Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2019

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have no idea how dramatically your own role has to evolve as you develop a solution, start a business, and expect it to scale into a successful self-managed company. Thus my job as a small business advisor really is really more about getting you developed than perfecting the business.

Leadership 248

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Social Media 248

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 17, 2018

by Felix Winstone, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Talkative. As a startup co-founder with a growing team, here are the recruiting tips I’ve learnt over the last couple of years. Robert Metcalfe, co-founder and CEO of 3Com, says you need to think about it as “recruiting, not hiring”. Be Specific.

Cofounder 164

Cofounder Elevator Pitch Hiring Dividend 164

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 30, 2011

Inconsistent startup outsource 4-5 times as much of their product development than consistent startups. In discovery phase 60% of inconsistent startups focus on validating a product and 80% of consistent startups focus on discovering a problem space. Inconsistent startups write 3.4 times more code in efficiency stage.

Silicon Valley 189

Silicon Valley Software Review Startup Cofounder 189

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

If you’re following Tesla, you might be interested to know that Sloan wasn’t the founder of GM. Where are the charitable foundations, business schools, and hospitals named after the founder of GM? The founder of what became General Motors was William (Billy) Durant. And a founder of Neuralink a brain-computer interface startup.

Michigan 301

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 301

Jeff Hilimire

OCTOBER 8, 2014

My name is Richard Simms and, I am a Cofounder of Tech Talent South. Our mission at TTS is to develop more tech talent in the South through beginner-focused programs teaching web development and computer programming. We actually met taking some web development classes in Chicago. Who are you and what do you do?

Cofounder 68

Cofounder Charlotte Raleigh Atlanta 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

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.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

The investment will be used for product development initiatives. ShoeDazzle has Kim Kardashian as a co-founder / company as a spokesperson as well as Brian Lee who was a co-founder at Legal Zoom. So when you register for products it can do a sophisticated targeting of other offers that might interest you.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

We couldn’t cut product development (we had 23 people!) because we had made product commitments to a large customer who was about to agree to a nationwide rollout. On Street Smarts / Working with customers: I had coffee with another startup founder yesterday. Really nice guy and clearly smart.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

by Nick Candito, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Progressly. Time and time again, there’s one critical component that hampers productivity and efficiency: We are wired to work within the confines of organizational silos. Contact centers are closely tied with marketing, sales, shipping and even product development.

Cofounder 174

Cofounder Technical Review Operations Employee 174

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2018

Plan to and assemble the right team, including co-founders. You need skills in finance, operations, and marketing to supplement product development, and more hours of work than one person can manage. Building and running a business is not a solo operation.

Angel Investor 249

Angel Investor Cofounder Finance Operations 249

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. It has to find product-market fit before running out of cash. Lean was designed to inform the founders’ vision while they operated frugally at speed. The result?

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

View from Seed

MAY 11, 2016

Investors love the idea of backing second-time founders, especially if they have had success in their last company. etc… In addition, first-time founders I speak to often talk about how much they have learned and how they resolve to do things differently and better the next time. Is there a sophomore slump to avoid?

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Founder Cofounder CTO Hire Early Stage 159

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

During a lull in her practice she got a serendipitous opportunity to shift gears completely and ended up leading software product development teams. P.S. If you're raising money, investors love to see a co-founder or even just an advisor who has been successful before. The Dream Team. Existing customers.or

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 20, 2014

I’m reproducing in full here because it’s a great explanation of our solo-founder hypothesis and how we work more generally. Are you a solo founder with an idea? Snaptrip started as an idea, an excel spreadsheet and a passionate founder called Matt. THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN FOUNDER AND TEAM. FINDING A COFOUNDER.

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Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 95

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product. Don’t make everyone a founder. Having too many co-founders will only lead to your eventual dilution.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. Well yeah, you could potentially find a cofounder. I first did it for the founder. Edwin: I know. I know, that’s.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

When I was going through the co-founder “dating” process, I’d found a potential partner through my network who seemed to be perfect. I knew that there were issues with my potential partner, but I also knew that the company would grow at a slower pace if I had to start the co-founder search from back at square one.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? You got it.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

A company at this stage could also face product development costs from consultants if they decided to outsource product development. However, Praveena has committed to personally get the first version of the product up and launched without outside consultants, so there is no expense here either.

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Balance Sheet Fractional CTO Burn Rate Salary 125

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 6, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan On August 20, Eric will sit down with developer and Hut8Labs co-founder Dan Milstein for a webcast you can join to discuss “Getting Engineers Into the Lean Startup Cycle.” The conversation will be free-ranging, and it will include live Q&A with attendees, so we don’t know exactly what will happen.

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Lean Engineer Startup Cofounder 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Refreshing to finally see lean and agile thinking emerge in product/business-floors and not only in technology. Critical also, as the lean company/start-up can not be lean by just using lean principles in IT and not in Product Development/Management - a common misinterpretation of the Toyota Production System.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Sometimes we have the attitude that the Product Development team is the one responsible for Activation and Retention (hey, a great product would do that naturally) or that the Marketing team is responsible for Revenue and Referral (hey, go get me some money or free customers already). Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Feld Thoughts

MAY 5, 2011

This approach worked much better, but by this point one of the co-founders was frustrated with the customer dynamics (all business facing) and decided to leave to start a new consumer-facing business (he left on good terms, we are still good friends, and he’s much happier today).

CTO Hire 131

CTO Hire Cofounder Architecture Product Development 131

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. Last year, the co -founders of B ack to the Roots talked about their innovation accounting and how they were ignoring sales metrics in order to grow.

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

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. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2017

In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival. With the new rapid prototyping tools, products can be physically built for analysis, rather than just conceptualized. Provides networking with cofounders and strategic partners.

Technical Cofounder 153

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Wiki Cofounder 153

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

Here’s a problem I bet every non-technical founder has experienced: the communication gap between what the biz dev team wants and what the tech team thinks they want, and vice versa. It’s disruptive, and for founders, very frustrating to watch. Kelsey Meyer , Influence & Co. Their answers are below. Cross Train Members.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown, and the key to success is building an integrated team that includes product development in the feedback loop with customers. 2008 09 06 Eric Ries Haas Columbia Customer Development Engineering View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 17, 2011

That's a pretty significant comment from the co-founder of one of the most successful startup incubators in Silicon Valley history, and begs the question: what is Imagine K12 doing that Y Combinator can't? Working with Students, Teachers, Schools for Product Development.

Incubator 116

Incubator Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 116

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. Good luck, engineering manager. It was painful for a lot of people.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

But first I think we need to save the product manager from that special form of torture only a waterfall product development team can create. Labels: product development 8comments: Vincent van Wylick said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

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. The danger here is that new founders, looking at existing founders, will think that theyre supermen that one couldnt possibly equal oneself.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125