Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. This is easiest to see in deployment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. The same might be said of good software. Here we have the beginnings of a theory of design for software.

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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. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal. No more, no less.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

This post was written by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. The Lean Startup Conference is an event by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs—except that our definition of “entrepreneur” may be different from the one you have in mind. Often, in very young organizations, those people are simply the founders.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In addition to presenting the IMVU case, we tried for the first time to do an overview of a software engineering methodology that integrates practices from agile software development with Steves method of Customer Development. Can this methodology be used for startups that are not exclusively about software?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. In 2002 I became exposed to the idea of “agile software development&# and subsequently was a first round investor in Rally Software which is now the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management software. Read the rest.

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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.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

I am grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success, especially my co-organizers Charles Hudson and David Sachs. When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Kent Beck is deservedly famous for his many contributions in the software industry.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. For more on continuous deployment, see Just-in-time Scalability.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Hey Someone else who is extending the agile/lean approach beyond just developing software. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. But its helpful to take a detailed look inside the highly agile process used by Google to ship software. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

But theres no denying the level of support for entrepreneurs that we enjoy. They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. And every year, it looks as if one or two entrepreneurs from the program decide to stay. Some of the mentors are based in Boulder, but many are not.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

For software, we have many - you can enjoy a nice long list on Wikipedia. I highly recommend this book for all entrepreneurs, in startups as well as in big companies. Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief. Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 2, 2008 On deployment My favorite question to ask a software development team is "how do you do a release." You can tell a lot about a company from their deployment flow. I havent met anyone who would do a day-long deployment every day. How fast do they iterate?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. Were a software company, so what we do everyday is turn ideas into code. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

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). Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster. Bring your questions.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next. The breakthrough idea of agile is that software should be built iteratively, with the pieces that customers value most created first. Hes often felt that there was something missing.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 16, 2009 Continuous deployment with downloads One of my goals in writing posts about topics like continuous deployment is the hope that people will take those ideas and apply them to new situations - and then share what they learn with the rest of us. Thanks for the comments.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Heres what I do know: The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs. (If If you are somehow not convinced of this point, Ill let Fareed Zakaria explain ) We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. Nerds are not entrepreneurs. They are nerds.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. There is also a special discounted rate available for entrepreneurs and bootstrappers, about which you can learn more here. You can register here.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2009

Agile Vancouver : Lean Development for Lean Times On Tuesday April 21st, we are hosting an afternoon event on the application of Lean Principles to software development. This workshop brings together leading thinkers from Lean Production and Lean software. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. In almost all Agile Development systems, thousands of automated tests are run against every change to the software.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. The problem is that the most authentic innovators and entrepreneurs are in the Valley. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Bring your questions.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

His post is ostensibly about how often to release new work (whether youre a blog writer, movie star, software team.) 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. I’ve been in the software industry for a long time.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

They just assumed it was the way software companies worked. Unfortunately, threats work a lot better at incentivizing people to CYA than getting them to write quality software. When I first encountered agile software techniques, in the form of extreme programming , I thought I had found the answer. Sound good? It didnt work.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

My son is planning a software product that will take the mystery out of wikis and make the technology easier for consumers to use. That fostering and encourage entrepreneurs to bring companies and products to market is a great source of innovation, job creation, etc. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. 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 ).

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

It felt like software that grownups were supposed to use, and we didnt qualify. It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Through case studies, exercises, and discussions, Eric Ries will guide entrepreneurs of all stripes through the key areas that determine success for startups: product, engineering, QA, marketing, and business strategy. This shift allowed us to crank out working software quickly as a service. It was a disaster.

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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. Let's consider cases: Can you have a piece of software with good product design and bad technical design? One last thought.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

For example, we used to be baffled at IMVU by the significant minority of people who would download the software but never chat with anyone. gmlk, what would it take for you to recommend this blog to an entrepreneur who was a friend of yours? Eric: It would take that I have friends which are entrepreneurs. Its fascinating.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

They can make smart investments even if the entrepreneurs are not well credentialed or have a product/idea that is outside the mainstream of what investors are expecting As this change has rippled up the venture industry, it has meant a lot more worthy companies are getting funded than just a few years ago.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

internet/consumer software companies. Those general managers are entrepreneurs , too. And they can benefit from the speed and discipline of starting with a minimum viable product and then learning and iterating continuously. internet/consumer software companies. Those general managers are entrepreneurs , too.

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