Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Its why, at my previous job, we were able to get a new engineer completely productive on their first day. Most engineers would ship code to production on their first day. Let me show you what this looked like after a few years of practicing five whys in the operations and engineering teams at IMVU.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Thats why eBay advertises on search engines, and Facebook doesnt. Labels: search engine marketing 0comments: New comments are not allowed. Thats where Id like to pick up the discussion.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

If you want to do continuous deployment, youd better be able to certify that build too, which brings us to. Daily builds are giving way to true continuous integration, in which every checkin to the source control system is automatically run against the full battery of automated tests. Do you make daily builds?

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Yes, you may be more familiar with the term open source, but lets give credit where credit is due , at least for today). If youve never been a contributor to a free software project before, take a look at Contributing to Open Source Without Committing a Line Of Code. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? After an hour with a team talking dirty about deployment, youll know. ► 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 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

During the same period (1987 – 1990) and I did some work at MIT under Eric von Hippel on “user driven innovation with regard to software development&# which today would probably fall under the heading of “open source software development approaches.&# Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, ► 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 68

Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

We can choose to continue paying the interest, or we can pay down the principal by refactoring the quick and dirty design into the better design. The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. Leverage product development with open source and third parties. One last thought.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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 8, 2008

Our open source counterparts who did solve the scale problem, had some serious hardware costs to deal with. So did I when I finally found myself building an app with real scalability, a few years later, but a combination of our just-in-time scalability technique and great open source scaling tools, made it manageable.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

That engine of creativity has led to a catalog of something like 2 million virtual goods authored by a hundred thousand developers. In that same spirit, here are some suggestions for tactics you can use to increase the leverage of your product development efforts: Free and open source software (and even hardware ).

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, This will be an in-depth discussion with a handful of entrepreneurs and founders that have been pre-selected. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

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

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

In Computer Science research, it is often better to open source an innovation than to go through the process of protecting it and then licensing it to a new startup. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Testing the new Disqus comment system Gov 2.0

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

After Ive built my first successful app, and all kinds of competitors have copied me and have similar apps right next to mine in the store, how will I continue to get new customers? Labels: iPhone , search engine marketing 3comments: Blake Engel said. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

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). Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

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 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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

When we started IMVU in 2004, we could rely on a staggering amount of open source software that jumpstarted our initial product offering. At IMVU, when wed hire a new engineer, we could get them to ship code to production on their first day, even if they had never programmed in PHP before. January 20, 2009 2:58 PM Anonymoussaid.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

We can take advantage of the many open source libraries out there that dont scale especially well, and write as much non-scalable code as we want. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ▼ 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 Getting started with split-testing One of the startup founders I work with asked me a smart question recently, and I thought Id share it. If youre a founder or top-level executive, have the courage to be wrong in a very public way. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2009

This is the thinking that allowed us to overcome our fear of continuous deployment at IMVU. Eric, do you have any discussions planned for the co-founding dynamics of a successful lean startup? Whats the best open source platform to design 3d avatar environments for a webapp? ( Keep up the great work.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 76