Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2019

It has proven to be a huge customer growth engine, and now has over 100 million members globally. They help hiring managers raise the bar for every interview. For example, when delivery costs and delays were still a major online sales hurdle, Amazon Prime membership was invented to offer free next day shipping.

Global 308

Global Marketing Technical Review Algorithm 308

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 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 4, 2010 Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Kent Beck will give the opening keynote at the Startup Lessons Learned conference on April 23. Labels: sllconf Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Kent Beck will give the opening keynote at the Startup Lessons Learned conference on April 23.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

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. This engineering manager is a smart guy, and very experienced.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

While platforms like Instagram offer a great starting point, the key to differentiation lies in the age-old strategy of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 6- Hire an attorney and SEO expert Photo Credit: Priscilla Christine When establishing your business, there are several essential tips to keep in mind for long-term success.

eCommerce 127

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 127

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 20, 2019

Startups tend to put a premium on being “agile,” but that doesn’t always work – and certainly won’t replace the effective collaboration a business needs to grow. For example, we worked with a company and observed that each release required eleven engineers. Series B: Hiring and Developing Managers.

Technical Cofounder 104

Technical Cofounder Burn Rate Seed Stage Cofounder 104

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

I worked with engineering to try to find product/market fit ( big endian or little endian ?) and get the chip designed into companies building engineering workstations – powerful personal computers, all while trying to refine how to find the right markets, customers, and sales process. I was devastated. Loss of Community?

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2017

The other departments gave the same type of logistical answers; the product-marketing department, for example, said their job was to get the product specs from engineering and write data sheets. But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. Educate our sales channel(s).

Startup 310

Startup PR Public Relations Channel 310

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

If you want app development that is both affordable and efficient, you need to know how to hire programmers to do the job. The best way to plan your app development is to know how to hire the best app developers for your project requirements. Where to Hire Developers for Your Project. How to Hire Remote Developers.

Developer 93

Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Who can I hire later? For medical devices it might be mechanical engineering, clinical trials, regulatory approval, freedom to operate (intellectual property) and figuring out a reimbursement strategy. Therefore the ideal medical device team might be a physician; engineer; operator; business development/financial analyst.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

www.bothsidesofthetable.com

MAY 13, 2012

Want to Know Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? This time I thought I’d try and address engineering talent. Often I’m asked by startup CEO’s about how to best build an engineering team. You still have some leeway to hire above them if need be. Raising Venture Capital. Angel Topics.

Fractional VPE 89

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Fractional CTO CTO Hire 89

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 10, 2012

They need to be able to know the key Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder , figure out where/when/how to bring on development talent ( Hiring Developers Before Product/Market Fit? , Another avenue is looking for CTOs/VP Engineering via LinkedIn. But they are having a tough time getting it all the way done.

Technical Review 332

Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 332

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

The benefits of customer and agile development and minimum features set are continuous customer feedback, rapid iteration and little wasted code. Ironically it becomes the antithesis of agile. He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. In reality this is a fools choice.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 8, 2021

You can hire more salespeople and practice social selling. . There are countless strategies to consider employing here, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, and even traditional advertising are all viable options. . Adaptability/Agility . Marketing/advertising channels.

Startup 127

Startup Retention Acquisition Agile 127

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Lean Startup at Agile Vancouver April 21st A surprising number of respondents in the latest Lessons Learned survey hail from one of the flourishing startup hubs in Canada. Combining agile development with customer developm. And when did there get to be 3000 of you?

Agile 60

Agile Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. It is a very different skill than science, engineering, or management. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Recently, I’ve been working with a few of our portfolio companies to help them think about how to recruit and interview their first analytics hire. When to make your first analytics hire. So when should you start thinking about your first analytics hire? What to look for in your first analytics hire.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

femgineer.com

JULY 18, 2010

HOME About the Femgineer Speaking Engagements Reading List Recruiting Startup Engineers With the startup market taking off, there is always a clamor to find good engineers, developers, and designers. Engineers love to build, solve tough problems, and make progress. Motivating Them Engineers are motivated by a variety of things.

