Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

We work in prototypically four-week iterations, with quality engineers and software developers working in close collaboration. During this period, the Palantir Gotham team grew from five developers to around 35. But we couldn''t have identified this without having clear metrics (that high bug count) to assess our development process.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. The hardest part of entrepreneurship is to develop the judgment to know when its time to change direction and when its time to stay the course. IMVU had a roughly two-month-long development cycle. Heres what it looked like.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Since then, PHP (as part of the LAMP stack ) has really been the dominant development platform, at least in the free software and startup worlds. And yet I keep returning to PHP as a development platform, as have most of my fellow startup CTOs. PHP can do what no other language or framework can (albeit django).

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

SVPG

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

But one of the real advantages from a product point of view is that there’s no legacy to drag along, there’s no revenue to preserve, and there’s no reputation to safeguard. However, once your product develops to the point that it can sustain a viable business (congratulations!), Protect Employees and Customers.

Product 67

Product NDA Continuous Deployment Reputation 67

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

This whole framework breaks down when teams confront entrepreneurial situations in which theyre trying to build something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market. Want to learn more about me?

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Tactics were discussed out of context, and there wasnt an overarching framework for figuring out what works for what kinds of companies, industries, and stages of growth. Doesnt the communication overhead of a large team lead to chaos of overlapping experiments and continuously-deployed bugs?" "If

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

This simple three-part framework underlies almost all discussions about technical design today, and it was clearly on display in the recent debates over technical debt. User-centric and interaction design, test-driven development, continuous integration, services-oriented architectures - the list goes on.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

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.

Agile 60

Agile Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. What can you do about it?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

These two principles combine to free up tremendous resources for raw R&D and innovation, because so few people are stuck working on "death march" internal projects or maintaining low-success released products. For one, capacity development. In the meantime, I hope some of you will find the lean startup a helpful framework.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

In this framework, we’ll tend to either invest in the proposed prevention or do nothing. If we’re practicing continuous deployment, we can be confident that we’ll be able to rush an emergency fix into production without risking introducing further problems. How upset will those customers be?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

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. At the end of the day, the product development team of a startup (large or small) is a service organization. Does this sound familiar? Guess what?

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

We had all the tools in place but we didn’t actually practice agile development. No fancy tools needed here — it’s about the mentality, attention to detail, and the actions that foster agile development, not the tools & systems you set up in place to facilitate this.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Hold yourself and your PR agency accountable for developing a high level of understanding of these questions ahead of time. You create an entire framework of understanding and action based on your product/idea that sets it in motion in a self-sustaining way. Help you raise money.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Each experiment is like a little mystery, and if you can get into a mindset of open-mindedness about the answer, the answers will continually surprise and amaze you. A few days ago I open-sourced a framework for split-testing, A/B testing or continous optimization. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Having had a number of years to try and answer this question at cocktail parties and social gatherings of all kinds, I thought Id try and expand on his framework a little, and then try and use these answers to help make suggestions for those who are trying to get people to buy virtual goods. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

a guide for hackers) (This post was inspired by a conversation with Nivi from Venture Hacks , but is otherwise not his fault) There has been a proliferation of frameworks and metaphors lately that are designed to help startups avoid the all-too-common fatal mistake of failing to find a market. Expo (and a call for he. Try About the author.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

Q: Does the Lean Startup framework work efficiently within a company of 2-3 people (think small)?" A: yes, yes, yes Q: Does the Lean Startup framework work efficiently within a company of 2-3 people (think small)?" The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? A: yes, absolutely.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

I wrote about this challenge for iPhone developers, in an essay on retention competition : the battle over what icon the user will click when they go to the home screen. But I think the value in this framework is that it can help make overall business decisions that require thinking about the whole rather than just one of the parts.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140