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

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

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Continuous deployment and continuous learning At long last, some of the actual implementers of the advanced systems we built at IMVU for rapid deployment and rapid response are starting to write about it. At IMVU it’s a core part of our culture to ship.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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 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

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

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

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 16, 2009 Continuous deployment with downloads One of my goals in writing posts about topics like continuous deployment is the hope that people will take those ideas and apply them to new situations - and then share what they learn with the rest of us.

Continuous Deployment 68

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 68

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

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

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

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 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

MAY 27, 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. Continuously discover what customers want to buy before building or making follow-on investments in new features.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

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

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

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

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. I cant really imagine how much it cost our "grownup" counterparts at other dot-com startups to get their first app up and running. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

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

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

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. ► 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.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

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

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

This post was co-written by Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic/WordPress, will talk about the way his company experiments constantly—even though his teams are fully distributed, with nearly everyone working from home.

Lean 166

Lean Early Stage San Francisco Cofounder 166

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Truth: The Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Truth: The Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. ► 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.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

As the costs of production fall, it’s getting easier and easier to send in a proposal or even a complete work. user-generated content) can increase liquidity and decrease distribution costs (notably talent search and evaluation), there are certain individuals whose opinions will count for more than the simple votes of the masses.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

But," you are sure to ask, "how much will all this bundling cost me?" But," you are sure to ask, "how much will all this bundling cost me?" ► 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.

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 17, 2009

Last I heard from the venue, there are still some seats available; the ticket cost is only $25 if you register online. 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. You can register online here.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2009

If your startup is growing (or aspires to grow), then the costs of a mistake are always going up. Since the cost of failure is monotonically increasing, it actually makes sense to fail sooner, not later. This is the thinking that allowed us to overcome our fear of continuous deployment at IMVU. Keep up the great work.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. Here the key is for your free customers to get value from the site that is greater than the costs they perceive by the fact that youre selling access to them. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 23, 2009

There is a lot to be said about the opportunity cost of perfection, iterative evolution and the difference between shipping a lemon and shipping a band aid. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ▼ 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 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

AUGUST 8, 2009

In particular, we would cover customer development, continuous deployment, minimum viable product, and actionable metrics. Because of the cost and intensity of this program, it is designed for startups with significant venture backing or who have reached profitability. The cost is equivalent to an entry-level FTE.

Lean 102

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 6, 2009

The first event is January 21, and is being put on by Dealmaker Media as part of their Strategy Series events: In the Trenches: Cutting Costs in a Tight Economy. One of the other speakers is someone I know well: Seth Sternberg , founder of Meebo. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2009

So far, we have limited registration at the workshops to people who can afford the admittedly high cost of entry. ► 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.

Lean 60

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Why do Citizens of Humanity jeans cost $200 , when physically similar pants can be had for one-tenth the price? ► 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. Expo (and a call for he.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

"We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002. Development time is typically no more than two to three weeks, and it generally takes just a few orders to cover development costs. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137