Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

If youre coming in to work groggy and therefore are not spending time with customers, Im willing to bet it is. 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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Plus, we saw some of the intrinsic limitations of supporting such a large staff: slower cycle times, higher cost basis, and - most importantly - the ability to serve only a limited number of customer segments. So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. There are just too many of them out there.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

She has a separate team, with its own culture and office, and a mandate straight from top management to innovate without regard to the company’s historic products, channels, or supply chain. That’s because the model is based on assumptions about customers that are totally unproven. So far, so good. If it costs $0.10

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Ive previously written about the advantages of having a pathetically small number of customers , and how to get started with customer segmentation. it seemed time to return to the subject of investigating who my customers are. Thats a common pattern to gaining customer insight. Customer knows they have a problem.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

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. Those tools, combined with focused customer interviews, have turbo-charged the company’s ability to learn.

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San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

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San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

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.

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 31, 2009

As you can tell from recent posts, Ive been experimenting with different formats and channels to try and find the best way to help. If youve been following my efforts in figuring out the best way to evangelize the lean startup , youll know that I am trying to apply customer development principles. Hi Eric, I signed up already.i

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

g2s The very abbreviated version of Customer Development (channeling Steve Blank ). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Boyds ideas have inspired a lot of the principles underlying my work. once it launches.

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San Francisco DC Washington Lean 92

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

This model has not translated well to the world of social networking, because customers of social networks engage sites in a different way than customers of search engines. Those who have tried to build apps that exist just as glorified landing pages or marketing channels have generally failed.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. As the channel gets more and more crowded, just launching an app in the store is getting worse and worse as a strategy for each new entrant. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do your customers really read TechCrunch?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

Maybe location-specific "channels"? carry the word out wider. ► 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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

But from a customer experience point of view, Im not yet sold. Today, the fact that the store is open and has almost no barriers to entry is great for the companies I meet, because they can get their first versions in front of customers quickly, and start iterating fast. There are other models, in other distribution channels.

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Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

In most applications, most of the time, customers return to use the application not in response to a notification or event, but under their own volition. These decisions are critical to the success of any high-engagement product, and they take place entirely inside the minds of customers.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 22, 2008 Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction Ive mentioned Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a few previous posts, but havent had a chance to describe it in detail yet. It does it all by asking your customers just one magic question.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Is a market a set of paying customers? Tough sell.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

There are many articles by many experts ( myself included ) extolling the virtues of listening to customers. In fact, there are so many of these propaganda pieces that this question might naturally cross your mind: if listening to customers is so great, why do we need so much propaganda? We did not take this step lightly.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158