Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

In most applications, most of the time, customers return to use the application not in response to a notification or event, but under their own volition. These decisions are critical to the success of any high-engagement product, and they take place entirely inside the minds of customers.

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Instead, we try to accelerate with respect to validated learning about customers. There are often counter-intuitive changes in customer behavior that depend on little details. You only learn which specific shade of blue customers are more likely to click on. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

It exists to serve the needs of customers, and it does this by offering its capabilities to other functions in the company, and partnering with them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Engagement loops: beyond viral Theres a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. Organic notifications.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Having early customers means balancing the needs of your existing customers with the desire to find new ones. And still being a startup means continuing to innovate as well as keep the lights on. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 74

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Sometimes, testing with existing customers is more complicated than with new customers. Existing customers already have an expectation about how your product works, and its important to take this into consideration when adding or changing features. On the other hand, existing customers can be a testing benefit.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

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

San Francisco 83

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

In this model, your free users trade their time for the benefit of your paying customers. Both currencies are valuable, and free users can trade theirs to the paying customers, who are allowed to access benefits that would otherwise take a long time to achieve. At a high level, anything that drives virality should be free.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Is the company growing because of an amazing viral loop paired with a strong engagement loop? Hopefully, they have internal reports that show the true correlation between their features and customer results. For each month, messages are sent by two kinds of people: new customers and returning customers. I sure hope so.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

This model has not translated well to the world of social networking, because customers of social networks engage sites in a different way than customers of search engines. If you ask an expert in Facebook apps to come help build yours, youll usually hear the same advice: build your app for virality.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Here, the key metrics are Acquisition and Referral, combined into the now-famous viral coefficient. If the coefficient is > 1.0 , you generally have a viral hit on your hands.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do your customers really read TechCrunch?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

The larger-account division wanted to move the pricing in just the other direction – making the low-end products more expensive, so their large customers would have an increased incentive to upgrade. Many custom reports had been created for this meeting, and the data warehouse team was in the meeting, too.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

My favorite is to rearrange the steps of your registration process for new customers. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. A good place to start is to try moving UI elements around. Make a firm prediction.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132