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How do you figure out what’s the right mix of skills for the co-founders of your startup? I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. . Trying to figure out what the right set of co-founders isn’t so clear.
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customerdevelopment? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 CustomerDevelopment Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customerdevelopment methodology.
I believe it is the best introduction to CustomerDevelopment you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of CustomerDevelopment and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the minus side, that has made it a wee bit hard to understand.
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customerdevelopment Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.
While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&# These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types.
For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. And the whole site was developed in just 9 weeks. Now he’s a leader in social impact investing and equality in education.
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. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?
Yet time after time, after the product shipped, startups would find that customers didn’t use or want most of the features. The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term “visionary founder” was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating.
He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. October 13, 2008 6:47 PM Luke G said. Eric, love the blog.
The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See CustomerDevelopment Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the CustomerDevelopment process.
Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard. Yesterday, Michael Pope posted an article titled Technical Cofounders Are a Myth. He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website.
Home About Contact Me How To Make It as a First-Time Entrepreneur Vinicius Vacanti Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder September 7, 2010 | View Comments Steve Job's Technical Co-Founder “I’ve got this HUGE idea. I just need to find a technical co-founder.&# So, why should they pick you?
The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the CustomerDevelopment process are you on? CustomerDevelopment and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.
female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Conference 2012.
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, February 11, 2009 The free software hiring advantage This is one of those startup tips Im a little reluctant to share, because its been such a powerful source of competitive advantage in the companies Ive worked with. This approach gives you an edge in hiring. Instead, engage with the project.
I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customerdevelopment process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?
After all, if you already have an all-male startup, you’re already at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring the very women that could fix that imbalance. And yet, when I suggest this practice to hiring managers and recruiters alike, they rarely do it. Beyond hiring, our actual work process matters, too.
If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customerdevelopment is in order? Labels: customerdevelopment , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customerdevelopment?
The importance of the customer feedback cycle & the role it plays for AWeber. How to get your software business to the point where you can hire a business development director. Hunter shares some extremely valuable insights that will prove useful in building beneficial relationships and getting highly qualified customers.
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.
Supercomputers get Personal Back in Sunnyvale my friend had not only been hired but had convinced the team that we should be building hardware – making a new class of computers not a software application. Unlike Intel chips, MIPS chip architecture also made it possible to plug in a math co-processor. We were going to be guessing.
So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time. I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody.
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. Get product into customers’ hands. More on that in a moment.
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo (and a call for he.
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customerdevelopment to online marketing. Its now a technique I recommend for any web-based startup.
Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customerdevelopment , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customerdevelopment and agile development is a challenge.
The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. Are we solving the right problem? We can do better by focusing on process instead of personality.
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?
Now he really thought I was nuts, replying "from the recruiter who hired me, of course!" If youre hiring creative, resourceful and smart people (and you are screening for that , right?) post) is very similar, I think the key is to hire smart people first, though. Are you hiring sysadmins? It was my turn to be dumbfounded.
The team hired only the best and the brightest. They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. They either had to hire a developer onto the art team itself (unthinkable) or learn those development skills themselves (which was, to be fair, really hard).
Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ▼ June (3) What is a startup?
I am grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success, especially my co-organizers Charles Hudson and David Sachs. When I first encountered customerdevelopment , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?
Customerdevelopment. For those interested in getting started with agile or customerdevelopment, I thought Id include a few links. For customerdevelopment, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.
► 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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customerdevelopment?
Joel is focused on the fact that in many environments, programmers are considered "just the hired help" akin to manual labor, and not treated properly. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?
Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.
Luckily for me, my co-founders eventually prevailed and we went on to build a product that customers actually wanted. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? But code written that doesnt help the company succeed is a sunk cost. Expo (and a call for he.
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