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.

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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. But, over the years I’ve realized that the toughest problem - the one that matters most and was consistently the most challenging - was figuring out what the product backlog should be.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence. Your blogs are full of rational thoughts and has nuggets of information. It is encouraging to know someone with your reputation and connections is evangelizing truly valuable information for start-ups.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

When we build products, we use a methodology. We know some products succeed and others fail, but the reasons are complex and the unpredictable. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." The theory of Product/Market Fit is one key component of customer development, and I highly recommend Marcs essay on that topic.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Because of the incredible array of information available, we have a desperate need for filtering mechanisms. Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). There are too many products clamoring for attention. No longer.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

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

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Before I close, let me quote just one additional bit of twitter feedback from one of the video beta-testers: bmeschke : @ ericries This is such GREAT information. Say you're not creating a product but doing a service? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Its different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is not something that relates to our core competence, and tends not to happen in a repeatable and scalable way. Most important slide: lessons learned Working product Key questions: what does the product do? whats the launch plan?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. 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?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

It wont even get passed the registrant information screen to even get to selecting what you want to register for. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. March 19, 2009 6:11 PM Anonymoussaid.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

If the CEO wants to completely change the product in order to serve a new customer segment, you need someone in the room who can digest the needs of the new (proposed) business, and lay out the costs of each possible approach. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. Very good and informative.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

You can find out what it would take for them to adopt your product, and then follow up a week later and see if they did. Same with finding out what it would take to get them to recommend your product to a friend. I agree with the other comments, more information on yourself and what topics youll focus on would be helpful.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

The art team would often be involved in the specification phase of a new feature, since they were responsible for the look-and-feel of the product. When the art team would review the final product, they were inevitably outraged – it deviated from the spec in ways they considered major. Here’s why.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Sorry about this being out of context but I wonder if youve read "What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services". The presentation was informative, insightful, and humorous - as you pointed out the many ridiculous assumptions we make as entrepreneurs! Thanks for an enjoyable evening.

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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. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product.

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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. He has a good team, and theyve shipped a working product to many customers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Today, Id like to spend some time on two techniques: the problem presentation and learning what channels of information reach customers. If this was a startup, Id be asking it of a sample of customers even more often, because getting a regular tracking result is helpful for informing your decision loop. Thats an early adopter.

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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. Reinertsen is the book for you.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 19, 2009 Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a response) Inc Magazine has a great new piece up about the increasing use of the Minimum Viable Product by businesses (and not just startups). Like many companies, TPGTEX rolls out new products several times a year.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 4, 2010 Stop lying on stage Entrepreneurs crave information about successful startups, and they should. This is the same issue we see with vanity metrics : companies are giving the appearance of sharing information while actually engaging in spin or outright deception.

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www.subelsky.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Heres a revised version of what I emailed in response, garnered while building OtherInbox and other Rails apps: First and foremost, I find Rails itself to be very useful for building a product for a lean startup; the expressiveness of Ruby and the conventions of Rails help developers more quickly build a minimum viable product.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

First, SlideShare is a fantastic product (that I use on a regular basis) and an impressive company example of Lean Startup practices in action. If your company is using minimum viable product , you’ve probably said the same thing yourself. But I have decided to make an exception today, for two reasons.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 23, 2009 Venture Hacks interview: "What is the minimum viable product?" So, the minimum viable product is that product which has just those features (and no more) that allows you to ship a product that resonates with early adopters; some of whom will pay you money or give you feedback.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, its easy to lose track of positioning effects when optimizing for a single metric.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 24, 2010

And, in the survey that was attached, I learned a lot of useful information about how to make this blog better. I sometimes use these surveys to test new product ideas and even to engage in some customer validation. And, in the survey that was attached, I learned a lot of useful information about how to make this blog better.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2010

Lean mindsets and methods for innovation in any company a free webinar featuring: Eric Ries April 28, 2010 at 2:00 PM EDT The "Lean Startup" is the application of lean thinking to the process of innovation in startup companies — defined as a type of business where both the problem (customer need) and the solution (product) are unknown.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

My belief is that the root cause of the IPO shortage is that successful startup companies cannot find productive ways to invest large amounts of money to scale anymore. New products become commoditized too fast. We can’t even rely on a suite of line-extension products. New products become commoditized too fast.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. Use that data to make an informed choice about whether you want to change strategies. Is it that they act as free advertising for our premium product? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

The same is true of brand-name products in almost every category (and it can be measured ). Beyond their brand, I want to argue that every product contains both tangible and intangible sources of value, and that everything you buy has at least some "virtual goods" component.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Palantir is a deep technical play and we had a lot of code to write just to fill out the product vision that we had already validated with potential customers; it took us two straight years of development to go from early prototypes to software that could be used in production. So what was going on?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). Youd better be able to speak their language and translate what your product does into benefits that they understand. This blog is very informative for me. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

But that team may also include product marketers or other in-house customers who can give insight into the impact that solution trade-offs might have on customers. Its not good enough to hit product milestones and conduct usability tests. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." Metrics are a key questions startups face.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 1, 2009

My challenge for the new year is getting the word out about our product (AwayFind), while of course improving on conversions, etc. I see that as a great way for my product to grow, but while Ive partnered with companies in my consulting business, its not something Im as familiar with now that Im on the product side.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

As a consequence, this new startup is relentlessly metrics-driven. How about a fictive short story about few guys starting up a web product company on lean startup way? After all, what are the chances of us stumbling across it otherwise in the age of Information Overload? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, November 13, 2008 Five Whys Taiichi Ohno was one of the inventors of the Toyota Production System. His book Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production is a fascinating read, even though its decidedly non-practical. This last step is difficult, but I think its very helpful.

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