Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for T he Lean Startup Conference. We’ve posted the full program for The Lean Startup Conference , and it includes more than three days of events for Gold pass holders and six days of events for VIP pass holders. On the evening of December 8, Ignite Lean Startup kicks off the conference.

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Since SayAhh is in the pre-launch development stage, the company doesn’t have any revenue yet. They also haven’t launched a product, so there is no corresponding “cost of goods sold” – the direct cost of delivering their product. The default Quickbooks setup uses “Income” to refer to “Revenue”.

Balance Sheet 125

Balance Sheet Fractional CTO Burn Rate Salary 125

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. Thats why we need continuous integration and test-driven development.

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Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here].

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Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 6, 2018

In today’s rough-and-tumble startup scene, “lean” is all the rage, and the ability to cut costs without compromising performance is prized above virtually any other managerial competency. Of course, cutting costs and eliminating whole expense categories are two very different matters. Product Development.

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CPA Bandwidth Lean Startup 124

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. StageGate Process. This is a big idea.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

Your data will be ordered and structured into information based on specific niches like engineering and construction, finance, technology, and business. Thus, you must manage your available finances wisely. Implement the “lean startup” philosophy. Product development also occurs in small iterations or changes.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Market Type also affects the market size as well as how you launch the product into the market.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Customer Development by Vertical - Click to Enlarge (As a reminder, the Customer Development process says your business plan is just a series of untested hypothesis (unless you’re a domain expert.) You take your product vision and get out of your building to turn your hypothesis into facts. Waterfall, Agile, Lean?

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Very few people turn up with a strong sense of “what we should be doing” or ready to lean into a productive conversation The financials were prepared by the VP of Finance / CFO. This can include: Fund raising, product development choices, sales, marketing effectiveness, competition, business development, M&A … whatever.

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Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

So first and foremost, I let him know that while it was nice to have a well thought out spreadsheet, that the most important thing was getting the product developed and the right team in place.

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Churn Rate Burn Rate Startup Metrics 112

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. Introducing Lean Planning: How to Plan Less and Grow Faster. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Finance, IT, Legal). Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. D&O insurance is a “cost of respect” for board members. New York, California different toilet, same s#@t. The Game, Let Us Live. So what gives?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. It is interesting to note that some advocates of lean management and accounting (including Waddell and Bodek in *The Rebirth of American Industry*) have a strong dislike of Sloan/Brown management cost accounting.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 184

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

In the case of an entrepreneur pitching for finance, its the same fear that has them putting on a facade and not comfortable in what they do and dont know that will see them a long way off getting funded. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. First, we can reduce fear by mitigating the consequences of failure.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

So, please note the TAM Analysis is a vitally important aspect of building any financing strategy. He is also struggling with the pricing structure, because until he can get to volume printing, the cost per unit is way too high. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

So, please note the TAM Analysis is a vitally important aspect of building any financing strategy. He is also struggling with the pricing structure, because until he can get to volume printing, the cost per unit is way too high. Raymond is wondering why he cannot attract financing.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

He welcomed us by screaming, “Do you know how much it costs every minute this line is down.&# You literally have to take your vision of the opportunity and against all rational odds assemble financing, and a team to help you execute. the manager followed us still yelling. And that’s just to get started.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 313

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. So again, none of this is me trying to say what you should do for product development, in fact, or what you should write in code in fact. Edwin: I know.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Later on in this same company’s life, sales will become the pointy end and product development moves to a supporting role.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 133

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing. They care about real product.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

So your cost per billable hour is: Nominal Cost: $30/hour. Recomputing the cost of the remaining billable hours, we have: 20 WD/month, $31/hour. That changes the annual cost of your employee from $60,000 to $69,000 with an associated change in hourly cost: 20 WD/month, $36/hour. Lack of focus kills.

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America Employee Hiring HTML 330

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Compounding is not a process that most people find intuitive, and thats as true in engineering as it is in finance, so it requires a lot of encouragement in the early days to stay the course.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. The founders. China has simply become the factory.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? They are many more examples.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources. Lean Startup Circle â?? tells you how much adwords cost. Great for visualizing work of product development. Lean project management. Codeacademy.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53