Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. Really enjoyed your speech, but Boulder's startup community is definitely older than 5 years. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Articulate, inspirational. Learned a lot and enjoyed the discourse.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

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.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief. Most people cant sustain more than a few of these iterations, and the founders rarely get to be involved in the later tries. In order to do this, we have our customer development team work hard to find a market, any market, for the product as currently specified.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" With multiple people trying to work to the same standard, we had to be a lot crisper in our definitions. Ive been looking for a good definition (if that makes any sense) for a CTO.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. Some companies and founders refuse to serve existing customers, and are always lurching from one great idea to the next. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. 1 comments: Andy Lawrence said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. Most important slide: about the founders In a pitch meeting, try to spend as much time as possible talking about the key questions for your pitch. who is the customer?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. Luckily, we also discovered that certain other metrics, like LTV and CPA were much better than we initially projected.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So let’s turn our attention from what may happen in the future to what is definitely happening in the present. Despite all the energy invested in talking to authors about the size of their platform, very few gatekeepers have a rigorous set of metrics for measuring it. My blog has over 14000 subscribers, for example.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

I would definitely be interested any scholarship opportunities that might be made available. ► 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. Cash is tight.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

To do that, we add specific speed regulators, like integrating source control with our continuous integration server or the more elaborate dance required for continuous deployment. It definitely can be useful to judiciously take on small amounts of debt. One last thought. Small batches rule. How do we debug them?

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

I think where we get into trouble is we have many definitions of quality. Excepting for cosmically co-incidental success stories, the fuzzy requirement stuff never congeals as a holistic engineering exercise. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. October 21, 2008 8:40 PM Eric said. larry - well said.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

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. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders.

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San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

So let’s begin with a definition of a startup that captures its essential nature, and tries to leave behind the specific associations of the most famous startups. Isn’t the word human redundant in this definition? And yet the newness of a startup’s product or service is also a key part of the definition.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 21, 2008

Basically, the definition of waste is different when you know less about your customer. ► 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.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. Thanks Eric, great blog!

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

Given the time constraints, I organized my presentation around two simple ideas: STARTUP = EXPERIMENT FASTER STARTUPS = MORE EXPERIMENTS PER DOLLAR I tried to make clear my usual definition of a startup, one that has nothing to do with size of company or sector of the economy. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco DC Washington Lean 92

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." leanstartup ericnsantos : #w2e #leanstartup Metrics should be Actionable, Accessible and Auditable. Metrics are a key questions startups face. Metrics are people too" is a reminder I constantly needed when I was a manager. ericries s talk on Lean Startups absolutely fantastic.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002. We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

But lean startups cant afford to be satisfied with just that definition, because there are situations where working code is itself a form of waste. I used to think that investments in metrics were a form of waste. Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. that justify decisions already made.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

Heres the working definition Ive started using: A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. In a future post, Ill attempt to unpack this definition in detail. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. farazq : Awesome session @ericries.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

And speaking of Facebook, I definitely didnt think it was a good idea when I first heard about it. In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. Definitely one of the best posts from you.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Which takes us right back to the original definition of minimum viable product : the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning with the least effort.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Definitely interested in the perspective of the open-source contributor solicited with a job offer. Im definitely curious about your thoughts on how to present the company right. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Labels: hiring 4comments: deskin said. Excellent post all around. Thats some awesome advice.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

I'll definitely try this out. ► 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. August 4, 2009 10:01 PM Eric said.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

You should definitely follow up with how you organize the multiple interviews. I was wondering if you could expand on finding a technical co-founder. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Some companies definitely should. Others definitely shouldn’t. A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer).

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Now they first had to go through a ritual that involved complex math, reached no definite outcome, and then proceeded to have a battle of opinions anyway! Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. To their surprise, the metrics didn’t move at all.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) Maybe Steve Jobs just has a different definition of "viable"? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. What a normal person would view as acceptable, he would not.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

As a last disclaimer, please consult the definition of the word hacker if youre not familiar with the controversies surrounding that term.) ► 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.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 13, 2010 The Superbowl ad test I am a firm believer in the danger of vanity metrics , numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask the true relationship between cause and effect. Vanity metrics are generally bigger. Vanity metrics. The solution? Is that really news?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. Lets look at a specific example, and start to think through what the metrics might look like if we attempted to measure it: Customer gets a synthetic message saying: "upload some photos!" Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

In fact, there were some definite skeptics about whether they measured anything of value at all, since it is always dismaying to get data that says the changes youre making to your product are not affecting customer satisfaction one way or the other. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

BUT it definitely does NOT have the super-duper-hyper-ultra-cool Web 2.0 Rich Collins , founder of the Lean Startup Circle , responded to the poster with some Q&A. It definitely explores ethical boundaries. BUT it definitely does NOT have the super-duper-hyper-ultra-cool Web 2.0 It is borderline embarrassing.

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

I would also suggest, and the engineers will almost certainly hate this suggestion, that the decision-maker asks for hard metrics to justify the refactoring effort in the first place. Only one occasion was a substantial rewrite justified based on performance metrics. And we all know what the success rates of rewrites are! Homer said.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Having worked with dozens of founders over the past few months, I think I can safely say, without naming any names, that most of us are not too clear on what were talking about when it comes to markets. Founders are constantly being barraged by incoherent and contradictory advice. Is a market a set of paying customers?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

But today I believe that ruby and python, with RoR and Django are most definitely the best ways to go for a startup business that wants to get productive. Great article, Ive used many different programming languages, but for web development, I think PHP definitely takes the cake May 16, 2009 9:37 AM Prabin Jha said.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166