Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

The site visits include stops at Square (the payments startup founded by Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey), WeWork Soma (an amazing co-working space) and Pivotal Labs (leaders in Lean and Agile consulting), along with one more super-interesting location we’ll announce shortly. Thus we reduce the risk of deployments.

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Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 11comments: Peter Severin said.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Refreshing to finally see lean and agile thinking emerge in product/business-floors and not only in technology. Critical also, as the lean company/start-up can not be lean by just using lean principles in IT and not in Product Development/Management - a common misinterpretation of the Toyota Production System.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down? This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Hence, cutting corners often paid huge dividends.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team. None of it would have happened if we had plenty of cash, or were content to count our progress by traffic or product development milestones.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

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. For more on continuous deployment, see Just-in-time Scalability.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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." Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market. Agile software development.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

By continuously adjusting, we eventually build up a robust series of defenses that prevent problems from happening. This approach is a the heart of breaking down the "time/quality/cost pick two" paradox , because these small investments cause the team to go faster over time. Id like to point out something else about the example above.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

I spent some time with his company before the conference and discussed ways to get started with continuous deployment , including my experience introducing it at IMVU. They were deploying to production with every commit before they had an automated build server or extensive automated test coverage in place.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. We can choose to continue paying the interest, or we can pay down the principal by refactoring the quick and dirty design into the better design.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

We spent weeks working on this new product, racing the clock so it would be done in time for the real presidential debates. We had endless arguments internally about what features it should include, how the avatars should look, and how much it should cost. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click. I used to use $.05,

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Or, if it really was prevented, what was the opportunity cost of choosing to prevent it ahead of time? And in most situations, there is significant cost involved in negotiating over the right estimates to plug in. In other words, a principled way to combine agility with stability. How much will it cost to solve this problem now?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. 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 30, 2008

If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? And what about if deployment takes forever? In my mind, theyre racking up costs (one month for that part, two months for that other part, uh oh). Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said.

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

While some cost-cutting measures reduce that number, others increase it. In lean times, it’s most important to focus on cutting costs in ways that speed you up, not slow you down. Otherwise, cutting costs just leads to going out of business a little slower. Getting started with split-testing and the one-line split-test.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Expo SF (May.

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Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

It costs not just the time of the actual meeting, but the time getting there and back, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. A Fundraising Survival Guide [link] Raising money has a mysterious capacity to suck up all your attention.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. You can learn about customer development, and quite a bit more, in Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

[link] And - of course - going through [link] and reading up on the various different approaches different companies have (successfully) taken towards getting scalability at reasonably low cost. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

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Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We ran ad campaigns against every single product we could think of in an adjacent market space to ours. Since we were only paying per click, it didnt cost us anything to cast a wide net. We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. Expo SF (May.

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SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. [.] We will not lose on their products -- after all, most of them are global.

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. I think Drucker said it best.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. I want to talk specifics, and when you come right down to it, most technology startups dont have a very interesting cost structure. The blog is fantastic as well.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an internet connection. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Which comes to the second major principle: halt work that leads to more waste, even if it means abandoning sunk costs. Most executives, especially in startups, dont have the courage to hold their teams to a high standard for new products or features. This is a version of the andon cord technique from lean manufacturing. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Its one of the easiest ways to get leverage in your development process, amplifying the power of your team by letting you take advantage of code written by thousands of others. Its obvious that can lower your development costs, but I think its even more important that it can reduce your time to market. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Expo SF (May.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

davemcclure : amazing concepts on Continuous Development => "Cluster Immune System" @EricRies #LeanStartup @fbFund [link] dalelarson : Because most features take longer to argue and prioritize than to build. ericries #leanstartup Another new idea in the section on continuous deployment and the cluster immune system.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. I cant really imagine how much it cost our "grownup" counterparts at other dot-com startups to get their first app up and running. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

In this post I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of how to integrate continuous integration into your team, and how to use it to create two important feedback loops. First, a word about why continuous integration is so important. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Most importantly, I encouraged the leaders of the company to bring awareness of the business challenges to the product development team. Great post, Eric. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Yet in every situation where I have asked, nobody has been tasked with making a realistic estimate, either of the impact of this lack of training or the real costs of the solution. Remember that the cost of the solutions is proportional to the problem caused. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

These are the big questions Ive heard over and over again as Ive traveled presenting the lean startup methodology: "Sure, sounds great for a five-person team, but how can such a fast-paced development process scale? Doesnt the communication overhead of a large team lead to chaos of overlapping experiments and continuously-deployed bugs?" "If

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

If it costs $0.10 to acquire an early adopter, how much should it cost to acquire a mainstream customer? Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102