A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

I say "get off your ass and produce hard evidence that customers are in your future light cone? ". You repeat these mantras at Lean Startup Meetings but you're not doing it.? Since I'm my own target customer, I already know what to build.". By definition, if you're a startup founder you're explicitly not your customer.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

The Lean Startup Book launches in just under a week. I chose Amazon Web Services to be our marquee reward, and not just for the obvious reason that so many of you are - right this very moment – already hosting on AWS EC2. Almost any startup - in any industry - can use AWS to find and serve customers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Amazing lean startup resources A year ago, there was no lean startup movement. I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. If you are attempting to apply lean startup ideas in your own business - you are not alone.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

This post was written by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. We’re looking for speakers for the 2013 Lean Startup Conference. If you’re a Lean Startup veteran, feel free to skim the beginning, as this is mostly stuff you already know. Last week, we announced that our short application form was live.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. This year, for the first time, we've added a day of workshops and site visits to The Lean Startup Conference. The Lean Entrepreneur: Embrace the Unknown to Go Big with Patrick Vlaskovits and Brant Cooper.

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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. Fundamentally, lean startups do more with less, because they systematically find and eliminate waste that slows down value creation. That depends.

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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. I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. I recommend using a hosted service like SnapPages.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco. Thanks Eric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. in fact only five people converted into paying customers. The site has about 700 active paying customers. says Rachleff.

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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. If we accept the verdict of customers instead of pundits, I think these claims are easy to dismiss.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 6, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund slides and video As a follow-up to my previous post on my talk for fbFund at Facebook , there was enough interest in watching video of the talk that I have finally uploaded it using Apples MobileMe. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. .

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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. Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time.

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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? ) That institution will touch many people in its life: customers, investors, employees, and everyone they touch as well. Eventually, I came to summarize these themes with the phrase " the lean startup."

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 2, 2009 How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis In the lean startup workshops , we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the technique of Five Whys. My intention is to describe a full working process, similar to what I’ve seen at IMVU and other lean startups.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product. Lean vs. debt In the world of physical goods, the leaner a supply chain is, the less debt is required to operate it.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Great to read posts about introducing lean approaches into more teams. Im currently introducing lean to my new team. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May. for Harvard Business Revie.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Great related post by John Shook at the Lean Enterprise Institute about technical vs. social sides of problems. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Plus, as product development teams in lean startups become adept at learning-and-discovery (as opposed to just executing to spec), its clear that some bugs shouldnt be fixed. You can keep the team focused on customer-centric results, rather than conformance to spec. There are no customers for that feature, UI issues or no.

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The Next Web

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

Whether that means chasing down a technical co-founder, learning to code, or even building that “Lean MVP” – the conventional wisdom is that without tech abilities you’re nothing more than a dude (or dudette) with a Powerpoint. They’re getting their first customers with minimal technology, and often no code at all.

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

Have you tested the concept with customers using paper? Have you signed some test customers? Don't try to hunting programmers until you've pushed this as far as you can on paper and get early customers. He had a few early customers ready to go. " and start leaning to prompt them to start walking with you.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

Because the art team was considered an internal customer (and “friendly&# to boot), we didn’t waste a lot of time making the tools easy to use. Lets start holding people accountable solely for their contribution to the only thing that matters: validated learning about customers. Startups are companies. Expo SF (May. .

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Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? Slowly, over time, we optimized (or eliminated) each step in the process of becoming a customer by giving us money. SEM is a simple idea.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

As the product matured, they were able to ratchet up the quality to prevent regression on features that had been truly embraced by their customers. On the negative side, we got a visceral feel for the kinds of changes that could really harm customers, like commits that take the whole site down. And that was not a lot of fun.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2016

The cross-disciplinary class brings students from widely divergent backgrounds together in teams of three to five, each aiming to tackle a gnarly international problem vexing Foggy Bottom in just 10 weeks by applying Lean LaunchPad methodology. Guiding, drilling and grilling these teams are Jeremy Weinstein , former deputy to the U.S.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

I already advocate cross-functional teams as part of the lean startup methodology. Last year, I traveled to dozens of cities talking about lean startups and meeting people interested in entrepreneurship. I already advocate cross-functional teams as part of the lean startup methodology. None of these are impossible.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. How can established companies benefit from implementing Lean Startup? To answer that question, we hosted a webcast conversation earlier this week with Eric Ries, Brant Cooper, and Patrick Vlaskovits. What can Lean Startup do about this?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

And if youre giving them all of the information they need to understand the companys strategy, customers, and processes, you can be confident that theyll be able to apply that understanding to their current responsibilities. you dont need to worry about them suddenly going off the reservation and deliberately harming the company.

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The Next Web

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

With over $2 billion in merchant sales, Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms out there, recommended for its usability, hosted solutions, and large base of starter templates. Shopify is also a hosting solution, which means you won’t have to deal with installing software, setting up a host, and handling performance issues.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Its a gross number, not per-customer: one hit each from a million people is a very different thing than a million hits from just one person. So its reasonable to ask: whats wrong with vanity metrics, at least as a proxy for customer behavior? Its just that the declining segments customers were more valuable.

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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. Defective prototype code was as often thrown out (because customers didnt want it) as it was fixed (when customers did). Expo SF (May.

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Up and Running

DECEMBER 17, 2020

But particularly when you’re running lean and mean, you may not have native expertise in every aspect of managing a startup. Some firms specialize in research and can assist with pulling together some compelling numbers and detailed customer profiles. Marketing is one such function. What is inbound marketing?

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