Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

The net result: we sold exactly zero presidential debate avatars. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? We finally settled on a $1.99 Expo SF (May.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

How They Make Money: Groupon keeps a share of the coupon value (typically 40-50%) as its net revenue (1). in net revenue and passes $0.58 2010 Net Income: -$389M (net loss) (2). Keep in mind Groupon’s net revenue is a percent of a percent. Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. 2010 Gross Profit: $280M.

Chicago 100

Chicago North America Boston Silicon Valley 100

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. These metrics make it difficult for a company that wants to invest in long-term innovation. Startups are unencumbered by the status quo.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Some techniques that Ive found especially helpful: Build your own tracking survey, using a methodology like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to identify and get a regular check-up from promoters (and to screen out detractors). You need to foster situations where you - and everyone you work with - is likely to see feedback that matters. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

The site visits include stops at Square (the payments startup founded by Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey), WeWork Soma (an amazing co-working space) and Pivotal Labs (leaders in Lean and Agile consulting), along with one more super-interesting location we’ll announce shortly. One day, they saw that Norway just fell off the map.

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Occam's Razor

APRIL 15, 2019

During 2019, our Net Promotion Score has dropped 15 points. Bubble Kings most commonly reside in organizations where there is little to no accountability (or misplaced accountability, ex: celebration of vanity metrics). The conversion rate is down 30% at launch. You know my Care-Do-Impact model for analysis and storytelling.

Leadership 79

Leadership Non-Compete Analytics Software Review 79

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

My transition to Continuous Deployment Prior to adopting continuous deployment, I used to release software on a weekly schedule (come rain or shine) which I viewed as pretty agile, disciplined, and aggressive. With staged releases, time provides a (somewhat illusory) safety net. On the other hand, it is scary as hell. Expo SF (May.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Combining agile development with customer developm. Lets start with what I learned last time. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2019

You can see this both by looking at a cohort “layer cake” graph or by examining the net dollar retention. Slack’s net dollar retention rate is an incredibly impressive 143%. Slack’s net dollar retention rate is decreasing, but is still a long way from dropping below 100%. So Slack generated $1.43

Lock-up Period 100

Lock-up Period Retention .Net Azure 100

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

A wide net from the start, and gradual elimination of weaker solutions, makes finding the best or better solutions more likely. There's lots of information about performance and metrics out there, as well as a peer expectation that being concerned about those things is an important part of being a competent engineer. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

ConversionXL

JANUARY 14, 2020

In the case above, I used Ahrefs to find a new (hypothetical) feature opportunity for Crunchbase: the net worth of companies and people. Crawl your site on a staging environment with freshly deployed features and compare metrics like crawl depth and internal links to similar pages on the live version of your site. Know the process.

SEO 159

SEO Framework SCRUM Search 159

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

The net result was powerful: within six months of starting the company, we were able to get a basic version of our product into open beta. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Expo SF (May.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

What are those metrics? Andrew : If you are a travel company right now, I think you’re seeing very specific metrics dropping. As a result of that, all of those metrics go up. It’s immediate of what is happening and what the net result is. If you’re sitting on one of those spectrums, your job is easier.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Prescriptive analytics The digital analytics metrics you need to know How to use analytics to improve marketing campaigns Define your mission, goals, and KPIs Set key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure marketing performance What to look for in a digital analytics product 9 tools for your digital analytics stack 1. Conversion rate.

Analytics 106

Analytics Metrics Channel Campaign 106

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May.

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2018

Corporate Agility. Transparency correlates to agility (Does your CEO know how many tests you ran last month?). Understand growth accounting – new, resurrected vs churned = net growth (can also look at this at feature level, not only product). Work hard to define meaningful product metrics – enabler of team success.

Retention 106

Retention Artificial Inteligence Channel B2B 106

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

The six key attributes spell ABCDEF: Agility. When talking about their past experience, candidates with agility will know why they did what they did in a given situation. To probe for agility, you have to ask the candidate questions involving something that they know little about. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 30, 2019

A diversified marketing strategy not only serves as a safety net but is also key to the lean marketing process. The right metrics will let you know what’s working and what isn’t. This data (among other metrics) is what allows us to intelligently optimize our efforts. Poor email open rates indicate weak subject lines.

Lean 91

Lean Small Business Software Review Marketing 91

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 22, 2008 Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction Ive mentioned Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a few previous posts, but havent had a chance to describe it in detail yet. Net Promoter Score NPS is a methodology that comes out of the service industry.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2018

There are three parts to a good competitive analysis: (1) defining the metrics and identifying the competitors you’re comparing, (2) gathering the data, and (3) the analysis. You’re going to need some brand health metrics to track. This is also known as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) question. How do you begin?

Marketing 162

Marketing Charlotte Naming Design 162

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Even if it helps optimize one stage, if it slows you down somewhere else, it might not be a net win. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Because five whys kept turning up a few key metrics that were hard to set static thresholds for, we even had a dynamic prediction algorithm that would make forecasts based on past data, and fire alerts if the metric ever went out of its normal bounds. Wed never heard of five whys, and we had plenty of "agile skeptics" on the team.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

The net effect of all this was to make new engineers incredibly productive right away – in most cases, we’d have them deliver code to production on their very first day. So far, it's been a net win to keep supporting it. We never set out to build a world-class engineering-training process. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

But each keyword gets "credit" for other metrics. Parleo_ Q : what is most superficially tempting metric that is almost never worth worrying about? See #1 in this post from 2006: Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Metrics, Tips & Best Practices. My friend Matthew Tod called it Customer Analytics.

Analytics 94

Analytics Web Non-Compete Metrics 94

Up and Running

JANUARY 9, 2017

goals include “building out a new product or service within the next year” or “increasing net profit by 2 percent in ten months.” See Also: Tracking Metrics Makes You 2x More Likely to Reach Your Goals. It’s more important to be agile and take advantage of opportunities that weren’t foreseen and make adjustments,” says Morris.

Tennessee 60

Tennessee Forecast Programming Agile 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Luckily, the metrics helped us figure out the difference. Question 2: If your product has areas where people read and then different areas where people interact, are there ways to do metrics to determine where people spend their time? Were looking to metrics to determine how users interact with our product. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Of course, those were the days when 12 year old, 80% market share, $200mm, 30% net profit companies were the ones going public. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Occam's Razor

MARCH 23, 2010

Because every tool uses its own sweet metrics definitions, cookie rules, session start and end rules and so much more. If you don't kill 25% of your metrics each year, you are doing something wrong. Allow me to point out that only 50% of the metrics I love exist in clickstream tools - like webtrends or xiti or unica.

Analytics 118

Analytics Web Metrics Channel 118

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Since we were only paying per click, it didnt cost us anything to cast a wide net. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. Lets look at a specific example, and start to think through what the metrics might look like if we attempted to measure it: Customer gets a synthetic message saying: "upload some photos!" Levers of engagement Lets start with the levers of engagement.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140