Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

We had endless arguments internally about what features it should include, how the avatars should look, and how much it should cost. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click. Seems like a fairly low-cost method of gauging customer interest for a would-be product. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

I spent some time with his company before the conference and discussed ways to get started with continuous deployment , including my experience introducing it at IMVU. Moreover, approaching the problem from the direction that I had intuitively is a recipe for never reaching a point where continuous deployment is feasible.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Eric) In a bar in Amsterdam in 2005, my two cofounders and I came to the sad conclusion that startup we tried to built for two years was doomed. My co-founders decided startup life wasn't for them. New cheap flashable micro controllers make firmware updates possible for low cost hardware. The company was doomed.

Continuous Deployment 164

Continuous Deployment Technical Cofounder Cofounder San Francisco 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

It costs not just the time of the actual meeting, but the time getting there and back, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything. I say this as a founder: the contribution of founders is always overestimated.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

For example, heres him discussing our collective blindness to queues: To understand the economic cost of queues, product developers must be able to answer two questions. Second, what is the cost of these queues? Today, only 15 percent of product developers know the cost of delay. But, what is the cost of this buffer?

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

From Lean Startup Machine , Lean LA and San Diego Tech Founders , to countless speeches and workshops, I have seen the impact that their leadership has had first hand. There continues to be an incredible demand out there for actionable, practical lessons in how to apply this emerging set of ideas. It was a fairly organic thing.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" If the CEO wants to completely change the product in order to serve a new customer segment, you need someone in the room who can digest the needs of the new (proposed) business, and lay out the costs of each possible approach.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

It seems many startups these days are under a lot of pressure to outsource their development organization to save costs. Labels: agile , continuous deployment , customer development , events , listening to customers , slides 3comments: Sean Murphy said. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

There are three fundamental situations that change what your company needs to do: creating a new market (the original Palm), bringing a new product to an existing market (Handspring), and resegmenting an existing market (niche, like In-n-Out Burger; or low-cost, like Southwest Airlines). The root of that mistake is premature execution.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

But if you want to practice rapid deployment, you need to be able to deploy that build in one step as well. If you want to do continuous deployment, youd better be able to certify that build too, which brings us to. For more on continuous deployment, see Just-in-time Scalability. Can you make a build in one step?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Or, if it really was prevented, what was the opportunity cost of choosing to prevent it ahead of time? And in most situations, there is significant cost involved in negotiating over the right estimates to plug in. How much will it cost to solve this problem now? They are usually among the most heated arguments a company has.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. Labels: agile , continuous deployment 1 comments: timothyfitz said. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

This post was written by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. Often, in very young organizations, those people are simply the founders. Not to mention $200,000 in staff time and hard costs. Generously, it might cost you $20,000. We’re looking for speakers for the 2013 Lean Startup Conference.

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Hence, cutting corners often paid huge dividends. Are we going too fast?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Most of all, these arguments stemmed from a simple misconception: that the code we had written was an asset, and that it would cost us to throw it away. But code written that doesnt help the company succeed is a sunk cost. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Expo (and a call for he.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Since we were only paying per click, it didnt cost us anything to cast a wide net. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. I want to talk specifics, and when you come right down to it, most technology startups dont have a very interesting cost structure. The blog is fantastic as well.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

sachinrekhi : "Visionary customers are as smart if not smarter then the founders" #leanstartup Theres no skipping the chasm. My cofounders and I would hash out nuances and details almost every day, re-drawing diagram after diagram on the whiteboard. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Which comes to the second major principle: halt work that leads to more waste, even if it means abandoning sunk costs. For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

We can choose to continue paying the interest, or we can pay down the principal by refactoring the quick and dirty design into the better design. Although it costs to pay down the principal, we gain by reduced interest payments in the future. The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. One last thought.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

In this post I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of how to integrate continuous integration into your team, and how to use it to create two important feedback loops. First, a word about why continuous integration is so important. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

While some cost-cutting measures reduce that number, others increase it. In lean times, it’s most important to focus on cutting costs in ways that speed you up, not slow you down. Otherwise, cutting costs just leads to going out of business a little slower. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Our cost to acquire a customer on AdWords was only a few cents.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

I now believe that the "pick two" concept is fundamentally flawed, and that lean startups can achieve all three simultaneously: quickly bring high-quality software to market at low cost. Thats why we need continuous integration and test-driven development. First of all, its a myth that cutting corners saves time.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Yet in every situation where I have asked, nobody has been tasked with making a realistic estimate, either of the impact of this lack of training or the real costs of the solution. Remember that the cost of the solutions is proportional to the problem caused. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. And lastly, it removes the engineering team’s ability to find breakthrough solutions that might deliver most of the value at a fraction of the cost. They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market. The biggest source of cost/time advantage that all lean companies have is avoiding building features that customers dont want. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

[link] And - of course - going through [link] and reading up on the various different approaches different companies have (successfully) taken towards getting scalability at reasonably low cost. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. sadly, this blog forces you to use a google account.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Weve gone from total obscurity to something people are beginning to misunderstand and even co-opt. Doesnt the communication overhead of a large team lead to chaos of overlapping experiments and continuously-deployed bugs?" "If Weve gone from total obscurity to something people are beginning to misunderstand and even co-opt.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. Slow progress, but has cost less than 150k aud so far. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. March 13, 2009 7:32 PM Torley said.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Expo (and a call for he.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

The same has been true of an unfortunate number of startups, they manage to generate a lot of hype, raise a lot of money, and sometimes make some of their investors, employees, or founders rich. ericries #leanstartup Another new idea in the section on continuous deployment and the cluster immune system. Danger, Will Robinson.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Its obvious that can lower your development costs, but I think its even more important that it can reduce your time to market. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

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). Founders struggle with this question. Founders struggle with this question.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

If it costs $0.10 to acquire an early adopter, how much should it cost to acquire a mainstream customer? ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. But $10.00?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Plus, we saw some of the intrinsic limitations of supporting such a large staff: slower cycle times, higher cost basis, and - most importantly - the ability to serve only a limited number of customer segments. In the end, I believe they co-created our product with us. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88