2010, CTO, Customer Development and Product Development

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering.

CTO

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, October 4, 2008 About the author ( Update January, 2010: This post originally dates from October, 2008 back when I first started writing this blog. Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) Blew my mind.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Sometimes we have the attitude that the Product Development team is the one responsible for Activation and Retention (hey, a great product would do that naturally) or that the Marketing team is responsible for Revenue and Referral (hey, go get me some money or free customers already).

San Francisco

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean

He's Only in Field Service

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. It’s one of the subtle distinctions that at times gets lost in the process.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development

Top 57 Online Startups Meets Technology Meets Product Posts for November 2010

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. When It’s Darkest Men See the Stars - Steve Blank , November 24, 2010 When It’s Darkest Men See the Stars. but: Something is Still Missing.

Technical Review

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Labels: Test-driven development 0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?) Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot (The following guest post is a new experiment for this blog. “Everybody felt the burden of supporting all those transactions every day,&# says Pascal-Louis Perez, kaChing’s CTO. That all-hands lasted five minutes. says Rachleff.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

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. May 30, 2010 1:34 AM Poker Workout said. Its incredibly hard to do.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment

On deployment

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Labels: continuous deployment 0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: Test-Driven Development as andon cord

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Labels: Test-driven development 0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

San Francisco

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC

Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?) Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean

Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

0comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?) Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

How to Usability Test your Site for Free

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Read more at How to Usability Test your Site for Free | Noah Kagans Okdork.com Labels: listening to customers 1 comments: HKagan said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: Greasemonkey compiler

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Waves of technology platforms

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

You can turn your entire application infrastructure investment into a pay-as-you-go variable cost, and bring new products to market at speeds an order of magnitude faster than just 10 years ago. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? 1 comments: flixsterwidgettest said.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

This is a good sign for you! :) I subscribed because I was inspired by the O'Reilly video, and feel I want to go deeper into the customer development field. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Not crossing the chasm

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

For readers concerned about the chasm, I recommend reading Seth Godin's thoughts on "Being remarkable" and finding a unique edge/twist for your products and marketing (edgecraft). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Thoughts on scientific product development

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. I agree with the less is more product development approach, but for a different reason. Now that is fun.

Product Development

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. The more work youve sunk into a product or vision, the harder it is to let it go. As the CTO/VP Engineering, I was the worst offender. Ajay January 24, 2010 6:15 AM Matthew Ogston said. This is an old post from 2009.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile

Fear is the mind-killer

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

where an initial bad impression affects a significantly larger percentage of potential customers. Im an ex-Googler, and now a CTO of a small company with lots of talented people ([link] I discovered your site not long ago, and I am learning a lot from it. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

Continuous Deployment

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean

Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. A really good technology executive can notice problems like the ones Im talking about today and address them proactively. The trick is to hire a good one - I wrote a little about this in What does a startup CTO actually do? I would love to have an effective CTO or VP of Engineering to manage me.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customer development to online marketing. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

SEM

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

April 27, 2009 10:55 AM Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

Distribution

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Great open source scalability tools from Danga

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

October 13, 2008 9:44 PM Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

Open Source

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Lessons Learned: The lean startup comes to Stanford

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup

Lessons Learned: Q&A with an actual reader

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

You don't need as many tools as you think

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

April 23, 2009 6:15 PM Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?)

San Francisco

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment

Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life?

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" => I have not bothered to put up a landing page, survey to test customer demand, or done any customer development whatsoever. "Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life?" 24 Comments • Nov 8, 2010 I love this answer. Yishan Wong • Nov 8, 2010 lol.if

Developer

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder

The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Software Company

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Another great way to test your idea is to create a minimum viable product, or MVP. This is the simplest version of your product minus the frills and frosting. It’s a particularly popular strategy in the world of product development and is used to quickly and quantitatively test a product or a product feature.

Software Review

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast

From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Everything Seth said is absolutely spot on, except I’d encourage founders to make sure they do some customer development (even in the consumer space) in parallel to cranking out the first product. Will be looking forward to seeing the next piece that you do. Andrew Holt I love these kinds of articles.

Technical Review

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review

What is the perfect startup team?

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

14 Comments • Nov 15, 2010 +1 for use of Platonic. D Craig Montuori • Nov 15, 2010 My original comment (asked as an answer): Well written, good points. Anon User • Nov 15, 2010 Ryan another thing you can do if you like is to vote up this answer, which will also show your endorsement of it.

Technical Review

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder

Lessons Learned: Why PHP won

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

In my role as a CTO, Ive always tried to choose the right tool for the right job. I am CTO of a SaaS vendor, and we use PHP. February 17, 2010 3:59 AM Jared said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? I certainly dont. January 17, 2009 1:37 AM Anonymoussaid.

PHP

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned: About the author

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

He's Only in Field Service

Top 57 Online Startups Meets Technology Meets Product Posts for November 2010

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

On deployment

Lessons Learned: Test-Driven Development as andon cord

Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class

Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

How to Usability Test your Site for Free

Lessons Learned: Greasemonkey compiler

Waves of technology platforms

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Not crossing the chasm

Thoughts on scientific product development

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Fear is the mind-killer

Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone

Lessons Learned: Great open source scalability tools from Danga

Lessons Learned: The lean startup comes to Stanford

Lessons Learned: Q&A with an actual reader

You don't need as many tools as you think

Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life?

The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Software Company

From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

What is the perfect startup team?

Lessons Learned: Why PHP won

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