YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. Talented product developers. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. Are you ready to grow your company? That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? When we build products, we use a methodology. But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit."

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

David Teten

JULY 9, 2012

We are thus more likely to befriend those people, we are more likely to develop strong ties to them, and even eventually to marry one of those people. [1] Often, when startup founders first assemble teams, they hire familiar people – either people they know, or people like them.

Hiring 128

Hiring Technical Review Affiliate Audience 128

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

My original post was directed at hiring managers. It said that I didn’t believe it was a good idea to hire job hoppers. My view still stands – for many hiring managers a large factor in looking through resumes of somebody who is 30+ and has never worked somewhere for more than 18 months will be the job hopping element.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 20, 2024

One increasingly popular strategy is to hire a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO). Early-stage startups often operate with tight budgets, making it impractical to hire a full-time CMO. Hiring a full-time CMO, according to Salary , can cost your startup around $360,672 a year.

B2B 148

B2B Hiring Salary Early Stage 148

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. It’s hard to believe these are the methods and tools of a profession designed to attract and persuade us to become customers — especially when “we the buyers” increasingly ignore them. Pushy salespeople.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers. Do you want the product, or does your target market want the product? If you aren’t 100 percent confident in your ability to deliver a vital product to your market, you haven’t done enough research.

Fractional CTO 228

Fractional CTO Product CTO Hire Merger 228

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

In the last decade, SaaS (Software as a Service) has become a very popular model for new software product development. The largest cost component of establishing a SaaS company is product development costs. This includes the design, development, launch, and enhancement of the SaaS application. .

Cost 158

Cost Developer Azure Churn Rate 158

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. Hold the phone far away from your ears.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2012

There are unknowns at every turn, leading product development, attracting customers, managing cash, and dealing with human resources and office politics. The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases.

Advisory Board 240

Advisory Board Forecast Early Stage Product Development 240

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do. They hire key staff.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2011

There are unknowns at every turn, leading product development, attracting customers, managing cash, and dealing with human resources and office politics. The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases.

Advisory Board 232

Advisory Board Startup Forecast Early Stage 232

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

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. You can imagine how well that worked. On the plus side, that means its a great deal. I think theyve succeeded.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 17, 2018

As a new entrepreneur or business owner, the most important thing you will do is hire talent. Hiring = Sales. Robert Metcalfe, co-founder and CEO of 3Com, says you need to think about it as “recruiting, not hiring”. impactful work (we point to specific features that are being used by 100s of customers) and 3.

Cofounder 164

Cofounder Elevator Pitch Hiring Dividend 164

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

A virtual assistant (VA) is a remote worker hired to complete tasks you should not be doing as the founder of a startup. In an ideal world, when a customer wants a new hosted account they would fill out a web form with all of their information and their new hosted version would be ready in 30 seconds. After your product launch.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

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. Founders Need to Run the Company Longer. The founders.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Let’s begin with the four customer currencies. And this is true outside of games.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 12, 2020

Different ways of working are better suited to different industries and business sizes, so it’s crucial to consider these sorts of things before you begin hiring or go to market. Also known as a system on module, SOM offers companies a unique strategy when it comes to developing products while keeping customizability fully possible.

SCRUM 147

SCRUM Software Review Technical Review Differentiation 147

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

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

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Who should you hire? In a way, you can think of BD as “sales when you don’t know what the product is yet.” It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. How are you ever going to get it done?

PR 152

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 152

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Transformify

MARCH 14, 2020

Typically, these remote jobs did not require advanced skills – data entry jobs, image tagging, image labeling, customer support, online call centers, telemarketing, online surveys and the like. So, who benefits the most from work from home jobs and diversity hiring programs? Work from home jobs & Hiring Neurodiverse People.

Hiring 75

Hiring Bulgaria Italy Spain 75

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. There is a distinction between product and offering.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

Assume you already know what your customers need and want. Just because you love a new solution doesn’t mean your customers will love it. Before spending any money, make sure you interact directly with potential customers, industry experts and investors. Hire helpers in lieu of people who are smarter than you.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Forecast Angel Investor 120

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 13, 2017

Consider the marketing and product development required to walk through each step. Hiring a professional marketing team may be worth the expense in some cases. It may even reduce the need to hire more staff, providing additional financial savings. Consider where you want your business to be in two, three and five years.

Small Business 157

Small Business Developer Social Media United States 157

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They close on the $750k, hire a buddy or two, buy some Macs, and get to work. ASC starts building product, but as they get into the thick of it, the team realizes executing on their vision is going to be extremely hard. Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited.

Burn Rate 155

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 155

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 4, 2024

Examples of Goals Increase Market Share: By expanding your product line, aim to capture 10% more of the market within two years. Customer Satisfaction: Improve customer satisfaction scores by 15% in the next year through enhanced support and product improvements. Positive cash flow is essential for business expansion.

Technical Review 146

Technical Review Agile Audience Employee 146

Up and Running

JANUARY 3, 2019

Here’s the simple truth of business: Without customers to buy your products, you’re not going to make any money. Many businesses develop personas to help them make the right choices as they start, grow, and advertise their business. What if the target customer isn’t you? Buyer (or customer) personas.

Software Review 130

Software Review Product Development Portland Technical Review 130

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. The report is set up to show you what happened to customers who registered in that period (a so-called cohort analysis ). This report is set up to tell you about new customers specifically. One last note on reporting.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168