Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

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. Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read. I used to give copies of Four Steps out to my employees, in the hopes that it would instantly indoctrinate them into the methodology of Customer Development. Expo SF (May.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Hearpreneur

JUNE 21, 2017

My Mama, the founder of Yuca’s Hut in Los Feliz, CA, didn’t allow a lack of college degrees or a business plan to deter her from launching her dream. It’s an important quote for employees and business owners to internalize, because a company is people working toward success. I own a brand strategy agency in New York.

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Entrepreneur Africa Cofounder CTO Hire 51

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. With 21 employees today, kaChing is devoted to recruiting professional managers and finding product/market fit , first for money managers, then for consumers. The response was surprisingly positive. Thus far the results are encouraging.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Although Im not a developer, I am captivated by the lean and agile start-up model that you write about. I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. Combining agile development with customer developm. Tried it with multiple browsers. Expo SF (May.

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Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

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.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?"

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

While there are dozens of lessons I could take away from these entrepreneurs’ experiences, I want to highlight three common mistakes founders make in the early stages of a startup. There is no doubt that starting a new business is hard work. There is no doubt that starting a new business is hard work. But this is a mistake.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Software Review Balance Sheet Partner 60

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.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Agile VC

JULY 16, 2014

To these folks, Boston’s founder pool is a leaky bucket… a young founder who moves to Silicon Valley, New York, or elsewhere is a sign of frailty of Boston’s startup ecosystem. And talent flows in many directions (all three co-founders of NextView are all Silicon Valley transplants to Boston).

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Boston Silicon Valley San Francisco Cofounder 208

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. Most important slide: about the founders In a pitch meeting, try to spend as much time as possible talking about the key questions for your pitch. is it a revolutionary and novel idea? is this team the one to back? who is the customer?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

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San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

The same has been true of an unfortunate number of startups, they manage to generate a lot of hype, raise a lot of money, and sometimes make some of their investors, employees, or founders rich. Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. But did they leave the world a better place than before they existed?

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

a New York-based sizzle reel production company specializing in promotional videos for PR and marketing professionals, and the Young Entrepreneur Council. I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs what fledging tech startups should be looking for in a CTO hire to ensure founders get the right person for the job.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

They had their own private forum, and a company founder (aka me) personally ran the group in its early days. Every two months, the company would have a big end-of-milestone meeting, with our Board of Directors, Business Advisory Board, and all employees present. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. Yet absent a family obligation or something similar, nobody left until 7, 8, 9pm, or later even though we were too cheap to provide dinner for employees back then in the early days.

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Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. Not to be outdone, the technologists on the team had also brought their big guns, and the meeting was packed with employees of every level – from VP’s all the way down to me. Yet talent organized improperly can lead to failure. Expo SF (May.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. Yet absent a family obligation or something similar, nobody left until 7, 8, 9pm, or later even though we were too cheap to provide dinner for employees back then in the early days.

Startup 188

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 188

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.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Its an amazing thing when you can hire an employee who knows more about your code base than you do, and this turned out to be a big source of advantage. As a result, we were able to get started more quickly, avoid writing a ton of art path tools from scratch, and even hire from within that community. Expo SF (May.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

7:01) The importance of both customer and employee experience, brand building, and pivoting to anticipate the new normal that's coming. (9:33) 13:58) Advice for companies who think it's too late to start looking for new ways to operate, including some examples from Austin, Texas. (15:55) Stanley McChrystal's Team of Teams. (29:34)

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

We’ve just put a new batch of tickets on sale, and when this one sells out, the price goes up, so sign up now. Steven Hodas will be speaking at the conference about applying Lean Startup methods within extreme bureaucracy—in his case, the New York City Department of Education. million kids, and 135,000 employees.

Lean 162

Lean Startup Ratchet New York City 162

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. Yet absent a family obligation or something similar, nobody left until 7, 8, 9pm, or later even though we were too cheap to provide dinner for employees back then in the early days.

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Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 100

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Whether youre a US citizen or an immigrant, entrepreneur or investor, founder or employee, theres something you can do. If you are an immigrant founder who has helped build a company that has created jobs in the US, we need you to tell your story. This is especially true if you live outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley.

San Francisco 118

San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 23, 2009

► 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. Combining agile development with customer developm. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Audio 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Employees should be masters of their own time Every startup should have a culture of learning. The rule is simple: every employee is 100% responsible for how they spend their time. The suggestion is that you implement one single company-wide rule. I asked why.

Employee 146

Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review 146

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Over-communicate with employees, investors, customers. Ive also used the voluntary salary reduction tool - its particularly useful as a way to get passionate employees who dont have a lot of personal expenses to buy into the mission of the company at a deep level. Pay attention to where your cash is. Dont sugar coat. Expo SF (May.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 31, 2009

Do you know when will the final price be determined as I am really hoping i can bring my co-founders to the event as well. ► 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. Expo SF (May.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Yet, the real stories of successful startups are full of activities that can rightly be called institution-building: hiring creative employees, coordinating their activities, and creating a company culture that delivers results. The word institution connotes bureaucracy, process, even lethargy. How can that be part of a startup? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

Priority will be given to employees of companies participating in the fbFund REV program, but I am confident that there will be room for members of the general public who want to attend. I just got word that this is going to be happening this coming Thursday, June 25 in Palo Alto (in the former Facebook HQ). Expo SF (May.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

On the one hand, it gives you insight into what kind of employee the candidate might be. The six key attributes spell ABCDEF: Agility. When talking about their past experience, candidates with agility will know why they did what they did in a given situation. I was wondering if you could expand on finding a technical co-founder.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, the works. Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. We really did it well, with a great PR firm and great coverage. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

Because this radical notion of progress is located firmly in the heads of its employees, and not in any artifacts they produce, the lean startup is employee-centric and knowledge-obsessed. Its unit of progress is that of validated learning about its customers. It is a truly fun place to work. Read the rest of the article here.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002. We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Lean manufacturing , agile software development , and Theory of Constraints are all examples of this idea in action. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

For example, I often cite a real example of a problem that has as its root cause a new employee who was not properly trained. I pick that example on purpose, for two reasons: 1) most of the companies I work with deal with this problem and yet 2) almost none of them have any kind of training program in place for new employees.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164