Cofounder, Continuous Deployment, Marketing and PR

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. October 13, 2008 6:47 PM Luke G said. Eric, love the blog.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

How to Get Picked as a Speaker for The Lean Startup Conference

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

This post was written by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. Most commonly, that’s uncertainty about whether you can build the product at all (what MBAs call “technical risk”) or whether anybody will use or buy it (“market risk”). Often, in very young organizations, those people are simply the founders.

Lean

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." Theory of market types.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. All three probably make attempts at world-of-mouth marketing - its just that for Viral, its life-or-death. Its simply too hard to focus on more than one.

San Francisco

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire

Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Whats striking about these stories, if you get past the PR hype, are two very important themes: These prodigies were self-taught, and had a fundamental fascination with technology from a very young age. Then you set up a web app to co-ordinate volunteers who can wipe a hard drive and install Ubuntu. Third, you market it far and wide.

Programming

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

In the end, I believe they co-created our product with us. Many complex apps can now be prototyped as a simple mashup in order to prove market viability - and this is true beyond just software apps. It allowed me to assess the market demand for that offline product before I had the final product baked. Great post!

Product Development

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Sneak preview, KISSmetrics (and more)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

► 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

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa

Stop lying on stage

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It helps companies with PR. It makes successful founders famous.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean PR Metrics

Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. But its lethal when we start to run the company using vanity metrics as a guide.

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The lean startup at UC Berkeley Haas School of.

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I liked the flattering Venture Hacks commentary so much Ill just quote it: Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Eric takes a different approach.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. First off, what does it mean to launch?

San Francisco

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage

Lessons Learned: The App Store after the gold rush

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. Dont do PR upfront, dont put out a press release. My advice: dont launch big.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM

10 years of entrepreneurship

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

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. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Cash is not king

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Many optimizers are in favor of split-testing, too: direct marketers, landing page and SEO experts -- heck even the Google Website Optimizer team. Whole product " is a term I learned from Bill Davidows classic Marketing High Technology. Whole product " is a term I learned from Bill Davidows classic Marketing High Technology.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design

The Superbowl ad test

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. By only releasing vanity metrics , companies co-opt the press into helping them mislead others. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.) Vanity metrics are generally bigger. The solution?

San Francisco

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR

Engagement loops: beyond viral

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

What can you do to your product and marketing message to increase engagement? From a strictly "promotional marketing" point of view, they probably run those campaigns more than is optimal (theres always fatigue that diminishes the ROI on promotions the more you use them). Levers of engagement Lets start with the levers of engagement.

Viral

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. As with many Silicon Valley failures, a flawless PR launch turned into a flawed customer acquisition strategy. I know of at least five former employees that went on to become startup founders. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: What is a market? (a guide for hackers)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, February 12, 2009 What is a market? (a 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.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean

The cardinal sin of community management

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

For months, we made constant product and policy changes, trying to end the controversy without simply undoing our original decision and abandoning the mainstream market. As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. But silence was the worst possible strategy.

Community

Community Management Lean Software Review

StartUpRoar

Lessons Learned: About the author

How to Get Picked as a Speaker for The Lean Startup Conference

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

Sneak preview, KISSmetrics (and more)

Stop lying on stage

Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review)

Lessons Learned: The lean startup at UC Berkeley Haas School of.

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

Lessons Learned: The App Store after the gold rush

10 years of entrepreneurship

Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business)

Lessons Learned: Cash is not king

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

The Superbowl ad test

Engagement loops: beyond viral

Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Lessons Learned: What is a market? (a guide for hackers)

The cardinal sin of community management

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