Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? 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. Heres the catch.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

. - 500 Hats , July 30, 2010 Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 Customer Development Checklist for My Web Startup – Part 1 - Ash Maurya , February 16, 2010 How-to learn about angel/vc term sheets - Gabriel Weinberg , June 28, 2010 Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write and 9 Tips To Get Started - OnStartups (..)

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Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

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Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 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.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") 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.

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Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. The breakthrough idea of agile is that software should be built iteratively, with the pieces that customers value most created first. Enter Jims post.

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Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

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Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. Some caveats right off the bat.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Eventually, this let us do deployments to production dozens of times every day , without significant downtime or bug regressions. When I tell this story to entrepreneurs and big-company types alike, I sometimes get this response: "well, sure, if you start out with all those great tools, processes and TDD from the beginning, thats easy!

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

If you havent seen it, Pascals recent presentation on continuous deployment is a must-see; slides are here. Yet there’s a lot of mystery around pivots, and entrepreneurs ask all the time how you know it’s time to commit to a new direction. in fact only five people converted into paying customers.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Let’s begin with the four customer currencies. And this is true outside of games.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. We finally settled on a $1.99 Setup a simple website.

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Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Some startups avoid getting customer feedback for precisely this reason: they are afraid that if early reactions are negative, theyll be "forced" to abandon their vision. One such practice is to pivot from one vision to the next.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

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

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. November 25, 2009 9:54 AM Danny Wong said.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. The report is set up to show you what happened to customers who registered in that period (a so-called cohort analysis ). This report is set up to tell you about new customers specifically. First of all, why split-test?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

When a name is misused, as with some of the claims to "agility" extant, the initial interest is followed by disappointment when customers discover there is no corned beef between the slices of rye. Another form of respect is inviting customers to be part of the process of creating those products and services.

Lean 140

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

We wanted to give you a rundown of what’s in store, along with particular insight into two of the workshops we’re most excited to have lined up for Gold and VIP attendee s—one session with Jez Humble on implementing continuous delivery and one with Alistair Croll on Lean analytics for corporate entrepreneurs. How do you address that?

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Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? Slowly, over time, we optimized (or eliminated) each step in the process of becoming a customer by giving us money. SEM is a simple idea.

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SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

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. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

When I try to unpack what people mean by the question, heres my best take on what they are asking: "Look, Steve Jobs doesnt go out and ask customers what they want. He tells customers what they want, and he gets it right. When a customer tells you how they feel about your ideas, that doesnt tell you anything about your ideas.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And so Deming’s contribution was especially prescient, as he saw that “the customer is the most important part of the production line.&# This means that quality is defined in the eye of the customer, not necessarily by arbitrary standards loved by insiders to the production process. How will they define quality?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Scalable systems are no exception - if your assumptions about how many customers youll have, or how they will behave are just a little bit wrong, you can wind up with a massive amount of wasted code. Labels: agile , continuous deployment 1 comments: timothyfitz said. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Heres what I do know: The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs. (If If you are somehow not convinced of this point, Ill let Fareed Zakaria explain ) We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. Nerds are not entrepreneurs. They are nerds.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

In a truly new market, we face no meaningful competition, there are no tradeshows to present at, and customers are not clamoring for our product. Remember that startups operate by a different unit of progress: what I call validated learning about customers. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It’s important to invest in good architecture so that your website will scale once customers arrive. If you make that investment, and then customers arrive, and the site stays up, most companies will reward the people who built the architecture and, thus, prevented the scaling problems. How upset will those customers be?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

But theres no denying the level of support for entrepreneurs that we enjoy. They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. And every year, it looks as if one or two entrepreneurs from the program decide to stay. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Defective prototype code was as often thrown out (because customers didnt want it) as it was fixed (when customers did). Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Labels: agile , listening to customers 3comments: hauteroute said. Wouldn't it make more sense to Learn (customer discovery) then proceed to ideas,code, data, implement and measure? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Great points Eric.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142