Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Dont worry about selecting particularly good keywords, if youre new to SEM. Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. SEM only gets at one segment of users, and for a brand new product, you presumably need some skill at marketing in general and adsense in particular to get any useful info.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2007

Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Getting the most of your online marketing: the In & Out of SEM/SEO. Monday, February 12, 2007. on a scale of 1-4). on a scale of 1-4). on a scale of 1-4).

Software Review 48

Software Review SEM Marketing Las Vegas 48

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Later, when the company was much larger, we had everyone on our engineering team agree to sit in on one usability test every month. It wasnt a huge time commitment, but it meant that every engineer was getting regular contact with an actual customer, which was invaluable. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? ► 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. Processes are always deteriorating or self-regulating. Do they measure?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Ive told the story of how this desperation turned us on to Google AdWords in SEM on five dollars a day. Luckily for me, my co-founders eventually prevailed and we went on to build a product that customers actually wanted. Pretty soon we ran out of friends. But code written that doesnt help the company succeed is a sunk cost.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

These tests are written by the engineers themselves, and they must all pass every time. ► 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. Automated tests make defects visible.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

If you sell an online service that solves a defined problem, you can compete in SEO or SEM. Labels: iPhone , search engine marketing 3comments: Blake Engel said. Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

At IMVU , our engineering team accumulated thousands upon thousands of tests, and we had a build cluster (using BuildBot ) that ran them. Thats possible now, and it means that the historical ratio of QA to engineering is going to have to change (on the other hand, QA is now a lot more interesting of a job). Completely necessary.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

It was actually my co-founder Will Harvey who taught me to present this data in the simple format weve discussed in this post. ► 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.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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. Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

I originally thought I might get some development process tips (I manage developers), but I find that Im really enjoying your business tips (SEM, listening to customers, etc.). Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lots of engineers are busy checking in and deploying their work. Meanwhile, a dozen other engineers are getting annoyed, because this constant bouncing is making it harder for them to work (they cant deploy changes while tests or the cluster are in red-alert mode). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

The entrepreneurship progarms of the business, engineering, and undergraduate schools are all tackling the subject this semester, and Im honored to be part of it. hitchens - theyre not open to the public as far as I know, but if you have an affiliation with Stanford engineering, undergrad, or GSB, its possible you could come audit.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

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. Start with a five-dollar-a-day SEM campaign. the most sensible SEM advice Ive read - discussed in the context of a real situation. Dont scale.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Most engineers are terrible visual designers, but if the designer on their team is struggling, maybe they can help out with an icon or two. ► 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.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 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? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

StackOverflow – We both have a love fest for Joel Spolsky who also co-founded Fog Creek Software. 5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech. DEAL OF THE WEEK. Paperless billing for consumers.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. If and when a good SEM solution shows up for iPhone, you may be able to use it to artificially drive your app into the Top 25, as a one-time event. Or if your lifetime value is high enough, you can just keep spending on SEM.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68