Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Later, when the company was much larger, we had everyone on our engineering team agree to sit in on one usability test every month. It wasnt a huge time commitment, but it meant that every engineer was getting regular contact with an actual customer, which was invaluable. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

In the past two decades, they have accounted for nearly all the net job growth in our country. In the past two decades, they have accounted for nearly all the net job growth in our country. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Startups are the lifeblood of our economy.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

We started with a simple wiki page with a few bullet points of things that new engineers had tripped over recently. In response to Five Whys that noticed that not all new engineers were reading the list, we expanded it into a new engineer curriculum. We never set out to build a world-class engineering-training process.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Finding great engineers is hard; figuring out whos good is even harder. For software engineers, I think this absolutely has to be a programming problem solved on a whiteboard. I have found this quite rare in engineers. Many of us engineers are strong introverts, without fantastic people skills.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

I thought a good place to start was with the origins of the idea that "software design" should be considered a discipline in its own right, on par with computer science, software engineering, and computer programming. Great engineers see it and smile. This is called set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE). [1]

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

At Toyota , they are called Chief Engineer : Toyota realizes that the Chief Engineer job is probably the most important one in the company because the Chief Engineer listens to the customer and then determines what the functions need to do to address the customer’s desires. Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

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

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. Customer Development Engineering : techniques for accelerating your product development. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. The hardest costs to cut are those that are embodied in sacred cows.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

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

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

For example, should we invest a week of engineering time into making our website more failure-proof (which were pretty sure will pay off right away) or into experimenting with a new technology (that might pay off in months, years, or never)? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Lets get to the answers.

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.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

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. That engine of creativity has led to a catalog of something like 2 million virtual goods authored by a hundred thousand developers. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

At IMVU, when wed hire a new engineer, we could get them to ship code to production on their first day, even if they had never programmed in PHP before. Or is the cost of *other* engineering resources too high(you already alluded to some in your blog) to count pennies? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

Campaign 84

Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile 84

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

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!" Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 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. Google was not the first search engine, but it's the one that succeeded. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. In other words, companies that had delivered real value over time.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94