Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

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. It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff. I think theyve succeeded. The Entrepreneur’s Guide is an easy read.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

As the conversation began to get down to how much stock and salary we could offer van Dam, we left the barber to finish his work and went to a payphone to call our CEO to confirm the deal. Unlike Intel chips, MIPS chip architecture also made it possible to plug in a math co-processor. A few days later Gordon became a founder.

North Carolina 128

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 128

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Most of the time, the experiments you run will have a zero percent conversion rate - meaning no customers were harmed during the making of this experiment. I would aim to get no more than 1o0 clicks per day - over the course of a week or two, youll get pretty good conversion data. Measure conversion rates.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

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. Ive been there: is it me or my cofounder thats crazy? Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. Iterating at whiteboard !=

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

I am grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success, especially my co-organizers Charles Hudson and David Sachs. Unfortunately, the video of our sllconf conversation is not online (due to technical problems), but we have a physical tape backup which we are endeavoring to get online soon.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. Leave a comment or reply to someone else. Fostering that dialog is important. Amazon PostRank

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Weve gone from total obscurity to something people are beginning to misunderstand and even co-opt. The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. If a relatively small number of highly-motivated entrepreneurs attend, then well have an intense and intimate conversation.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

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. If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. who is the competition? will they fail fast?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Ive had at least three conversations this week about the relationship between agile methodologies and customer development. Thats why I prefer to think of them as two co-equals: the problem team and the solution team. And credit once again goes to Nivi from Venture Hacks for sharing it with me. Amazon PostRank

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

It was actually my co-founder Will Harvey who taught me to present this data in the simple format weve discussed in this post. You need to make sure you dont get away from trying bold new things, using some combination of your vision and in-depth customer conversations to come up with the next idea to try. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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. More on that in a moment. They are close to breakeven.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%. That’s not too surprising, because our product was pretty bad in those days. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Returning to our example of the beleaguered founder who still has the pager, before hiring an operations guy, try promoting someone from within to take on the job. Given that most recruiting channels are pay-for-performance, its usually cheaper, too, because it has a lower conversion rate. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Most importantly, if you know a high-quality entrepreneur who you think would add to the conversation, would you be willing to try and convince them to attend? Would you be willing to link to the Master Class info page from your blog? Twitter about it or post it to a social media site? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 2, 2010

By all accounts, the conversation was a success. By all accounts, the conversation was a success. ► 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. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 149

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 149

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 7, 2017

The conversations usually go down the same path, ending with a you’re how old? I am the founder/coach of Never Settle Coaching, LLC a coaching business. At the same time it seemed that whenever I would have a conversation with a friend, family member, colleague, manager, executive–you name it!–about

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Green 91

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

" 8 Questions to Ask When Interviewing at a Startup - Instigator Blog , June 18, 2010 Job interviews are meant to be conversations. One of the highlights of my trip was a startup dinner which included Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37signals. It shows a lack of interest. Now I have. Productivity.

Cofounder 175

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Term Sheet Startup 175

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 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. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I think that if a web founder would come to me asking for an investment talking about how he's coding an immensly scalable, perfectly designed system, I will throw him out in an instant. Darn good - I have struggled in relevant conversations with our in house move to scrum/agile. path hence urgently pushing to release asap.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. ► 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. Most pundits and the people I ask for advice fall into one of two camps.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

The names of these once great, now defunct firms may not be terribly familiar today but here are just a few examples: American Research & Development [Boston] –> Founded by George Doriot and depending how you count it, either the first or second formal VC firm in the US. But it’s not quite that simple.

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : Still, startups develop some kind of process — whether its disciplined, haphazard, bureaucratic or empowering — because building a great product depends on it. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much?

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 28, 2010

This conference will be the first of its kind: an opportunity to have a conversation about the future of the lean startup movement. We want everyone who can contribute to that conversation to be there, regardless of their ability to pay. Im hopeful that other companies will step up and become scholarship sponsors, too.

Lean 109

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 109

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, March 6, 2010 Startup Visa update As I write this, I am traveling at 30,000 feet on Virgin Americas excellent IAD->SFO nonstop, following an intense few days of conversations in Washington, DC about the Startup Visa. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 113

San Francisco DC Washington Startup 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple. Read the rest of Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics at The Conversation on Harvard Business Review. Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple.

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Rashmi Sinha, co-founder and CEO of SlideShare , describes an early version of the analytics package that’s part of the Pro accounts the company announced today. ’&# They removed the core plan, and conversions went up. ’&# They removed the core plan, and conversions went up.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

fbFund REV featuring Eric Ries The Lean Startup Host: fbFund Type: Education - Lecture Network: Global Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009 Time: 1:30pm - 3:30pm Location: fbFund REV Garage Street: 164 Hamilton City/Town: Palo Alto, CA RSVP Here So, if you are in the Bay Area and want to swing by Palo Alto on Thursday afternoon, come join the conversation.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

How do you drop a phrase like "voluntary salary reduction tool" and then not describe it :) Unless youre simply talking about the standard "hey, take less cash and Ill give you more options" type conversation. When you said "tool" I thought you actually meant you had a tool. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It makes successful founders famous. It makes successful founders famous. It sells newspapers and magazines. It helps companies with PR.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean PR Metrics 167

ConversionXL

JUNE 20, 2019

Wistia’s analytics can help connect the dots between video consumption and conversions. Boston University used Vidyard to create personalized videos that encouraged people to promote their fundraising event, “Giving Day.”. Screen recordings upload automatically, and you get a link to share the video with co-workers or customers.

Hosting 127

Hosting Video Technical Review Software Review 127

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

A lot of conversation was about what "the federal government" should do. ► 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. Startup=Experiment. link] Amen! Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 92

San Francisco DC Washington Lean 92

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. Do it right, and your conversion rates might be as high as 20%. These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. Do it wrong, and your LTV gets very close to zero.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 1, 2009

My challenge for the new year is getting the word out about our product (AwayFind), while of course improving on conversions, etc. ► 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.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2009

Thanks so much to everyone who made the trip to SIPA and participated in the conversation, as well as to SIPA and HP for hosting me. Eric, do you have any discussions planned for the co-founding dynamics of a successful lean startup? I certainly learned a lot from the experience. Your support means the world to me.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 76

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

The two classes I taught this week at HBS, based on a case that I co-authored with Professor Noam Wasserman called "Curt Schilling's Next Pitch" (which you can order here from HBS Press ), were energized to have Schilling in the classroom alongside his CEO Jen Maclean. They can't be any worse than the Boston sports media."

Cofounder 41

Cofounder Boston Founder Internet 41