with piles of dirty code.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Over time, such teams either explode due to irreconcilable differences or dramatically slow down. Even in the narrow field of giant tech companies, their early products were wildly different. Over time, such teams either explode due to irreconcilable differences or dramatically slow down. The latter is actually more dangerous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development Labels: product development , recommended reading 7comments: fnazeeri said. Wow, great review! Because of this we have had to educate ourselves in product development just to help keep projects on track.

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www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Every startup faces multiple choices and decisions when it comes to technology. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Customer service. Girls in Tech. Ad Serving Technology. Seed Startups. Codeacademy. Steve Blank.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Israel Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

But it also seems like it could severely limit your long-term options: Once youve actually managed to make it through the first couple years and build up a customer base, you now have to invest thousands of man-hours into aggressively refactoring, and replace reams of PHP code with code thats secure, maintainable, and reliable. Nice article.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I think this is one of your better posts this year, because you are addressing a risk that you face AFTER some early success, when your guard is down and you are more inclined to believe that you know what you are doing and therefore do not need to be as diligent at framing your hypotheses and how you plan to verify them.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Build a world-class technology platform, with patent-pending algorithms and the ability to scale to millions of simultaneous users. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development. As far as I know, there are no products that are immune from the technology life cycle adoption curve. We can skip the chasm.

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