Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

I was the junior guy on a project team; I was called in to do some technical due diligence for reasons that were obscure to me, because the team already had much more senior engineers assigned to it. As a technical fix, it was brilliant. I remember one such meeting vividly. So they react in two ways.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. Rather, I see it as a reflection of a worldwide openness to new ideas about entrepreneurship. Some of the most active: SF , New York , DC , Chicago - but there are many more listed here.

Lean 146

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Im excited to have just published the first of several articles on entrepreneurship for the Harvard Business Review online. Although much of it will sound familiar to readers of this blog, whats new is my first step towards the " new entrepreneurship " that is my goal for 2010.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. You can follow some of that debate here and here ; I continue to believe that this idea is correct.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. When operating with continuous deployment, its almost impossible to have integration conflicts. However, a technological solution cant necessarily resolve all human root causes.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Heres my diagnosis of his problem: He has some automated tests, but his team doesnt have a continuous integration server or practice TDD. No amount of fixing is making any difference, because the fixes arent pinned in place by tests, so they get dwarfed by the new defects being introduced with new features.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Playing with new technologies. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. The irony is that while dates early on are unreliable, continuing to create and reach for deadlines seems absolutely necessary from a motivational/productivity standpoint. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. Im also excited to share two long-form reviews from actual attendees. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. Technically you argue it goes back 30 years when StorageTek was founded. Articulate, inspirational.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

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. On average we deploy new code fifty times a day.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. Or follow all of the New York Times columnists equally? There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

That data is completely consonant with the people I know who are successful technologists today, and similar patterns are documented in each recent wave of technology innovation. There would be no Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, or countless other job-creating tech companies today if early computers required corporate authorization to use.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. For now, Id like to ask a favor.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

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

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. What started as a technical problem actually turned out to be a human and process problem. We didnt even practice TDD across our whole team.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. When a startup encounters difficult technical problems, this is the guy you want solving them. Hes just as comfortable writing code as racking servers, debugging windows drivers, or devising new interview questions. All is not lost, though.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

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. Thanks Eric.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

That’s because Five Whys will often pierce the illusion of separate departments and discover the human problems that lurk beneath the surface of supposedly technical problems. But if we stay stuck at the technical parts of the problem, and never uncover the human problems behind them, we’re not going far enough.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Heres the short version: hire people from the online communities that develop free software. Yes, you may be more familiar with the term open source, but lets give credit where credit is due , at least for today). Ignore the famous people who are busy giving lots of speeches about how technology X will change the world.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development Labels: product development , recommended reading 7comments: fnazeeri said. Wow, great review! Because of this we have had to educate ourselves in product development just to help keep projects on track.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Due to an interaction effect between your hardware, solar flares, and quantum flux, this virus will crash your computer and erase your hard drive sometime soon. And I’ve seen companies fail the other way – the so-called Friendster effect: having a high-profile technical failure just when customer adoption is going wild.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

From a technical point of view, its amazing. But from a customer experience point of view, Im not yet sold. All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. The reviews are all over the map. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. I cant really tell.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Over time, such teams either explode due to irreconcilable differences or dramatically slow down. Even in the narrow field of giant tech companies, their early products were wildly different. Over time, such teams either explode due to irreconcilable differences or dramatically slow down. The latter is actually more dangerous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Build a world-class technology platform, with patent-pending algorithms and the ability to scale to millions of simultaneous users. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development. As far as I know, there are no products that are immune from the technology life cycle adoption curve. We can skip the chasm.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Part of this is due to their determination to overtake us, but part is due to structural changes in the nature of entrepreneurship. The United States is locked in a new arms race for that most precious resource -- the future entrepreneurs upon whom economic growth depends. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

But it also seems like it could severely limit your long-term options: Once youve actually managed to make it through the first couple years and build up a customer base, you now have to invest thousands of man-hours into aggressively refactoring, and replace reams of PHP code with code thats secure, maintainable, and reliable. Nice article.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I think this is one of your better posts this year, because you are addressing a risk that you face AFTER some early success, when your guard is down and you are more inclined to believe that you know what you are doing and therefore do not need to be as diligent at framing your hypotheses and how you plan to verify them.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158