Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Products can find sources of validation with impressive stats along a number of dimensions, such as high engagement, viral coefficient, or long-term retention. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

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Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2007

Attendees included Blue Nile , Postini , LinkedIn , Lifelock , Wize , Sparter , Zopa , Revver , Wikia , Flock , Vimo , Delivery Agent , Gerson Lehrman Group , Pure Networks , Zensys , Summit , T3Ci , Endeca and Nominum - a wide spectrum of companies, both in terms of stage (very early to pre-IPO) and sectors (consumer internet, software, chipsets.).

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, its easy to lose track of positioning effects when optimizing for a single metric.

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

In an over-funding environment companies are encouraged to eschew revenues in a land grab to acquire eyeballs, clicks, page views or whatever other vanity metrics give VCs the false comfort that they’re sitting on a gold mine. IPO markets had burned an entire cycle of retail stock investors and many institutional investors to boot.

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Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 7, 2008 The App Store after the gold rush I wrote earlier about the issue of distribution advantage on the iPhone. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. October 13, 2008 8:25 AM Eric said. October 14, 2008 1:05 PM Th.Khangs said.

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San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

At a high level, anything that drives virality should be free. To take your specific example about virality - why do we want to have more users sign up? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Cracking the Code

MAY 25, 2010

One of his secret: "Incentivize your marketing team on sales not leads" Jeff Jordan, CEO of OpenTable speaking about his IPO process: " Build relationships with key public investors 2-3 years before going public (Morgan Stanley, Fidelity and T. ipo process. 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 ► 2008. (11).

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

If you ask an expert in Facebook apps to come help build yours, youll usually hear the same advice: build your app for virality. Thats sensible advice; most people who have made a business on Facebook rely on the viral driver of growth. If you have a virally-growing app, you dont need the extra installs.

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San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008. The Bessemer 10 laws of SaaS - Fall 2008 Release. When we first published Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws for Being "SaaS-y" in early 2008 in conjunction with our annual invitation-only SaaS CEO Summit, we were overwhelmed with the positive response and feedback we received. Brian, Paglo www.paglo.com.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Engagement loops: beyond viral Theres a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join.

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Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer).

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, September 18, 2008 How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of iPhone-related companies lately. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. So far, I dont see any apps that have much in the way of viral distribution.

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Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 29, 2008 Q&A with an actual reader One of my favorite things about having a blog is the feedback I get in comments and by email. Luckily, the metrics helped us figure out the difference. Were looking to metrics to determine how users interact with our product.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. Any team that creates an experiment must monitor the metrics and customer reactions (support calls, forum threads, etc) while the experiment is in-progress, and abort if something catastrophic happens. It promotes rapid iteration.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. December 8, 2008 7:40 PM Allen Rohner said. Ill be mindful of your advice. :-) Allen December 8, 2008 9:30 PM Amy said.

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Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 8, 2008 Continuous integration step-by-step Lets start with the basics: Martin Fowlers original article lays out the mechanics of how to set up a CI server and the essential rules to follow while doing it. December 10, 2008 6:37 AM Anonymoussaid. March 26, 2010 8:42 AM ankur aggarwal said.

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Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? That was evident in the metrics and in the in-person usability tests. No one feature is to blame.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Assessing fit with the Wisdom of Crowds When I wrote earlier about how to conduct a good technical interview , I had only a few things to say about how to assess if the candidate fits in with the team, including this: This responsibility falls squarely to the hiring manager.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

If the viral coefficient is 0.9, Know what the success metrics are for the launch. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. keep iterating until its 1.1 before you launch.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, December 6, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part three Those startups that manage to build a product people want have to deal with the consequences of that success. Having early customers means balancing the needs of your existing customers with the desire to find new ones.

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San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Cracking the Code

MARCH 10, 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008. From our private investor experience, a breakeven in 1-2 year seems reasonable and if we look at Salesforce.com CAC ratio since its IPO, it is indeed within this 0.5-1 1st 2008 with a base value of 100.00 ▼ 2008. (11). The Bessemer 10 laws of SaaS - Fall 2008 Release. at 8:58 PM.

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Sales Software Review Marketing Technical Review 79

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 13, 2010 The Superbowl ad test I am a firm believer in the danger of vanity metrics , numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask the true relationship between cause and effect. Vanity metrics are generally bigger. Vanity metrics. The solution? Is that really news?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Tuesday, September 02, 2008. The Deutsche Bank report has a very interesting chart on the topic presenting the Free Cash Flow margins vs. the revenue growth four years post IPO for select software leaders: As you can see, with 20% Free Cash Flow margin and a 50% growth rate, Salesforce is well positioned in the pack! ▼ 2008. (11).

Software Review 48

Software Review Software Technical Review Cloud 48

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 4, 2008

Monday, February 04, 2008. A few times per year, Bessemer organizes a CxO event for our portfolio companies and we decided to focus our first session of 2008 on Software-as-a-service (SaaS). What metrics should I be using to drive a saas business? or What do I need to do to get ready for an IPO.

Software Review 48

Software Review South Korea IPO Portfolio 48

Cracking the Code

JULY 6, 2007

SaaS business metrics: why are they different? I was surprised today when I went through the NetSuite IPO filling (S1) to see that it looked very much like any Enterprise software document - not a single mention of churn or % of recurring revenues. Different models require different performance metrics. Friday, July 06, 2007.

Software Review 66

Software Review Metrics Valuation Technical Review 66

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 Getting started with split-testing One of the startup founders I work with asked me a smart question recently, and I thought Id share it. December 7, 2008 6:05 PM Cupar Garden Centre said. Labels: split-test 2comments: Greg Dingle said. link] Id love to hear what anybody thinks.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132