YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. As a startup owner, what can you do to improve your chances? Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. The best entrepreneurs manage cash flow ruthlessly and never delegate decisions about spending money. They understand startup realities.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

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

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Capturing and analyzing data enables companies to get insights that benefit their companies in cost-saving, relevant marketing, product development, etc. Instead of pursuing management and business studies, students are more interested to know how to become a data analyst.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Forecast Analytics Social Media 150

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. The best entrepreneurs manage cashflow ruthlessly and never delegate decisions about spending money. They understand startup realities.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

Software Development Process via Wikipedia. Even when your startup is a one-man show and lots of fun, a “business” needs some discipline and controls to keep it from being defined as a hobby by investors, and assure some financial return. Product development process. Manage human resources.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

This philosophy comes from The Lean Startup methodology , which relies on testing hypotheses to better understand your customers’ pain points and goals. It outlines four major growth strategies: market penetration , market development , product development , and diversification. Product development.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Its a key lean startup concept.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

When you see startups like SpaceX and Pinterest grow from a low valuation to a billion dollars in just a few years, it’s easy to assume that if you just keep doing what you are doing, you can get there as well. Switch your focus from product development to sales. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

The number of startups rose in 2015 for the first time in five years, with the largest year-over-year increase in two decades. Who would not want to joint the unicorns (recent startups with a current valuation of over $1 billion)? Successful startup teams today have a mix of remote employees, freelancers, and contractors.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2015

It’s no secret that setting goals is critical to achieving any kind of success, and making sure they’re realistic and measurable is vital to maintaining momentum and motivation, especially in the startup game. The challenge for most startups is that they don’t just have a few goals — they have every goal. How OKRs Can Help.

Agile 100

Agile Startup Cofounder Metrics 100

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, October 5, 2008 The product managers lament Life is not easy when youre working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. Frustration is mounting.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. And why is the engineering manager suffering so badly?

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 18, 2024

Guest Author: Shagun Malhotra , Founder of SkyStem LLC An area on the financial side of startup growth that is often left by the wayside is the balance sheet. And this can cause significant problems for startups if they don’t address it. Let’s take a look at what a balance sheet is and why it holds for startups.

Balance Sheet 121

Balance Sheet Startup Early Stage Equity 121

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Very few startups are cash-rich enough to self-finance aggressive second-stage growth. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth. Switch your attention from product development to sales.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2021

Most business managers preach that the key to success is holding employees accountable for actions, but I have found that successful entrepreneurs are all about holding themselves accountable. As a startup investor, I view any evidence of a victim mentality as the kiss of death. People deliver excuses rather than results.

Leadership 410

Leadership Employee Metrics Restful 410

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Have you developed any vision of a product development strategy? And keep in mind that the best option is to develop at least 5 domain names connected to your brand’s name to find an unoccupied domain. At least 6 team members should participate in your product development. What slogan do you see there?

eCommerce 113

eCommerce Software Developers Software Development Hosting 113

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. Let’s start with the startup personality attributes. for my more expansive definition).

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 The lean startup Ive been thinking for some time about a term that could encapsulate trends that are changing the startup landscape. After some trial and error, Ive settled on the Lean Startup. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

by Lu Zhang, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund. In the startup world, opportunities are fleeting, and obstacles are ubiquitous. You could have a compelling pitch and a proven track record of success, but if you’re an agtech startup and the VCs you’re talking to specialize in healthcare, you won’t get anywhere.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

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. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant.

San Jose 262

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 262

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, January 7, 2010 Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? My explicit goal in working with HBR is to foster a dialog between entrepreneurs and more traditional general managers. Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? - Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Without further ado.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? But I dont think most startups really have a need for someone to do that on a full time basis. So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

In the last few years we’ve recognized that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. We’re now learning that companies are not larger versions of startups. But paradoxically, in spite of all their seemingly endless resources, innovation inside of an existing company is much harder than inside a startup.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. Rob Bailey is the CEO of DataSift. You should read it. It is really working.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board Fractional CTO CTO Hire Los Angeles 365

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Successful entrepreneurs start with a customer problem, and develop a solution, rather than the other way around. They build a startup culture of working for customers rather than pushing a product. Develop market insights and a growth vision far beyond today. Manage by metrics rather than by crisis and emotion.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Metrics Hosting Leadership 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, June 2, 2010 The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review) I continue my series for Harvard Business Review with the Lean Startup technique called Five Whys. Five Whys has its origins in the Toyota Production System. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 22, 2015

With our investors we communicate at regular intervals about financial performance, business intelligence data, strategy, site metrics, and operations. We involve every person who works here in product development, strategy, and goals and then we share with them the results of those efforts.

Small Business 48

Small Business Startup Metrics Salary 48

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

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Building a new startup hub Last week, I had a unique opportunity to spend some time in Boulder at the behest of TechStars. It was a great experience to see a relatively new startup hub in action - and thriving. Their model looks like a key ingredient in the startup brew there.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

I’m sure you have all seen entrepreneurs and startups with great ideas that never seem to live up to their potential, while others with more mundane solutions seem to take off quickly and never slow down. If you tell me that you have been working on your startup for two years, but can’t quite quantify the progress, I’m not impressed.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Agile Social Media Metrics 308

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.

Lean 146

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

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

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

As part of a startup business, you’ll know that there is no greater desire to win your first customer or your tenth customer. As a founder of a startup myself (we’re six years old now, in fact), I know those feelings all too well. We don’t have any traditional metrics in our customer support team. So, the cycle continues.

Customer 60

Customer Retention Startup Metrics 60