Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Here are just a few things you might look for: Reducing risk in young companies Bringing innovation to the enterprise Designing and running experiments Customer development strategies All conference passes are on sale right now, and you can compare them here.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. Call it facts for hire. It would be a bit like the hired gun in the old west, but more suited for today’s times. What went wrong?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Every time I see my graduate students try to teach for the first time, it’s usually so painful I bite my lip. The Dry Run.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Worst of all, your teammates are constantly wanting to have meetings.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Supercomputers get Personal Back in Sunnyvale my friend had not only been hired but had convinced the team that we should be building hardware – making a new class of computers not a software application. Wasn’t he a CTO or something? (He We’re building a supercomputer.”

North Carolina 132

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 132

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits. You’ll need to keep hiring tech guys.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

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

Hearpreneur

JULY 30, 2016

The short answer was no and whilst many of the businesses present had a large technology component to their company, with custom developed software etc they could not present themselves as a tech company. It seems like everyone around us is constantly shopping, ordering and hiring services they find online or in town.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Entrepreneur CTO Hire 48

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

” We were big practitioners of what we now call Customer Development, and our customer was typically the IT organization of large companies. I remember being immediately struck by how different we designed and built technology, versus how our customers did. Similarly, product is not a sub-function of marketing.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. Development firms that advertise part equity and cash are simply not mature in defining their model, and thus they have no business taking stakes in others.

Software Development 60

Software Development Software Developers Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post. It’s one of the subtle distinctions that at times gets lost in the process. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 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? ) Eric, I landed upon your blog when I was searching for the path to CTO a couple of months back and I have been a frequent to the site since then. Your "startup-lessons-learned" are very valuable.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. As the CTO/VP Engineering, I was the worst offender. In a customer problem pivot, we try to solve a different problem for the same customer segment. Thats why its so essential to have a co-equal problem team.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

So one of the first things we did was to hire an Oracle expert and get to work. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

“Everybody felt the burden of supporting all those transactions every day,&# says Pascal-Louis Perez, kaChing’s CTO. “It took a ton of our time, and just wasn’t contributing to our long term vision.&# “It took a ton of our time, and just wasn’t contributing to our long term vision.&#

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customer development to online marketing. Its now a technique I recommend for any web-based startup.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

For people we hired from larger companies especially, this was challenging. where an initial bad impression affects a significantly larger percentage of potential customers. Im an ex-Googler, and now a CTO of a small company with lots of talented people ([link] I discovered your site not long ago, and I am learning a lot from it.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

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. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Joel is focused on the fact that in many environments, programmers are considered "just the hired help" akin to manual labor, and not treated properly. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Intellectual Property 175

Intellectual Property Aggregator Startup Angel Investor 175

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

This is a good sign for you! :) I subscribed because I was inspired by the O'Reilly video, and feel I want to go deeper into the customer development field. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So why you? 4) I would like to see more of what I've seen.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74