Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Building a new startup hub Last week, I had a unique opportunity to spend some time in Boulder at the behest of TechStars. It was a great experience to see a relatively new startup hub in action - and thriving. Their model looks like a key ingredient in the startup brew there.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. The same might be said of good software. Here we have the beginnings of a theory of design for software.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 9, 2009 The lean startup @ Web 2.0 Expo to explain the lean startup concept to a larger audience. The Lean Startup: a Disciplined Approach to Imagining, Designing, and Building New Products.: It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0,

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? But I dont think most startups really have a need for someone to do that on a full time basis. It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. Massive proprietary databases?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments Image via Wikipedia Steve Blank and I had the opportunity to create a presentation about lean startups for Maples Investments. Agile software development. you get the idea. you get the idea.

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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. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In addition to presenting the IMVU case, we tried for the first time to do an overview of a software engineering methodology that integrates practices from agile software development with Steves method of Customer Development. Can this methodology be used for startups that are not exclusively about software?

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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. This workshop brings together leading thinkers from Lean Production and Lean software.

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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. For more on continuous deployment, see Just-in-time Scalability.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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 serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. But its helpful to take a detailed look inside the highly agile process used by Google to ship software. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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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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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Continuous deployment and continuous learning At long last, some of the actual implementers of the advanced systems we built at IMVU for rapid deployment and rapid response are starting to write about it. At IMVU it’s a core part of our culture to ship.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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. While the customer development framework of Four Steps is universally relevant, The Entrepreneur’s Guide updates its practices for modern startups.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Expo Intensive rocked, the mainstream media has started writing about the Lean Startup, and - most of all - the movement continues to grow and evolve. First of all, the Startup Lessons Learned conference exceeded my wildest expectations. He inspired me to take a deeper look at what we all thought we understood about startups.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 2, 2008 On deployment My favorite question to ask a software development team is "how do you do a release." You can tell a lot about a company from their deployment flow. I havent met anyone who would do a day-long deployment every day. How fast do they iterate?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Jim Murphy is a long-time agile practitioner in startups. 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. But startups sometimes have trouble applying agile successfully. Embedded in that assumption is why startups fail.

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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. Were a software company, so what we do everyday is turn ideas into code. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

But I have a special sympathy for the "product manager" in a startup that is bringing a new product to a new market, and doing their work in large batches. So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I joined a financial services tech startup in 1999. You can click here to learn more.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 16, 2009 Continuous deployment with downloads One of my goals in writing posts about topics like continuous deployment is the hope that people will take those ideas and apply them to new situations - and then share what they learn with the rest of us.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

MUDs made the essential truth about software into a powerful metaphor: that code is magic, giving those who wield it the ability to create new forms of value literally out of thin air. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

For software, we have many - you can enjoy a nice long list on Wikipedia. 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. Very few startups fail for lack of technology.

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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. They just assumed it was the way software companies worked. Sound good?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. In almost all Agile Development systems, thousands of automated tests are run against every change to the software.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

For the rest of us, there is an alternative: to create credibility by building a lean startup. Rather than just focus on the right kind of pitch to use, I wanted to write about the kinds of startups that create lasting value, and therefore are great companies to fund even in down times. Retention cohort analysis. Is there s choice?

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Its a force that allows startups to build products at parity with much larger companies - cheaper and much faster. Its a key lean startup concept. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

I was building a new startup in 1999, and wanted to do it right. It felt like software that grownups were supposed to use, and we didnt qualify. That startup didnt turn out so well, but not for lack of technology. Now you can build an app at true web scale without incurring any software costs, or any fixed hardware costs.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

His post is ostensibly about how often to release new work (whether youre a blog writer, movie star, software team.) I see startups struggle with this all the time. Update : bonus thought from Dharmesh Shahs 8 Startup Insights Inspired By The Mega Mind of Seth Godin: 6. I’ve been in the software industry for a long time.

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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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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. In a startup, we should take full advantage of our options, even if they feel dirty or riddled with technical debt. Startups are always moving, so invest in moving faster and better.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 18, 2010 Four myths about the Lean Startup Myth: Lean means cheap. Lean startups try to spend as little money as possible. Truth: The Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Myth: The Lean Startup methodology is only for Web 2.0/internet/consumer

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

For example, we used to be baffled at IMVU by the significant minority of people who would download the software but never chat with anyone. I want to get an idea of how startup guys think. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? This post has been removed by the author.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Just like with startups, this is a hybrid question. So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. 12comments: Dougvs said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Introducing the Lean Startup Cohort subscription program Over the past few months, I have been engaged in another customer discovery exercise with passionate early adopters of the lean startup methodology. So if youre a lean startup earlyvangelist, read on. Great idea.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

And the fact that the effects of this IPO vanishing act are being felt first and foremost in the software business also makes sense to me. In fact, I believe that the software business is the canary in the coal mine: increasingly, all businesses are going to look more and more like software businesses. We have much work to do.

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