Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. 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.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

As an investor and former founder, I know that scalable growth (and the pretty hockey stick graph) is the holy grail for every startup. The evolution of the growth function changed this dynamic, mashing together product dev and marketing as integrated functions. New platforms can drive significant growth for some time.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Then they noticed that they’d been cannibalizing other channels—people converting as referrals were leads already acquired from other channels. Incentives work, but they might work too well and convert people who are not really into the service/product or cannibalize other channels. Conclusion.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter? End result?

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. So you will likely get outspent on any paid marketing channel you may use to drive traffic to you at scale if there are other people trying to drive traffic to the same property. Another way is to have unique promotion channels, but these must be scalable.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Forget about traction and hockey stick growth. So you will likely get outspent on any paid marketing channel you may use to drive traffic to you at scale if there are other people trying to drive traffic to the same property. Another way is to have unique promotion channels, but these must be scalable.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48