Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco. Thanks Eric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein , co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference this fall. Last week , we announced the date and venue for The Lean Startup Conference: Dec 3 - 4, 2012 at the InterContintenal in SF. When we're evaluating your application, we won't know your name, ethnicity, gender or age.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. .

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

So, if youre interested in helping avoid mistakes like that, here are the steps: Get a domain name. It doesnt have to be the worlds catchiest name, just pick something reasonably descriptive. If youre concerned about sullying your eventual brand name, dont use your "really good" name, pick a code name.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Thats not the goal of a lean startup. Your writing is certainly not lean. I like this term.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

One major theory that has influenced the way I think about processes comes from Lean Manufacturing , where they use these same techniques to build cars. Names have, of course, been changed to protect the innocent: Hope youre well; I thought Id relay a recent experience and thank you. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. For example, take the lean dictum of working in small batches.

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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

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. Looking forward for your future posts.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Lean manufacturing , agile software development , and Theory of Constraints are all examples of this idea in action. One common worry is that this might lead companies to “release crap,&# shipping too soon with a product of such low quality that it alienates potential customers and, thus, causes entrepreneurs to abandon their vision.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. The United States is locked in a new arms race for that most precious resource -- the future entrepreneurs upon whom economic growth depends. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As entrepreneurs, more than any other industry, we’re in the meritocracy business. If women face structural barriers to becoming entrepreneurs, then those few who are able to overcome those barriers are probably exceptional to begin with. Or, maybe it is true that women make better entrepreneurs than men.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Notice that the unit of progress changes as we move from waterfall to agile to the lean startup. Eric Ries Lean Startup Schematic View Of Agile Development And Customer Development View more presentations from Eric Ries. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Just a thought.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 2, 2009 How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis In the lean startup workshops , we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the technique of Five Whys. My intention is to describe a full working process, similar to what I’ve seen at IMVU and other lean startups. Expo SF (May. .

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. I highly recommend this book for all entrepreneurs, in startups as well as in big companies. Heres the catch. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

One of the most common questions I get about the lean startup methodology is, "but what about Steve Jobs ?" So how do you reconcile his success with the lean startup, which seems to suggest the opposite?" Plus, the premise of the question misunderstands the lean startup, too. And he doesnt shy away from big-bang launch events.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Of the techniques he mentioned, I think four are fundamental and critical for any lean startup: TDD (or the even more politely named TATFT ) Continuous integration Automate your deployments Collect statistics The tools to help you do these things are getting better and better every day, but dont confuse tools with process.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Some of them are probably still cursing my name, because - lets face it - PHP can be pretty painful. Almost every PHP-based website is burdened with ugly URLs that contain the name of the file that implements each page. The IMVU downloadable client, just to name one example, is written primarily in python.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Lean vs. debt In the world of physical goods, the leaner a supply chain is, the less debt is required to operate it. A similar relationship applies to technical debt.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

When the project winds up getting cancelled for failing to meet its ROI justification, it’s natural for the entrepreneur to feel like it was the CFO – and their innovation-sucking spreadsheet – that is the real cause. Just because entrepreneurs tend to forget about these models doesn’t mean their investors do.

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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. Now, in some situations, this over-selling would lead to a secondary problem, namely, that customers would realize they had been duped and refuse to re-subscribe.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Imagine you want to store data about customers, each of whom has "last name" field in your database. The problem should be familiar to anyone who plays Scrabble: not all letter are equally likely to be used as the first letter of someones name. Give each entity a name. For example, consider this simple scheme.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem) Lean startups don’t optimize. I’m sure other disciplines have their own names for it; even protozoans exhibit this behavior (its called taxis ). That’s the local maximum. That’s right.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. I cant really tell.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think. Who doesnt want to see their name in print? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

But we were cutting corners in the development methodology as well as in the code, in the name of increased speed. I now believe that the "pick two" concept is fundamentally flawed, and that lean startups can achieve all three simultaneously: quickly bring high-quality software to market at low cost. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This attention is valuable to yet another set of people: namely, the traditional businesses (see above) who are using marketing to grow, and are looking to advertise to new prospects. These concepts have important implications for any lean startup. These concepts have important implications for any lean startup. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Ironically, meetings like this had given data and experimentation a bad name inside this company. Ironically, meetings like this had given data and experimentation a bad name inside this company. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What a waste. And who can blame them?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

March 26, 2009 12:18 AM Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Subscribe via email Blog Archive ► 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?) Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

If you read Lean Thinking , you can enjoy numerous examples of companies that replaced multi-million dollar MRP systems with a simple white board. The lean manufacturing guys call this visual control and its very powerful. Simply put, we upload all the tasks and assign a name to each task. 1 comments: Josh Moore said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

You should know that there are thousands of entrepreneurs who read this blog, some of whom are working on new platforms that will see the light of day someday. By participating, you've helped the next generation of entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes we made at IMVU. Flaming discussions usually end with name calling and a flame war.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Since I first started writing about vanity metrics , I’ve met more and more entrepreneurs who are struggling with a simple question: how can I tell a vanity metric when I see it? Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. Is that really news?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Whether youre a US citizen or an immigrant, entrepreneur or investor, founder or employee, theres something you can do. If youre a startup investor, and you support the goals of the Startup Visa proposal, wed like you lend your name to our efforts. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Soon, I promise.

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