Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 24, 2014

by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. Do you want the product, or does your target market want the product? When I began developing the customer search engine SocialCentiv using Twitter, I envisioned the project as an add-on to our already popular SocialCompass. A DUI lawyer? Didn’t think so.

Fractional CTO 228

Fractional CTO Product CTO Hire Merger 228

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Two conditions that do matter to your startup’s out-year viability are the cost and length of its product development cycle. Startup founders counting the days until break-even or actively seeking outside capital must focus on streamlining their development cycles. Full treatment of product components and functions.

Cost 100

Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

femgineer.com

JULY 18, 2010

HOME About the Femgineer Speaking Engagements Reading List Recruiting Startup Engineers With the startup market taking off, there is always a clamor to find good engineers, developers, and designers. Engineers love to build, solve tough problems, and make progress. When to start recruiting? Sweat equity or salary?

Engineer 41

Engineer Software Review Startup Technical Review 41

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. Like a teenager with a million-dollar allowance and an identity crisis, a startup with too much capital and no product-market fit will become capable of making larger mistakes. How do you know you have it? It’s an art.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

With mobile development agencies and product incubators on the rise and more corporate “labs” spinning out each day, there’s no shortage of talent to help you build the next great Web or mobile app. Werdelin equates building a successful product to building a nightclub. 1) Twitter. 3) Facebook. 5) Uber.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. Waterfall Development was all about execution of the requirements document. customer relationships to create demand.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. Doing Reference Checks on VCs “Try to speak to at least one founder that the investor has worked with in a failed investment.

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Is it that some CEOs are better than others? Are their people smarter?

Incubator 420

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 420

blog.wepay.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

» 6 Things a Non-Engineer Should Know Before Founding a Web Startup By Rich Aberman Despite the obvious look of shock and panic on the faces of my WePay teammates, I recently committed my first lines of production code. Non-engineers are not “designers” by default. The 90/10 rule. Software is never finished.

Engineer 53

Engineer Software Review Web Technical Review 53

ConversionXL

APRIL 13, 2017

Jonathan Price wrote on the same Quora thread that he believes growth marketing to differ from regular marketing because it “is technology-centric and it blurs the boundary between marketing and product development.” A growth team, however, is largely overlapped with product, engineering, and design as well.

Analytics 99

Analytics Engineer SEO Channel 99

blog.wepay.com

APRIL 28, 2010

» 6 Things a Non-Engineer Should Know Before Founding a Web Startup By Rich Aberman Despite the obvious look of shock and panic on the faces of my WePay teammates, I recently committed my first lines of production code. Non-engineers are not “designers” by default. The 90/10 rule. Software is never finished.

Engineer 53

Engineer Software Review Web Technical Review 53

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2017

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. In this article we explore the unique challenges of a lean start-up and how Outsourced Product Development (OPD) can be used to overcome them. Reducing product turn time. Extending the runway. The Lean Start-Up Environment.

Product Development 153

Product Development Lean Developer Product 153

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 28, 2022

My wife and I both worked as mechanical engineers, so we wanted a name that paid tribute to our profession. Momentum is a term that is highly related to engineering, as it relates to motion and dynamics. I was required to design the logos for each of the companies. After that, we narrowed the options down to a few.

Naming 161

Naming Entrepreneur Jordan Merger 161

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 same process works in Interaction Design. Want to learn more about me? Try About the author.

Software Review 74

Software Review San Francisco Design Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. Accept that good design sometimes leads to technical debt anyway.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

But, you need to build that first product right. On the other side of the equation, there are a growing number of design, development, and digital media shops who are hungry to expand, or swap focus, to building a company that’s more than just a service shop. The founders are who need to make it all work, no matter what.

Software Development 60

Software Development Software Developers Software Developer 60

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 26, 2017

THE SPEAKERS MELANIE DISALVO Melanie DiSalvo began her fashion career in product development after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Textile Development and Marketing program. in Mechanical Engineering (Product Design) and a B.A. She received a PhD & M.S.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Technology Philippines Silicon Valley 48

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? I mean, have you seen other people?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 146

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 146

Version One Ventures

JUNE 18, 2024

A month ago, we published a post outlining our latest thesis update , “ We back mission-driven founders who are early in new areas.” In it, we expanded on the types of founders and opportunities we’re looking for: “We’re interested in those rare opportunities where a founder is creating a brand new category.

Offshore 77

Offshore Vertical Software Venture Capital 77

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

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. Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business. So my advice to CTO / Founders?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

The Startup Magazine

MAY 8, 2024

Use the pricing and specifications from the initial order to launch a new product line. This strategy puts the customer at the heart of innovation, allowing them to guide your product development. There are ways to make it less scary by defining minimum quantities and lot sizes, and the intelligent design of base models.

Artificial Inteligence 88

Artificial Inteligence Cofounder Demand Lean 88

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 22, 2024

Mati Staniszewski, CEO and co-founder of ElevenLabs, commented that their goal remains the same, “to transform how we interact with content by breaking down language and communication barriers.” As a result, they set about designing a platform that could do better. Who are ElevenLabs?

Artificial Inteligence 85

Artificial Inteligence Poland Cofounder Startup 85

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. I was an engineer on the engineering team. For one, the engineers consider the artists stupid; the artists consider the engineers arrogant. Yet talent organized improperly can lead to failure. The meeting was tense.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

These specs are handed to a designer, who builds layouts and mockups of all the salient points. Then the designs are handed to a team of programmers with various specialties. The programmers keep asking for more say in the designs and direction that they work on. First, he writes it nice and clear.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

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

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 Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." For Neopets, its simply a side-effect of their game-like product design. Thats why eBay advertises on search engines, and Facebook doesnt.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 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 29, 2013

Eric has talked often about recognizing a startup as an organization designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Most commonly, that’s uncertainty about whether you can build the product at all (what MBAs call “technical risk”) or whether anybody will use or buy it (“market risk”).

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. Anyway, thanks Stevey for your thoughtful post.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76