Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

Big company powerhouses, like IBM and Xerox, took fifty years to make the cycle, but new companies today, in the age of the Internet, often make the cycle in five to ten years, or even less. In the classic book, “ Fish Can’t See Water ,” Kai Hammerich and Richard D. The challenge during this phase is to stay innovative and agile.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In addition to presenting the IMVU case, we tried for the first time to do an overview of a software engineering methodology that integrates practices from agile software development with Steves method of Customer Development. Ive attempted to embed the relevant slides below. What about a hardware business with some long-lead-time components?

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Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Boyd emphasized the importance of agility in combat: "the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than ones opponent." Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster. This speeds up the Ideas-Code-Data feedback loop.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member. Technology Cycles Measured in Years.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Its my understanding that at one point (if not currently) Time-Life books did essentially this for their book series. They would make commercials about a new book series, and then run the commercials at times when the TV rates were low (late night, UHF channels, etc) If they got enough orders, they then decided to print the series.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2019

The vast majority of recent innovation research has focused on entrepreneurs: why are they more innovative and agile than larger organizations? What does it mean to be an “agile” leader or a “purpose-driven” leader who can inspire people to act innovatively? Organizations. Entrepreneurs.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Go on an agile diet quickly. More on that in a moment.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

In the meantime his two books, The Monk and the Riddle and Getting to Plan B are both a must-read. In the meantime his two books, The Monk and the Riddle and Getting to Plan B are both a must-read. There are so many more people to thank: Sarah Milstein and the Web 2.0 No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. Luckily, I now have the benefit of a forthcoming book, The Principles of Product Development Flow. Sounds very similar to agile development which is the way. For software, the easiest batch to see is code. (I Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

I place them roughly in this order: Movies > Television > Books > Music > Magazines > Radio > Newspapers Each industry is watching the one in front of it sink into the quicksand. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Ever-more artists and authors are petitioning them.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Last, Ive tried to keep this blog updated with events , slides , audio , video and books that are helpful as well. Last, Ive tried to keep this blog updated with events , slides , audio , video and books that are helpful as well. Have a favorite who I overlooked? Please share in a comment. Did I miss anything? Did I miss anything?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

When I first encountered agile software techniques, in the form of extreme programming , I thought I had found the answer. I explained it to people this way: agile lets you make the trade-offs visible to whole company, so that they can make informed choices. Even worse, agile wasnt really helping me ship higher quality software.

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Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I know plenty of people who prefer more advanced source control system, but my belief is that many agile practices diminish the importance of advanced features like branching. Its not that the idea behind them is wrong, but I think agile team-building practices make scheduling per se much less important. Youd better. Expo SF (May.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2019

Big company powerhouses, like IBM and Xerox, took fifty years to make the cycle, but new companies today, in the age of the Internet, often make the cycle in five to ten years, or even less. In the classic book, “ Fish Can’t See Water ,” Kai Hammerich and Richard D. The challenge during this phase is to stay innovative and agile.

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Dilution Merger Flash Global 224

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

When I was a kid, the way I logged onto the internet for the first time (to play MUDs, naturally) was through an open dial-up console at San Diego State University. No logins, no codes, just raw uncensored internet access. I'd be interested to hear your opinion of a book we published earlier this year: "Hello World!

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Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

In the fallout from the pandemic, most founders and CEOs are in the process of completely revamping their growth models from the bottom up amid new and unpredictable consumer behavior. If you start at the end of the funnel, what you’re seeing is: number one, there’s going to be fewer people actually booking and converting.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders! Many founders dont like to hear that visionary customers are as smart, maybe even more so, than they are. Books like Crossing the Chasm are excellent, but they can be misleading. Brilliant insight. Amazing Video, great.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

One, which is described in great detail in the Mythical Man-Month (in finding that link, I discovered that today is coincidentally the exact 11th anniversary of my first purchasing that book: Jan 19, 1998), is that as you add people to a team or project, there is an increase in communications overhead that makes everyone slightly less productive.

