Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

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San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

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. And what of the product development team? And how do existing customers respond to our product over time?

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Its not good enough to hit product milestones and conduct usability tests. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." leanstartup ericnsantos : #w2e #leanstartup Metrics should be Actionable, Accessible and Auditable. Metrics are a key questions startups face. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. What made them exceptional?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. No vanity metrics should be looked at. No vanity metrics should be looked at.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

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. Eric has talked often about recognizing a startup as an organization designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. davemcclure : amazing concepts on Continuous Development => "Cluster Immune System" @EricRies #LeanStartup @fbFund [link] dalelarson : Because most features take longer to argue and prioritize than to build. Definitely like to see video of the full talk.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Their old product prioritization meetings may have been a battle of opinions, but at least they understood what was going on. 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! To their surprise, the metrics didn’t move at all.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

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.

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Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. Sometimes an early negative result from an experiment is a harbinger of doom for that product, and means it should be abandoned. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. This is a common mistake.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Most importantly, I encouraged the leaders of the company to bring awareness of the business challenges to the product development team. Great post, Eric. Homer said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

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. 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 Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

The technical interview is at the heart of these challenges when building a product development team, and so I thought it deserved an entire post on its own. Still, a startup product development team is a service organization. Labels: hiring , product development 5comments: TedHoward said.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

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. Is that good?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Also SJ's obsession with better taste (positively) contributes to the overall product development process. There are some good anecdotes about Chief Engineers in the Toyota Product Development Book. Maybe Steve Jobs just has a different definition of "viable"? Will start to pay attention.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Some companies definitely should. Others definitely shouldn’t. Let’s look at some examples: In a traditional business, customers pay money for a physical artifact (a product) or a service. Take the minimum viable product , for starters. Some companies definitely should. are nonsensical. are nonsensical.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. I think where we get into trouble is we have many definitions of quality.

Software Review 164

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

I would definitely be interested any scholarship opportunities that might be made available. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

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.) Sometimes, a great hacker has the potential to grow into the CTO of a company, and in those cases all you need is an outside mentor who can work with them to develop those skills.

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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?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Im happy PHP existed 10 years ago, I think it got a lot of people interested in web development when the alternatives were monsters like ASP and JSP. 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.

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PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

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. A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is a tricky part of the definition, too.

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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. My answer to the comment went like this: Efficiency is a by-product of removing waste. Toyota employs something called "set-based product development" where they develop multiple versions of a product at once.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

By definition these 10,000 founders wouldnt be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldnt work for existing companies, only new ones theyd founded. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. They wouldnt all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Or it might mean selling a few products on a site like eBay to see how well they perform before ordering in bulk from a wholesaler. What sets this approach apart from practices like using focus groups is that companies base product development decisions not just on what customers say they want but on how they vote with their wallets.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

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

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Although that currently means we only can serve these few low-end customers, as our product improves, well eventually move up-market and kick the incumbents out." I recently took a stab at explaining segments, based on Moores definition Sean mentions above. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

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.

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Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Many viral products have flamed out over the years, able to capture large numbers of users, but proving transient in their value because they failed to engage customers for the long-term. Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. Some of those affected customers decide to return to your product.

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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.

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.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

I'll definitely try this out. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. August 4, 2009 10:01 PM Eric said.

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San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

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. Definitely one of the best posts from you. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. And Google?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I definitely subscribe to the idea of "it's on our roadmap, but we'll move it up in priority thanks to you" I even make a note of specific people who've requested a feature or reported a bug, and then personally let them know when it's been implemented or resolved. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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