Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

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. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2012

When Bob Dorf and I wrote the Startup Owners Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. Pair Customer Development with Agile Development. No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers. Startup Metrics are Different from Existing Companies. Not All Startups Are Alike.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Cofounder 331

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

For example, if you are trying to determine viral coefficient (see Startup Metrics ), then the focus should be around those aspects of the MVP. Customer Development Notes I'm assuming founders are having customer development conversations. Quite often these things get old quickly.

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Tech IPO prices exploded and subsequent trading prices rose to dizzying heights as the stock prices became disconnected from the traditional metrics of revenue and profits. Almost overnight the floodgates opened, and risk capital was available at scale from venture capital investors who rushed their startups toward public offerings.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. Along the way we were fortunate to meet Steve, develop strategic partnerships, and raise a series A round of investment. So how did Customer Development fail us?

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reason is that b2b fundraising is largely driven by data and metrics, and pre-seed dollars usually don’t get you to many meaningful data points. Unlike in B2B, you don’t necessarily want to use a second-seed round to get to metrics that every investor will appreciate. Experienced founders: B2B. Experienced founders: Consumer.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

One of the fundamental benefits of being so active in building the FoundersPad accelerator (a 12-week, Lean Startup program focused on customer development) is working with the cohort participants on refining their business models. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Venture Capital.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Metrics are used to manage process rather than creation of new capabilities, outcomes and speed to deployment. Finally, companies and government agencies have realized that the processes and metrics they put in place to optimize execution (Procurement, Personnel, Security, Legal, etc.) are obstacles for innovation.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

Obviously there’s lots of bias built into the data – those who volunteered might be the better teams, the peer reviewers might be selecting for what we taught, funding is no metric for successful science let alone successful companies, etc. – but the difference in funding success is over 300%.

SBIR 321

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 321

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Filed under: Customer Development.

San Jose 261

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 261

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. What good are these metrics if they dont help guide product or business decisions?

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2010

One of the principles of Customer Development is to get out of the building and understand the smallest feature-set customers will pay for in the first release.). Usually the cry is for more features, typically based on “Here’s what I heard from the last customer I visited.”. Filed under: Customer Development.

Customer Development 313

Customer Development Business Model Developer Search 313

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. shoes in order to deduce possible competitors’ moves and anticipate customer needs. What do you think?

Customer Development 221

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 221

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. Such direct experiences allows one to test critical “leap-of-faith” assumptions about what customers like and dislike.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Gathering real-world feedback from customers is a core concept of Customer Development as well as the Lean Startup. When I asked him if he actually had personally left the building and talked to these potential customers, or even had gotten them on the phone, he sounded confused. Posted in Customer Development Manifesto.

Metrics 243

Metrics Customer Customer Development Lean 243

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2013

> Uber's " Reality Therapy 4 Startups": What U Need 2 Know NOW > Steve Blank on why NOT to be an Entrepreneur > Airbnb's Globetrotting Lessons: Building 4 a Global Market > Vinod Khosla - The VC Legend: Interview w/ Dave McClure > Eric Ries on Entrepreneurship: What He's Learned Along the Way > GitHub's Secret 2 Success: Rethinking (..)

Lean 165

Lean Cofounder Startup Software Engineering 165

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

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Science and Industrial Policy. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. The irony is that once you’ve gone through the lean cycle, you have all the information that goes in a business plan: customers, sales strategy, product features, and financial metrics. Seeing Is Believing.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 157

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 157

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. And we can offer investors metrics to play Moneyball – with the Investment Readiness Level. We think we can do better. Here’s how.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We did three iterations of the product in less than 12 months, each one progressively going off of different consumer metrics that we found and then partner feedback. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Ultimately, it didn’t work and we decided we had enough time to maybe do one last iteration.

Columbus 249

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 249

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Founders that learn are more successful : Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Startup Genome Report. Some of their key findings : 1. better user growth.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

2:21: Accounting Metrics in a Large Company vs. Metrics that Matter in a Startup. 6:07: Engineering: Waterfall Development in a Large Company vs. Minimum Viable Product in a Startup. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers.

Founder 331

Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

JUNE 21, 2017

6:22 What’s Customer Development. 32:05 No Innovation Pipeline, Guidance or Metrics. 41:39 Moral Obligations Filed under: Corporate Innovation , Customer Development , Hacking For Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Lean LaunchPad , NSF (National Science Foundation) , Teaching. 10:01 Lean in Corporations.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Lean Government Boston 258

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Don’t choose metrics that are similar but not the same. Otherwise, it’s easy to turn a small discrepancy into a massive issue—one that torches year-over-year data comparisons and just about all of your quarterly (even annual) metrics. Every tool has its own methods for various metrics. Why does it happen? Image source ).

Analytics 88

Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 127

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

Personalised Messaging: Utilise customer data stored in Salesforce to personalize SMS messages, addressing recipients by name and tailoring content to their preferences and behaviors for a more engaging experience. Track and Analyse Performance: Gain valuable insights into SMS campaign performance by tracking metrics such as delivery rates, open (..)

SMS 123

SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 123

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

In this workshop, the authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development and The Lean Entrepreneur help you determine the optimal strategy and tactics for your kind of company, focusing on customer development and market segmentation. Lean startup principles work differently in different environments.

Lean 154

Lean Cofounder Startup Analytics 154

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Entrepreneurs should always communicate their business’ very latest stage of customer development as part of their investor presentation.

Sacramento 314

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 314

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

When we looked at the color graphics board market, our competitors had defined the market as one measured by technical metrics: screen resolution, number of bits of color, screen refresh rates, acceleration, etc. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that what we had to do was to tell our story around one key metric performance ?

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 159

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. Labels: customer development , split-test 7comments: Editor said.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

” Blank’s main innovation here is what he calls Customer Development, which is a methodology for learning and validating market needs through detailed customer communication and follow up. These metrics should be reviewed at least monthly in a regular planning meeting with key business partners and employees.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147