Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 17, 2009 Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free Im honored to announce that my Lean Startup session at the Web 2.0 Everyone else can register to come to both sessions for free, including the Lean Startup talk in the main conference. What does this mean for you?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Maybe hire an employee for $30 per hour and re-bill them at $60. Suppose you hire an employee at $60,000/year. That changes the annual cost of your employee from $60,000 to $69,000 with an associated change in hourly cost: 20 WD/month, $36/hour. Oh sure, founders work 60-80-hour weeks, but not employees. What to do?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 3, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up Last week I had a real blast meeting with the companies at the fbFund incubator at Palo Alto. The Lean Startup fbFund Edition View more documents from Eric Ries. Use some customer development to find out. Without further ado. Now for the feedback.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Insist on the incredibly high-IQ employees and hold them to incredibly high standards. Build a truly mainstream product. It never generated positive returns for its investors, and most of its employees walked away dejected. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development.

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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.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. I won’t apologize for this aspect of the Lean Startup methodology. Pivot or persevere?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

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. Joel said it: "Top notch development teams dont torture their programmers."

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

On the one hand, it gives you insight into what kind of employee the candidate might be. The technical interview is at the heart of these challenges when building a product development team, and so I thought it deserved an entire post on its own. The six key attributes spell ABCDEF: Agility.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Steve Blank has devoted many years now to trying to answer that question, with a theory he calls Customer Development. 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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 2, 2009 How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis In the lean startup workshops , we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the technique of Five Whys. My intention is to describe a full working process, similar to what I’ve seen at IMVU and other lean startups.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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YoungUpstarts

APRIL 14, 2014

As companies strive to stay agile and innovative, they’ve discovered that units of 8 to 12 people work best as the natural size of high-performance teams. This is the magic number for leadership teams, product teams, research teams, design teams, and more. Remember, lean and hungry is always better than fat and comfortable.

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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. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. I dont think so.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. Instead, five whys kept leading to problems caused by an improperly trained new employee, and wed make a small adjustment. why did that code get written?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. On October 8 at 10a PT, we’ll be talking about bringing Lean Startup methods to established companies, precisely the kinds of businesses that are most resistant to experimentation, even as they desperately need it. That''s hard. That’s Eric Ries’s job.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) 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.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

One of the most common questions I get about the lean startup methodology is, "but what about Steve Jobs ?" He doesnt put out crappy, buggy products and then ask for feedback. So how do you reconcile his success with the lean startup, which seems to suggest the opposite?" And he doesnt shy away from big-bang launch events.

San Francisco 166

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

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. At the heart of Brant and Patricks interpretation of Customer Development is their belief that its fundamental teaching is to question assumptions.

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Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

The word kanban means “signboard” or “billboard” in Japanese, and it’s a concept most commonly applied to “lean” or “just in time” production. Kanban is a scheduling system for “just in time” production. Kaizen: a way to improve all functions and all employees. See Also: Want Your Team Engaged? Then Lead Them.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

We eventually discovered (via five whys ) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. Because this was such a big cultural change for most new employees, we didnt leave them to sink or swim on their own. For one, it required us to keep our developer sandbox setup procedure simple and automated.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

In lean times, it’s most important to focus on cutting costs in ways that speed you up, not slow you down. In fact, every single lean transformation documented in books like Lean Thinking took place in the midst of serious external threats. And, of course, theres the Lean Startup session at the upcoming Web 2.0

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Anyone who has worked in a real-world product development team can tell you how utopian that sounds. 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. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

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. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. As the meeting progressed, the temperature kept rising. Expo SF (May. for Harvard Business Revie.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

This is one of the bedrock practices of any lean startup , and so its a common piece of advice I give out. Sometimes, a great hacker has the potential to grow into the CTO of a company, and in those cases all you need is an outside mentor who can work with them to develop those skills. So, fellow hackers, Id love to hear from you.

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Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

They spend so much of their time trying to convince everyone around them that their idea is great and the company is doing well: employees, investors, partners, friends, family, significant others - its a long list. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. How do they know they are making progress? Expo SF (May.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Somewhere in the dim past of the company, it too was a startup searching for a business model.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. Its different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is not something that relates to our core competence, and tends not to happen in a repeatable and scalable way. 2comments: King of the Herd said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

It has to balance competing goals of establishing clear ownership, while avoiding talented employees getting stuck. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs Pivotal Tracker – Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams. Lighthouse – Issue Tracking Tool.

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

When youve mastered that, consider adding operations, customer service, marketing, product management, business development - the idea is that when the team needs to get approval or support from another department, they already have an "insider" who can make it happen. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Thats all helpful for recruiting, retaining, and ramping-up a new employee. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Expo SF (May.

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Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

No wait, I forgot, actually the question is: What happens when employee #2 makes off with your code and roadmap and marketing data and customer list, moves to Bolivia, and starts selling your stuff world-wide at one-tenth the price? You don't have an "edge" just because you're passionate, hard-working, or "lean.". Like what??

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Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. Introducing Lean Planning: How to Plan Less and Grow Faster. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74