Engineer 41

Engineer Software Review Startup Technical Review 41

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. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

GE’s performance in implementing Customer Development gives lie to the tale that only web startups can be agile. And they’ve being doing this while driving product cost down and performance up. Corporate elephants can dance. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

Hiring the wrong person for key company positions can cost a business thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars and man hours. This is especially true when it comes to tech companies hiring the wrong chief technology officer. Hire someone well-versed in communication between developers, customers and team members.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Transformify

DECEMBER 12, 2019

The first was a shakeup in our software engineering team, which was originally based out of New York City. Adeel established a team in Lahore and we all did Agile training together to formalize a working relationship. In this case, other than our software engineering team in Pakistan, we hadn’t yet worked with anyone remotely.

Wyoming 64

Wyoming Pakistan Software Engineering New York City 64

VC Cafe

AUGUST 2, 2022

On the infrastructure side, Epic owns ‘Unreal Engine’ the second most popular 3D graphic engine, and creator of MetaHumans, a digital twin rendering software that can be used to create hyper realistic characters to ‘populate’ the Metaverse. The largest and most popular 3D engine has big plans for the Metaverse.

IP 206

IP Cofounder Valuation Acquisition 206

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Companies are great at improving their existing business model and value propositions, but fall short when it comes to inventing entirely new business models, value propositions, and growth engines. The latter requires speed and agility. This happens because managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future.

Non-Compete 329

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 329

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The best are agile and know how to pivot – make a substantive change to the business model while or before their market has shifted. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these. Execution and Organization of Core Businesses.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The best are agile and know how to pivot – make a substantive change to the business model while or before their market has shifted. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these. Execution and Organization of Core Businesses.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

” I first witnessed this many years ago when I was an engineer for HP, building platform and tool technology products for “the enterprise.” In IT mindset companies, you usually find very slow, heavy, Waterfall processes, even when the engineers consider themselves Agile. I call this problem “IT Mindset.”

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Product Development Diagram 1. Where Are the Customers?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Venture Chronicles

AUGUST 2, 2013

I have covered a couple of topics in this series, the first being hiring the best people and the second organizing for success based on the attributes of the people you are hiring. engineers paired would jump from frontend to backend erratically at each sprint iteration.

Product 62

Product CTO Hire Architecture Startup 62

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 18, 2011

and moved from delivery to architecture and developer evangelism to make sure that new hires don't have to have the same bad experiences we all had to go through until companies started appreciating the internet as a platform. QA can look at stuff built just hours before and give feedback by the time the engineers return to work.

Europe 139

Europe India Hiring Engineer 139

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 21, 2015

Search engine impersonators are bots that pretend to be crawling a website in an attempt to index it and find useful links. Most website owners are more than happy to have the search engine bots (googlebot and bingbot, to name a couple) browsing their website all day long. It is evidence to the agility of DDoS attackers.

Search 100

Search Engineer IP Reputation 100

Transformify

MAY 28, 2018

Though we’re a big team overall, each project is made up of small teams to remain agile and maintain good communication. sockets, TCP connection) • Shader programming • Unreal Engine. About us At Scopic Software, we have over 250 employees in over 30 countries all comfortably working from home/remotely.

Developer 40

Developer North America Java Software Review 40

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

The team hired only the best and the brightest. I was an engineer on the engineering team. For one, the engineers consider the artists stupid; the artists consider the engineers arrogant. Meanwhile the drawbacks of functional departments can cause real and lasting harm. The meeting was tense.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

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. You can also download our presentation, " Just-In-Time Scalability: Agile Methods to Support Massive Growth." Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

SVPG

DECEMBER 15, 2012

The past several articles have discussed the nature of Continuous Discovery and Dual-Track Agile. In this article I'd like to discuss another dimension of working effectively in an Agile environment, which is how we manage commitments. I've written earlier about this situation (see www.svpg.com/your-business-plan-is-wrong ).

Agile 63

Agile Management Engineer Software 63

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Their engineers hated us. Engineers as Salesmen I thought (and still do) that this sales guy walked on water.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138