Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the plus side, that means its a great deal. I think theyve succeeded.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

Chicago 178

Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 178

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

Chicago 156

Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 10, 2021

We first invested in co-founders Ben Forgan & Pat Wilbur in early 2015, when NextView led a $1.3M And early-stage VC investors have increasingly ventured beyond their backyards of SF, NYC, and Boston to more actively invest in (and in some cases relocate to) places like Miami, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities.

Chicago 136

Chicago Cofounder Miami B2B 136

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

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.&# Let’s begin with the four customer currencies. And this is true outside of games.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

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? ) He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). Eric, love the blog.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

► 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 Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazon PostRank

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. There is a distinction between product and offering.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Defective prototype code was as often thrown out (because customers didnt want it) as it was fixed (when customers did). Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything. I say this as a founder: the contribution of founders is always overestimated. The danger here is that new founders, looking at existing founders, will think that theyre supermen that one couldnt possibly equal oneself.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

And yet the key to startup speed is to maintain a disciplined approach to testing and evaluating new products, features, and ideas. As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. Techniques from lean manufacturing can be part of a startups innovation culture.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

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 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

JANUARY 30, 2009

Here are a few: We know what customers want. By hiring experts, conducting lots of focus groups, and executing to a detailed plan, the company became deluded that it knew what customers wanted. Everyone had fun; the product worked. But that was two full years before any customers were allowed to use it.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. Scalable systems are no exception - if your assumptions about how many customers youll have, or how they will behave are just a little bit wrong, you can wind up with a massive amount of wasted code.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Some startups avoid getting customer feedback for precisely this reason: they are afraid that if early reactions are negative, theyll be "forced" to abandon their vision. One such practice is to pivot from one vision to the next.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 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. bigs : @ericries says Stealth dev is a (undesirable, failure-presaging) customer-free zone. Iterating at whiteboard !=

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. And while its true that metrics sometimes can lead to a better product, in my experience just as often they had led to no insight whatsoever, like fancy reports that nobody reads or after-the-fact rationalizations (with graphs!)

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Labels: agile , listening to customers 3comments: hauteroute said.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. The report is set up to show you what happened to customers who registered in that period (a so-called cohort analysis ). This report is set up to tell you about new customers specifically. One last note on reporting.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? Slowly, over time, we optimized (or eliminated) each step in the process of becoming a customer by giving us money. SEM is a simple idea.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Rather than use boring section headers, I thought Id just quote from actual customers, in their own words. Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

As Ive argued elsewhere , my belief is that startups (and anyone else trying to find an unknown solution to an unknown problem ) have to measure progress with validated learning about customers. This was an effective approach to discovering a business by using a sequence of product prototypes to get early customer feedback.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

► 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 Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazon PostRank

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

In the early fall of 2009, as kaChing prepared for its marketplace launch, the management team showed the app—which included real time market data, SEC-grade accounting, analytics, compliance and customer management tools—to a number of investment pros to get feedback and endorsements. The response was surprisingly positive.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I thought Id share a little bit of that, too: I’ve been interested in different approaches to software development going back to 1987 when – in my first company Feld Technologies – my partner Dave Jilk and I started talking about “semi-custom software development&# (way ahead of its time).

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

► 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 Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazon PostRank

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

But first I think we need to save the product manager from that special form of torture only a waterfall product development team can create. Labels: product development 8comments: Vincent van Wylick said. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder. Similarly, 24% of all the patents filed in the US in 2006 had a foreign resident as inventor or co-inventor. For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Say you're not creating a product but doing a service? Im currently working on doing video tutorials for technophobes, and while i understand the value of customer feedback, would charging from day one still apply? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 115

Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment 115

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 30, 2008

This basic pattern is useful in all aspects of product development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 30, 2008 Refactoring for TDD and interaction design In TDD , we follow a rhythm of “test-code-refactor.&#

Software Review 74

Software Review San Francisco Design Continuous Deployment 74