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

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2019

Buzzfeed sees their quizzes shared an average of nearly 2000 times each, helping them to reach more than 580 million people in 2017. Today Boris has over 17 years of highly successful international leadership experience in sales, professional services, operations, product development and marketing in the Internet and software industry.

Marketing 147

Marketing Startup Burn Rate Advertising 147

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 7, 2013

1990s to 2000: Infrastructure, Security, Management, etc. 2000 to 2005: CRM, SFA, ERP, Payroll, Analytics, etc. Such a shift towards the social enterprise will also influence all functions from HR to Finance, Sales, Marketing, R&D, Operations, Product Development to Manufacturing.

Technology 174

Technology Singapore Malaysia Indonesia 174

Genuine VC

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

We rode the bubble wave to a successful outcome in 2000 , and after moving away for a few years which included a stint at business school , I returned back to Boston in 2004, and it felt like the web entrepreneurial community had almost entirely scattered after the crash.

Boston 206

Boston Internet Entrepreneur .Net 206

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. This was possible because in 2000, Donna and Handspring were in an Existing Market. End result?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

You want to see your product or service performing in the hands of real users. Your Product Plan must fit into context of your overall business mission. I’m never surprised when I see product development driven by engineers proceeding at top speed developing the next cool thing. How about your Marketing Plan ?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Recently the market demand has been outpacing their ability to keep up, so they turned to OneTrueFan as a means of accelerating their product development and overall growth. When there is a great fit, I love seeing our portfolio companies make acquisitions. Todd and Eric have been friends of mine for a long time.

San Francisco 115

San Francisco Acquisition Cofounder IPO 115

YoungUpstarts

MAY 28, 2013

If you are passionate about your products and services this will also come across when dealing with potential investors and clients, making them more likely to want to work with you or buy from you. Xu joined Alibaba.com Americas in 2000 and has been a leading force in its direction since day one. Make your business work for you.

Entrepreneur 191

Entrepreneur America Social Media Forecast 191

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 6, 2012

His method advocates the creation of rapid prototypes designed to test market assumptions, and uses customer feedback to evolve them much faster than via more traditional product development practices. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. For iGAP participants only. See you in Europe!

Ireland 157

Ireland North America Lean Taiwan 157

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

When you see evidence that there is this so called “product / market fit&# then you may be ready for larger amounts of capital. I think many entrepreneurs under-estimate the benefit that capital early helps in being able to produce product and differentiate yourself in a nascent marketplace. They evolve the product faster.

Pre-Money Valuation 303

Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation PR 303

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

But once the company has honed in on a strong value proposition and found initial product-market fit, what is the best approach to scaling it? With over $1 billion in revenue, 2000 employees and a market capitalization of over $6 billion, Akamai has become a role model for scalable start-ups. After all, scaling is hard. Really hard.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 17, 2015

In the 1990s when companies needed £2-5m to get a product to market they had money to hire a team of people to help them. The gaps that we most often fill are product, development, design, marketing, recruitment and fundraising. Over the last fifteen years that has become accepted best practice.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Venture Capital San Francisco Silicon Valley 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2023

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 275

Merger Analytics Open Source America 275

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2020

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 433

Merger Analytics Open Source America 433

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 16, 2018

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 276

Merger Analytics Open Source America 276

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 27, 2022

He was part of the management team that was instrumental in launching NYTimes.com’s first digital paid product and the acquisition of About.com. He was a part of the management team instrumental in launching NY times dot coms, first paid product and the acquisition of about.com. The product works incredibly well.

Community 68

Community New York Small Business New York City 68

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. Second, since it knew the solution, it went into a 8 -year Waterfall engineering development process. Motorola Dynatac 8000x ~1987. It All Came Crashing Down.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I'll add two ideas: The modern structure of university patent licensing and technology transfer works really well in the life sciences and other fields with expensive product development processes. Since 2000 we have passed a number of laws and regulations that are killing innovation in the US. Halling said.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2013

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Jerry Leven and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 239

Merger Entrepreneur Analytics Open Source 239

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2016

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 120

Merger Analytics Open Source America 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2012

One of the biggest in this decade was the merger of America Online (AOL) with Time Warner, engineered in the early 2000’s by Time Warner CEO Jerry Leven and AOL CEO Steve Case for a whopping $164 billion. They all forget or ignore the high-profile failures that have resulted from some single-handed business decisions.

Merger 235

Merger Analytics Open Source America 235

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 1, 2013

Over 13 years ago, in March of 2000, I wrote a blog post titled “ The Most Powerful Internet Metric of All. ” The best place to focus your efforts to improve conversion are within the product itself. Many product teams view web-site design as more art than science. Optimizely.

Metrics 93

Metrics Conversion Internet Acquisition 93

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Building Product 2. Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly. Would it be a good idea clubbing all the other products / services under 1 venture, because some of them are totally unrelated. I just didn’t stop.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

www.kalzumeus.com

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Virtually every production system has security bugs in it. The first reported compromise of a production system was in an industry which hit the trifecta of amateurs-at-the-helm, seedy-industry-by-nature, and under-constant-attack. First startup I worked at was in 2000, I found a compromised system and recommended exactly the above.

Security 101

Security Software Review Ruby Startup 101

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Alexia Tsotsis: Since people like me (millennials) are putting pressure on our IT departments to buy products that we can actually use and aren’t blinded by, what do you think the enterprise space will look like in the next five years? Marc Andreessen: Yeah. So that’s how it started. So that’s the big, big, big change that’s happened.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

The Startup Toolkit

JANUARY 11, 2017

Far better to do something that has a small cost, but might be hugely beneficial, for example searching for oil wells, building products, developing marketable skills, or building an audience. On any given day you expect not to make any nickels, but when something good happens, you get a lifetime supply.

Dividend 20

Dividend Finance Salary Search 20