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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.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the startup, it's time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. The process, which Blank detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany," uses customer feedback to refine and improve a product before scaling a business.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Imagine a general manager that has read The Innovator’s Dilemma and related books, and is therefore trying hard to help her organization make a transition to a new product category via disruptive innovation. For a change of pace, I’ll take an example from a startup inside a large enterprise. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2017

Big company powerhouses, like IBM and Xerox, took fifty years to make the cycle, but new companies today, in the age of the Internet, often make the cycle in five to ten years, or even less. In the classic book, “ Fish Can’t See Water ,” Kai Hammerich and Richard D. The challenge during this phase is to stay innovative and agile.

Dilution 134

Dilution Merger Flash Global 134

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you. This is not for the faint of heart.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2013

Big company powerhouses, like IBM and Xerox, took fifty years to make the cycle, but new companies today, in the age of the Internet, often make the cycle in five to ten years, or even less. In a new book, “ Fish Can’t See Water ,” Kai Hammerich and Richard D. The challenge during this phase is to stay innovative and agile.

Dilution 187

Dilution Merger Flash Global 187

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

We did our best to package as much content (including almsot a dozen books and ebooks) as well as tools and apps, into one low-priced magic offer. But I am even more excited to report that it will include a hardcover copy of my new Lean Startup book. But thats not all! And theres so much more.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Examples, theory, practical advice, links to books, counter-intuitive thinking. ► 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. 4) I would like to see more of what I've seen.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2010

Heres an excerpt: Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster - WSJ.com Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists often churn out how-to business books and fancy themselves as management gurus, but few see their methodologies adopted. Eric Ries is experiencing something different. Eric Ries is experiencing something different.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2020

Jen is the founder and former executive director of Code for America. She has been an advocate for a more responsive, a more resilient, more agile government. I was going to be writing a book in this office. I'm not writing the book but I am happy with what I'm doing in here. They co-founded it with former U.S.

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Hearpreneur

JANUARY 29, 2017

Getting things done well takes considerable testing and hinges on agile changes; striving for perfection is the opposite mentality. This is my favorite business quote because it removes all external factors and focuses on the most important one for launching a business — the founder. – Sara Blakely. Want to buy a house? #25

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Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Montana 48

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 11, 2010

Tuesday, January 12th 6:30PM Agile UX at the Economist (Waitlist only) The Economist online will share their experiences, successes and lessons learned around practicing user-centered design in an Agile development process. Electronic “books” are rapidly changing the way we read information. Is this a good idea?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2015

Big company powerhouses, like IBM and Xerox, took fifty years to make the cycle, but new companies today, in the age of the Internet, often make the cycle in five to ten years, or even less. In a recent book, “ Fish Can’t See Water ,” Kai Hammerich and Richard D. The challenge during this phase is to stay innovative and agile.

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Matching Marketing Dilution Startup 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 3, 2009

This also gives me a chance to clarify that I am no relation to the author of the classic book on positioning , Al Ries ) Next up, heres the video from my talk with Steve Blank at startup2startup. Justin Smith - Social Gaming Trends - @ Kontagent / Facebook Dev Garage from albert lai on Vimeo. Ive embedded the slides below the video feed.

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Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 104

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 9, 2009

130 posts (and dozens more that mercifully never saw the light of day), tons of comments, and, of course - you, the awesomest subscribers on the internet. If all that archive-browsing leaves you hungry for more, you will soon be able to get Startup Lessons Learned in book form. Thats the internet for you. Let me summarize.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 84

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. When money is tight, when there aren’t dollars to redo mistakes, you look for processes that allow you to minimize waste.

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Research in Motion (RIM).

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

That foundational idea, so clearly articulated in books like Lean Thinking, is what originally led me to start using the term lean startup. For those whove heard it, it contains a length discourse on the subject of agile software development and extreme programming, including its weaknesses when applied to startups.

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