Audio, Internet and Metrics

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I am somewhat of an expert in this having created one of the first pioneering labs and incubators in the Internet era, from N AZ where the normal course of action was to prove lean ventures with our retirement only to see them copied by deeper pockets on the coasts when we went searching for capital.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

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. Unfortunately, its easy to lose track of positioning effects when optimizing for a single metric.

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

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. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Max Levchin of Slide and Paypal has noted that 10% of Slides headcount is devoted to metrics only.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

I got my start programming on an old IBM XT; it was thanks to MUDs that I first discovered the internet. Thanks to the anonymity of the internet , I landed a few jobs, and did quite a bit of writing. Im one of those people whos been programming since they can remember. So much for timing. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

Building a new startup hub

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. I did my best to capture video and audio; a YouTube playlist and Slideshare slidecast are below: Slides (with audio): 2009 08 19 The Lean Startup TechStars Edition View more presentations from Eric Ries.

San Francisco

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Agile

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Management Software Review Product

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Best of all, Nivi from Venture Hacks was recording, so these slides have synchronized audio, too. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." leanstartup ericnsantos : #w2e #leanstartup Metrics should be Actionable, Accessible and Auditable. Metrics are a key questions startups face. Here are some of my top takeaways.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Demand

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Because five whys kept turning up a few key metrics that were hard to set static thresholds for, we even had a dynamic prediction algorithm that would make forecasts based on past data, and fire alerts if the metric ever went out of its normal bounds. You can even read a cool paper one of our engineers wrote on this approach).

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

Amazing lean startup resources

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Last, Ive tried to keep this blog updated with events , slides , audio , video and books that are helpful as well. Last, Ive tried to keep this blog updated with events , slides , audio , video and books that are helpful as well. Have a favorite who I overlooked? Please share in a comment. Did I miss anything? Did I miss anything?

Lean

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

LinkedIn Video Ads: Relevance, Specs, and Use Cases

ConversionXL

MARCH 6, 2019

Those ad-specific stats pair with the ongoing shift toward video as the primary medium on the Internet. Cisco’s VNI forecast estimates that 82% of all Internet traffic will be video in 2022. LinkedIn video ads: tech specs, targeting, metrics, and cost. Hard-code subtitles to get your message across without the audio.

Video

Video B2B Technical Review Campaign

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Speed up or slow down? Speed up or slow down?

Technical Review

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

You can see the full deck in my post on Customer Development Engineering or listen to audio from a more recent lecture ) I thought given Jims prompting it might be useful to post this excerpt. Working with Steve, I came up with schematic diagrams that I hope illustrate this point. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Agile

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco

Lessons Learned: Work in small batches

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Expo (and a call for he.

San Francisco

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

CTO

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I used to think that investments in metrics were a form of waste. Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. The only reason we learned the art of metrics-based decision making at IMVU was out of necessity. that justify decisions already made. I think it was $350 the next, and so on.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

SEM

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

This new volume also tackles examples from the Internet and wireless startups of today, both B2B and B2C. This new volume also tackles examples from the Internet and wireless startups of today, both B2B and B2C. Four Steps primarily centers its stories and case studies on B2B hardware and software startups.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Lessons Learned: Employees should be masters of their own time

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

In order to give people the data they need to apply the strategy, we were very open with our company metrics, making all reports generally available and easy to run. When you think a certain feature will give a 50% boost to a given metric, and it only eeks out a 5% boost, you cant spin that as failure. March 9, 2009 8:35 AM Eric said.

Employee

Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review

YouTube Marketing And Analytics: A Primer For Magnificent Success

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

On one of the most visited page on the internet. A small example of it is Sennheiser and their videos on better audio experience in your video production. For display ads, standard web analytics metrics apply: Click-through rate, % Assists (this is glorious!), I'm not a fan of compound metrics. Keep things simple.

Analytics

Analytics Marketing Audience Channel

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? That was evident in the metrics and in the in-person usability tests. No one feature is to blame.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design

Lessons Learned: Continuous integration step-by-step

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Business ecology and the four customer currencies

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer). This is the simplest ecosystem and simplest driver of growth. Sorry about that.)

Customer

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

If youre just getting negativity from someone, they are more likely a internet troll - not an earlyvangelist. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment

Requests for Startups in 2024

VC Cafe

MARCH 1, 2024

Education Multimodal ability – apps that allow users to “input” questions, topics, or ideas in all forms (audio, image, text, and even video) and get a response in the media type that helps them learn best. A lightweight “agent” with access to logs and metrics can, to start, retrieve relevant information (e.g.

Artificial Inteligence

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Software Review Generative AI

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage. The key to making progress as a startup is validated learning about customers; defining the customer both in terms of interests and also metrics. And yet, their investors are frustrated.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick

What is Lean about the Lean Startup?

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Why vanity metrics are dangerous What is Lean about the Lean Startup? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

As a shoestring entrepreneur with a SaaS (well, not really, but sort of) offering that we present to very large companies (think 10K+), I love your common sense suggestions about metrics and testing. My background isnt metrics, but we came to it as a matter of practicality. 4) More posts about metrics, scaling, and online games.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Marching through quicksand

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

And thanks to the radical transparency enabled by the internet, the quality of these proposals is actually constantly rising, to the point that it’s almost impossible to judge the quality of the final product – because all the proposals look polished and professional, even the terrible ones. Is that a lot?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business.

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off.

Hockey Stick

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean

Why Continuous Deployment?

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

As a consumer internet company with millions of customers, it may seem to have little relevancy for an enterprise software company with only a handful of potential customers, or a computer security company whose customers demand a rigorous audit before accepting a new release. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Continuous Deployment

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean

Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

When I was a kid, the way I logged onto the internet for the first time (to play MUDs, naturally) was through an open dial-up console at San Diego State University. No logins, no codes, just raw uncensored internet access. School hostility to phones, nerds, and other things they dont understand. Expo (and a call for he.

Programming

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Lessons Learned: About the author

Building a new startup hub

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Amazing lean startup resources

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

LinkedIn Video Ads: Relevance, Specs, and Use Cases

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Lessons Learned: Work in small batches

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Lessons Learned: Employees should be masters of their own time

YouTube Marketing And Analytics: A Primer For Magnificent Success

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Lessons Learned: Continuous integration step-by-step

Business ecology and the four customer currencies

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

Requests for Startups in 2024

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

What is Lean about the Lean Startup?

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Marching through quicksand

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business.

Why Continuous Deployment?

Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

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