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. I highly recommend this book for all entrepreneurs, in startups as well as in big companies. Heres the catch. Theory of market types.

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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. Sounds very similar to agile development which is the way. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? This is a fantastic article.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. It strokes your ego. Expo SF (May. .

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 5, 2009 It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet Some people, when they start to realize the power of using data to inform their decisions, become obsessed with optimization. Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. But this is wrong, too.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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. After all, our startup is on a fixed budget.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue?

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Fundamentally, lean startups do more with less, because they systematically find and eliminate waste that slows down value creation. I want to talk specifics, and when you come right down to it, most technology startups dont have a very interesting cost structure. As a mentor of mine always says, "Startups dont starve, they drown."

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

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Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Ash Maurya is the founder of WiredReach , a bootstrapped startup that he has been running for seven years. Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, February 7, 2010 Tell your Startup Visa story Ive been promising big Startup Visa -related news on Twitter for a few weeks. Weve created a place where you can tell your Startup Visa story anonymously if youd like. There is news, its very exciting, and I still cant share it. Soon, I promise.

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San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 16, 2009 What is Lean about the Lean Startup? That foundational idea, so clearly articulated in books like Lean Thinking, is what originally led me to start using the term lean startup. The following is a guest post for Startup Lessons Learned by the legendary Kent Beck.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco. Thank you. Thanks Eric.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

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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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 31, 2009 A new way to recruit for (and find) startup jobs In my work, I come across a lot of great startups. Similarly, I get pinged by many colleagues, friends, and fans who are looking to find a job with a startup. Great startups are always hiring, if the fit is right.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

The same is true of brand-name products in almost every category (and it can be measured ). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. .

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

It’s also not a new technique here, we’ve been practicing continuous deployment for years; far longer than I’ve been a member of this startup. Heck, thats what it says right there in the agile manifesto. But, unfortunately, startups cant afford to adopt that standard. But it worked. We made it. So can you.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Yet startups rely on collective learning in order to find their way. 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. The latter is actually more dangerous.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In the summer of 1999, I started working on a startup from my college dorm. All the good domain names were taken, all the good ideas were being implemented. If Id bought just a handful of the "best of the rest" domain names that were available at the time (for a whopping $70 each), I probably could have just retired right then.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

If necessary, consider doing this under a different brand name than the one you are wedded to using. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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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. First, a caveat.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? In fact, in most situations its a bad idea for startups to synchronize these events. Most startups arent so fortunate. My answer is almost always the same: dont.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

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 ?" So how do you reconcile his success with the lean startup, which seems to suggest the opposite?" Plus, the premise of the question misunderstands the lean startup, too. And he doesnt shy away from big-bang launch events.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, January 4, 2009 Sharding for startups The most important aspect of a scalable web architecture is data partitioning. Imagine you want to store data about customers, each of whom has "last name" field in your database. But startups rarely have either luxury. Give each entity a name.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

For startups (and other innovators ), that’s a decisive advantage. The work itself, especially in startups, depends primarily on intelligence, communication, creativity and empathy. Their recent article suggests that startups led by women are actually more successful, on average, than those led by men.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

When I work with startups on improving engagement, I really try to emphasize the importance of their most powerful lever: positioning. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. I cant really tell.

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Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. Its now a technique I recommend for any web-based startup. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Ironically, meetings like this had given data and experimentation a bad name inside this company. This team had been working for many months in a standard agile configuration: a disciplined engineering team taking direction from a product owner who would prioritize the features they should work on. What a waste. And who can blame them?

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 You dont need as many tools as you think Im always excited to see someone else writing about lessons learned from their startup, and wanted to link today to Untitled - Startup Lessons Learned -- Take it with a grain of salt. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# A successful startup strives for this latter case. Successful startups don’t.

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem) Lean startups don’t optimize. When people (ok, engineers) who have been trained in this model enter most startups, they quickly get confused. In Google’s case, often in the millions of people.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Or take a recent TechCrunch article about a startup I wont name: “X billion messages sent since June 2009.&# Or take a recent TechCrunch article about a startup I wont name: “X billion messages sent since June 2009.&# The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

The lean startup methodology is based on enlisting customers as allies, which requires honesty and integrity. The following was written an actual lean startup practitioner. It was originally posted anonymously to the Lean Startup Circle mailing list, and then further developed on the Lean Startup Wiki ’s Case Studies section.

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San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 22, 2010 The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post) The Huffington Post published an op-ed on the Startup Visa movement that Ive been working on for some time. The New Startup Arms Race Americas future prosperity depends on our ability to maintain this lead.

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