Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. I am heavily indebted to earlier theorists, and highly recommend the books Lean Thinking and Lean Software Development. Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Noam is one of a rare breed of business academics: he studies entrepreneurship using a rigorous empirical approach. by Eric Ries.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And from a financial perspective, any investor would be better off buying stock in Amazon than buying and share of a corner bookshop; if you invested $100 in Amazon’s 1997 initial public offering (IPO), those shares would have been worth about $120,000 in 2018. Amazon saw that the internet would change retail.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm.

Founder 274

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

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

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

And they tell us over and over again that they just care about four things: Hiring and developing a great team. The concept our Guilds is simple: We want to bring together small groups of Product and Go-to-Market experts to lend their time to support our portfolio company founders and key operators. Building a great product.

Operations 177

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 177

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. And what of the product development team?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Let me assure you that a business plan and product plan are two different things (I have personally written several of both). To be clear, I define a product specification as the technical definition of your product, to be used for development and testing purposes, with a quick business summary for context.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

There are so many aspects to analyze,study and correct before going for the IPO. The company was just in its developing stage when the shares were made public and this was a hasty decision. The company did not have a proper scheme or plan for its business model yet. Oh the Founder Magic – Doesn’t always Work.

Startup 100

Startup Social Media Cofounder IPO 100

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation. This presentation will empower entrepreneurs and managers to: -Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

YoungUpstarts

MAY 10, 2012

Get inspired by the interviews of 33 startup founders in this book, as they discuss how everything got started. From choosing cofounders to raising capital to overcoming failure, there are lessons for startups every step of the way in this book. Start Small Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start and Run Your Own Successful Business.

Startup 247

Startup Lean Silicon Valley Open Source 247

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc. Yet, it does nothing to help you execute your business model. Startups cannot afford such scapegoat luxuries.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Just imagine a company going public hands out 15% of their stock to their users at IPO – for free! . It’s a great and free resource for anyone starting, or thinking about starting, an online business. Flow is the next-generation blockchain developed by Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties ). Stay tuned!!

Portfolio 94

Portfolio Software Review Cofounder Canada 94

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 26, 2011

It has the diversity and cheaper rent necessary for great creative potential and I think you're going to see a lot of development next year of Brooklyn as its own unique, but complimentary community of innovation. What's the business model?

Technology 128

Technology Valuation Community Restful 128

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

It’s meant to support and grow a business until an “exit” in the form of an IPO, a merger or acquisition, or in less than ideal scenarios, a company shutdown. They’re looking for guidance on building the company, the ability to tap into a VC’s network, and help with potential business opportunities.

Lean 108

Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

It was still a year away from its IPO. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Of course HP did ship new products and innovate, but their center of innovation was sustaining innovation , around the core of their existing business. But first some background.)

Silicon Valley 186

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. That is customer development. That is the essence of proving the business in micro-scale.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

No business model, either. Almost all of them got scooped up by pre-IPO Google this time. That year, right before the IPO, those months mattered a great deal in terms of financial outcomes. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. And Google?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

Facebook and Google would be obvious choices for this, but so much has been written about each of them and they represent such special business models, I worried that it would be both hard for entrepreneurs to relate and hard for me to develop new insights. Akamai found itself truly inside the tornado. Akamai Going Forward.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Many startups don’t innovate at all in the product dimension, but use other kinds of innovation: repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was previously hidden, or even simply bringing a product or service to a new location or set of customers previously underserved.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 17, 2009

Eric Ries, a co-founder of IMVU, is a strong proponent of this process and very successfully used it at IMVU. Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Heres the pitch: a group of 10 companies would meet once a month for six months to develop their capacity to run lean. Each company would enroll two leaders in the series, one on the technology side, one on the business side. I love the business model. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 102

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 102

Hearpreneur

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Noreen Sablotsky is the founder and CEO of Imalac , a revolutionary company in the breastfeeding world. eld of marketing and sales for Ciba- Geigy Pharmaceuticals before co-founding Noven Pharmaceuticals in 1986. Sablotsky continued her professional career as Vice-President of Portfolio Development for Jacobs Investments, LLC.

Founder 91

Founder Miami Cofounder 91

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.&# Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Professor VC

JUNE 20, 2011

Since the iControl system chronicles all meetings, I was able to find the automatic picture snapped from my first meeting with the founders, Reza Raji and Chris Stevens on April 22, 2004. Now that iControl has raised over $100M, this got me thinking back to our original business plan.

San Jose 28

San Jose Angel Investor Term Sheet Venture Capital 28

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. You have to know your business model. Most startups launch before theyve figured out what business theyre in. Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

And since a startup thatsucceeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies gettingrich is doable too. A lot ofwould-be startup founders think the key to the whole process is theinitial idea, and from that point all you have to do is execute.Venture capitalists know better. Ideally you want between two and four founders.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. For one, it required us to keep our developer sandbox setup procedure simple and automated. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Thats what business is designed to do.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

But with so many investors still licking their wounds from the dot-com bust, many focused on proven business models, such as advertising or e-commerce. The general rule is one business model drives the business. As it happened, we did end up pursuing all three lines of business.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

And going even further back there have been a few random ones have been built before like Salesforce.com and e-tailer RedEnvelope (IPO’d in 2003 though now defunct as a company). If my memory serves me, <10% of our pre-IPO employees at PayPal lived in SF and literally 1 of the first 40-50 folks at LinkedIn were city-dwellers.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Harvard professor Noam Wasserman and WSJ small-business editor Vanessa OConnell took reader questions about avoiding start-up pitfalls on Sept. Consider Daniel Dreymann, a founder of Goodmail Systems Inc., Mr. Dreymann moved his family from Israel in 2004 after co-founding Goodmail in Mountain View, Calif., Replay the event.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

infochachkie.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

In all cases, these names were derived by the Founders, without the involvement of consultants, MBAs, focus groups, statistically valid surveys or other detriments to a startup’s ability to make quick, sound decisions. Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo’s Founders, chose the name, as they considered themselves to be “Yahoos.”.When

Naming 40

Naming Technical Review Product Product Name 40

abovethecrowd.com

JULY 7, 2015

Efficiently communicating your strategy, business model, and competitive differentiation is required for many critical things you will do as a company. But if you are one of the thousands and thousands of startups that merely want to have an optimal fund raising process, I highly recommend that you develop a killer presentation.

Warrant 40

Warrant Later Stage Forecast IPO 40