Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

It was actually my co-founder Will Harvey who taught me to present this data in the simple format weve discussed in this post. If she is, return the name of the hypothesis she was exposed to before. Return the name of the hypothesis chosen or assigned. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Names have, of course, been changed to protect the innocent: Hope youre well; I thought Id relay a recent experience and thank you. 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

Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief. The book takes its name from Steves theory of the four stages of growth any startup goes through. Most people cant sustain more than a few of these iterations, and the founders rarely get to be involved in the later tries. Phases of product & company growth.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

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 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. ► 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.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

I think Jim Murphys confusion comes where many peoples did, with the XP term "Customer", which was XPs name for the product management role. That naming issue aside, I think its probably good that Scrum and XP didnt really say much about how to manage products. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Now, whenever I screen resumes, I ask the recruiter to black out any demographic information from the resume itself: name, age, gender, country of origin. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

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. Now, in some situations, this over-selling would lead to a secondary problem, namely, that customers would realize they had been duped and refuse to re-subscribe. More on that in a moment.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder. Similarly, 24% of all the patents filed in the US in 2006 had a foreign resident as inventor or co-inventor.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Accept that many successful companies are going to want to be backed by big-name firms in other cities. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Then, create an encouraging environment for early-stage companies.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. ► 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.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Pay attention to whether people are comfortable “naming names&# in the meeting. ► 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. There’s no easy fix to this problem.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

To do that, we add specific speed regulators, like integrating source control with our continuous integration server or the more elaborate dance required for continuous deployment. So far, this is all an academic exercise in naming - but I think it has an important real-world effect. One last thought.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Much of what I have found effective is counter-intuitive, because it requires investing more effort in each hire - all in the name of efficiency. Returning to our example of the beleaguered founder who still has the pager, before hiring an operations guy, try promoting someone from within to take on the job.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Of the techniques he mentioned, I think four are fundamental and critical for any lean startup: TDD (or the even more politely named TATFT ) Continuous integration Automate your deployments Collect statistics The tools to help you do these things are getting better and better every day, but dont confuse tools with process.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Imagine you want to store data about customers, each of whom has "last name" field in your database. The problem should be familiar to anyone who plays Scrabble: not all letter are equally likely to be used as the first letter of someones name. Give each entity a name. For example, consider this simple scheme.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I want to thank Techstars for putting this event together and giving me a chance to experience the scene, even if it lacks a name. Building on this, I’ve recently become fascinated with the notion of continuous deployment , a concept that has been popularized by Eric Ries and others. Read the rest.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This attention is valuable to yet another set of people: namely, the traditional businesses (see above) who are using marketing to grow, and are looking to advertise to new prospects. Startup founders need to use their own judgment to ask: which is the riskiest assumption underlying my business plan? Successful startups don’t.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. ► 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. And what distinguishes a good app?

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

We're starting our new business, fanminder.com, to help small merchants instantly communicate with their customers, and I'm increasingly hearing your name and reading your keen insights. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Pivot, don't jump to a new vision Why Continuous Deployment?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

I’m sure other disciplines have their own names for it; even protozoans exhibit this behavior (its called taxis ). When you read stories of successful startups in the popular and business press, you usually hear about how the founders anticipated several of these challenges in their initial vision.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

► 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. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Simply put, we upload all the tasks and assign a name to each task. ► 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.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Whether youre a US citizen or an immigrant, entrepreneur or investor, founder or employee, theres something you can do. If you are an immigrant founder who has helped build a company that has created jobs in the US, we need you to tell your story. This is especially true if you live outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley.

San Francisco 118

San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

By only releasing vanity metrics , companies co-opt the press into helping them mislead others. Or take a recent TechCrunch article about a startup I wont name: “X billion messages sent since June 2009.&# By only releasing vanity metrics , companies co-opt the press into helping them mislead others. The solution?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

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

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

The same is true of brand-name products in almost every category (and it can be measured ). ► 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 23, 2009

Namely, that they agree to use it free of charge if we deliver it to them and it is capable of X, Y and Z. Rich Collins , founder of the Lean Startup Circle , responded to the poster with some Q&A. Namely, that they agree to use it free of charge if we deliver it to them and it is capable of X, Y and Z.

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

All the good domain names were taken, all the good ideas were being implemented. If Id bought just a handful of the "best of the rest" domain names that were available at the time (for a whopping $70 each), I probably could have just retired right then. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

If necessary, consider doing this under a different brand name than the one you are wedded to using. ► 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. Its like knowing the future.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

lets you post a description of a job without having to reveal the name of the company who is offering it, or the contact information of the hiring manager. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ▼ 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) ► 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 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. In fact, we know so much that we already know what they will care enough about (namely, the product’s quality – as opposed to, say, missing features). Yet startups rely on collective learning in order to find their way.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Some startups fail because the founders cant have this conversation - they either blow up when they try, or they fail to change because they are afraid of conflict. Although I wish I could take credit for these pivots, the reality is that they were not caused by my singular insight or that of my other co-founders.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

But we were cutting corners in the development methodology as well as in the code, in the name of increased speed. Excepting for cosmically co-incidental success stories, the fuzzy requirement stuff never congeals as a holistic engineering exercise. a is name, b is address, and c is tax percentage.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Founders push for it. Who doesnt want to see their name in print? In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. Now that were beginning our first marketing, the key partners we need have heard our name long enough to trust us.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151