Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Beware the new hire who has "extensive experience" in startups or big companies - using a different growth driver. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early. And by early, we mean pre-traction. Lead investors are few.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

For example: - Having any more “C’s” than the CEO and CTO. Seeing a head of product that isn’t a founder. Earlier today, I stumbled upon the team page of a seed funded startup in Boston, and saw 7 VP-level and higher people NOT including the CEO. Seeing VPs (the more I see, the worse I feel).

CTO Hire 61

CTO Hire Seed Stage Startup Early Stage 61

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Supercomputers get Personal Back in Sunnyvale my friend had not only been hired but had convinced the team that we should be building hardware – making a new class of computers not a software application. A few days later Gordon became a founder. Wasn’t he a CTO or something? (He We’re building a supercomputer.”

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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? ) Eric, I landed upon your blog when I was searching for the path to CTO a couple of months back and I have been a frequent to the site since then. Your "startup-lessons-learned" are very valuable. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Mark Montgomery Founder Kyield Initium VC September 12, 2009 4:21 AM Mark Montgomery said. Eric -- I was very impressed by your two part video series, which rarely occurs these days. Otherwise it's a great idea. You've done an excellent job refining the process and message. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. “Everybody felt the burden of supporting all those transactions every day,&# says Pascal-Louis Perez, kaChing’s CTO. “It took a ton of our time, and just wasn’t contributing to our long term vision.&#

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

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 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 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

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

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

When you're getting started, sweat equity is often a critical component of your negotiating leverage with co-founders, early stage employees and others who aren't paid market wages to help you grow your business. This is the typical way that a founder determines sweat equity: foregone wages.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Today, when I talk to startup founders, the most common answer I get to the question "do you talk to your customers?" ► 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 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

Boston is a great place to start and build a company. However, Boston is a transient town, especially for the student population that refreshes a large population each year. This guide is designed to help you hit the ground running and is a starting point for your entrepreneurial journey in Boston. The Grand-daddy.

Boston 72

Boston Community CTO Hire Cofounder 72

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

So one of the first things we did was to hire an Oracle expert and get to work. ► 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. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

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

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Too often, startup founders talk about how they are pushing to get to “critical mass&# and how “economies of scale&# are going to kick in. I’ve been in the software industry for a long time. That’s all fine and dandy. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. It was actually my co-founder Will Harvey who taught me to present this data in the simple format weve discussed in this post. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Joel is focused on the fact that in many environments, programmers are considered "just the hired help" akin to manual labor, and not treated properly. But increasingly we can move to a world where teams are chartered to accomplish results instead of tasked with creating work on spec. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Hire slow, fire fast” is not only overused–it’s also complete b t.” Obama CTO Harper Reed on Keeping Sane in a High-Pressure Environment – [link]. Iterations: How Founders Can Fight Through The Great Fragmentation Of Talent | TechCrunch – [link]. The Boston Globe – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business CTO Hire Design 105

The Next Web

JANUARY 24, 2014

Think of Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon), Guido van Rossem (founder of Python programming language and senior engineer at Dropbox) or the more senior Gerard Kleisterlee (chairman of Vodafone). We have great intellectual property protection, and have efficient ways to enforce contracts. The Netherlands remains open for business.

Netherlands 143

Netherlands Technical Review Stock Silicon Valley 143

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. 8220; His three things (worth reading his whole post anyway) are set vision/strategy and communicate broadly, recruit/hire/retain top talent, and make sure there’s enough cash in the bank. It’s great advice.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Worst of all, your teammates are constantly wanting to have meetings.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

For people we hired from larger companies especially, this was challenging. Im an ex-Googler, and now a CTO of a small company with lots of talented people ([link] I discovered your site not long ago, and I am learning a lot from it. where an initial bad impression affects a significantly larger percentage of potential customers.

Continuous Deployment 131

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Some startups fail because the founders cant have this conversation - they either blow up when they try, or they fail to change because they are afraid of conflict. Although I wish I could take credit for these pivots, the reality is that they were not caused by my singular insight or that of my other co-founders. Amazon PostRank

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Finding a Technical Partner for Your Startup Today I received an inquiry from a student at an Ivy League university who wants to launch a web startup. Or you can find seed-stage investors who will give you the money to hire a developer. You have two avenues open to you.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Fractional CTO Partner CTO Hire 40

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68