Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Four Steps primarily centers its stories and case studies on B2B hardware and software startups.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

If engineers want more time to spend making their old code more pretty, they are invited to do so on the weekends. The idea is that once we move to the new system (or coding standard, or API, or.) The current code is spaghetti, but the new code will be elegant. Its become "legacy code" and part of the problem.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This required convincing software vendors to move their applications to our unique machine architecture. Oh, and we had no installed customer base. I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. – was his job.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 332

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

The product or website (be it software, e-commerce, or a service) might be awesome , but if it puts itself in front of the wrong market, or packages itself so the right market can’t figure out why it’s awesome, the startup will fail. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development?

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Integration risk is the term I use to describe the costs of having code sitting on some, but not all, developers machines. It happens whenever youre writing code on your own machine, or you have a team working on a branch. It also happens whenever you have code that is checked-in, but not yet deployed anywhere.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

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

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? I dont think so.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Just as the Human Genome Project aimed to crack the human code, the Startup Genome Project hopes to be able to drill down into some of the details of what it's calling the "innovation code.". More than 90% of startups fail, due predominantly to self-destruction rather than competition.

Software Review 157

Software Review Merger Cofounder Startup 157

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Freshman Salesman writes: I’ve read somewhere in your blog about how you had a very large organisation as the first customer for your software. I’m putting myself in the same boat now with the solution I’m developing so could you tell me: 1. How did you reach out to your first customer?

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. I know that their are independent software companies now focused on this like UserVoice and Get Satisfaction.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 30, 2008 Refactoring for TDD and interaction design In TDD , we follow a rhythm of “test-code-refactor.&# This basic pattern is useful in all aspects of product development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Software Review 74

Software Review San Francisco Design Continuous Deployment 74

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

That died with waterfall software development. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Ditto for enterprise software companies. It’s “lifetime value&# of a customer. Each quarter you should review your model.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

They failed due to: the dearth of deals in the region that have IPO potential and. Today it’s dominated by capital efficient software, web and mobile startups whereas 10 years ago it was dominated by semiconductor and hardware startups that consumed huge amounts of capital before their first dollar in revenue. Build $10-30M funds.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The Torch program created Innovation Clusters by creating national Science and Technology Industrial Parks (STIPs), Software Parks, and Productivity Promotion Centers. In addition to the 54 Science and Technology Industrial Parks, the Torch program also set up an additional 32 Torch Program Software Parks. Venture Guiding Fund.

Programming 287

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 287

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

We were modernizing datacenters, buying vulnerability-scanning software, and adding intrusion detection appliances – all things typical of anyone running an enterprise-scale network. There are a series of formal reviews throughout the two semesters, in line with the Air Force acquisitions process. Francis Hospital. Up the hill!

Lean 271

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. Most of the ability to create a radio industry in the 1920s was due to the accident of ionospheric radio propagation. After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C.

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 302

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

When I went through their financials as part of my due diligence I realized that if they ditched their low margin disk drive products, it wouldn’t take much to make them a profitable company. They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 170

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Each specialist takes up his part of the spec (UI, middleware, backend) and cranks out code. So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. In exchange, the team agrees to show each piece of working code to the product manager for his approval.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Are These Your Slides?

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, February 11, 2009 The free software hiring advantage This is one of those startup tips Im a little reluctant to share, because its been such a powerful source of competitive advantage in the companies Ive worked with. Especially for a startup, not taking maximum advantage of free software is crazy.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. When a developer wants to check-in code, this is a very scary moment.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on. Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

But there is more to technical debt than just the interest payments that come due. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. In particular, try these three things: Invest in technical debts that may never come due.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. She was an academic on leave from Stanford now selling SAAS software to large companies, but was being inundated with marketing communications advice. “My Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing.

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

Instead, buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, their social network, or just plain word-of-mouth or customer reviews. He was building a better enterprise software product, and to get the word out, he organized ‘City Tour’ events and neighborhood ‘street teams.’

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Our code pushes take another six minutes. Since these two steps are pipelined that means at peak we’re pushing a new revision of the code to the website every nine minutes. On average we deploy new code fifty times a day. Code reviews and pairing Great practices. Throwing out a lot of code.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Both of these schemes use the tax code to make it more attractive for high-net-worth individuals to invest in startups. These two developments combine to make startup investing much more exciting than it ever used to be and we have seen a massive increase in the number of individuals who want to be angel investors.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. These are probably the two sites where I've posted the most reviews.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

When I want to know about some concurrency issues between services in his cluster, he doesnt blink an eye when I suggest we get the source code and take a look. Hes just as comfortable writing code as racking servers, debugging windows drivers, or devising new interview questions. He throws off volumes of code, and it works.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

Reach out to your loyal customers and offer incentives for them to write reviews and rank services. If you run a business than offers higher priceditems, such as equipment vending, instead of requiring a 100% cash payment, leasing allows the customer to obtain the equipment they need for a manageable monthly payment.

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 17, 2010

This last line of questioning is exactly how Smart Bear came to be a company about peer code review and not "version control data mining." To answer these you have to go back and forth with customers to hack into the root cause. The closest thing to getting "outside the building" while staying inside the building.

Technical Review 245

Technical Review Sales Turkey Software Review 245

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The Torch program created Innovation Clusters by creating national Science and Technology Industrial Parks (STIPs), Software Parks, and Productivity Promotion Centers. In addition to the 54 Science and Technology Industrial Parks, the Torch program also set up an additional 32 Torch Program Software Parks. Venture Guiding Fund.

Programming 179

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 179