Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Every product ultimately is satisfying a need in the customers who buy it or use it. Products that dont solve satisfy any need for any customers tend to die out quickly. The more painful curse for startups is the product that satisfies a need or solves a problem - but that problem is not very important. Thats an early adopter.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 24, 2009 The lean startup at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Image by Jessica_Mah via Flickr Last week I had the opportunity to lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at Haas, which is always a great learning experience - for me at least! Eric takes a different approach.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. Failures, pivots , and crappy minimum viable products are generally elided. It helps companies with PR. This is also why I get so outraged when people treat Lean Startup like a religion. The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. Establish baseline metrics by building the minimum viable product — the minimum required to measure the response of early adopters. Consider a scenario where a team makes a product change, and the very next month page views go up.

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. ▼ April (11) Video update on the Startup Visa Act Lean Enterprise Institute webinar, April 28 Four myths about the Lean Startup Sneak preview, KISSmetrics (and more) Sneak preview, Grockit The Lean Startup Intensive at Web 2.0 Expo SF (May.

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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. Product launch) In todays world, there is no reason you have to do these two things at the same time. Establish credibility with potential partners.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Take a look at The App Store after the gold rush - FierceDeveloper : According to a recent BusinessWeek feature , the flood of new games, productivity tools and related iPhone software is making it difficult for the vast majority of apps to crack the consumer consciousness. Dont do PR upfront, dont put out a press release.

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San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We go to mixers, buy fancy offices, focus on PR, and try to one-up each other. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. You made me remember that maybe, and just, MAYBE, the early days is not at there to earn money, but rather understand your user and improve your product.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

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. The work product is a more realistic test, although it requires much more work on the part of the candidate. I already advocate cross-functional teams as part of the lean startup methodology.

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San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

In lean times, it’s most important to focus on cutting costs in ways that speed you up, not slow you down. Journalists, PR firms, investors, and the public at large love a scrappy come-from-behind story about two guys in a garage who figured out how to take down Goliath. A crisis is sometimes needed to force that reexamination.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

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. In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. That’s the local maximum.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

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. Most of the article is about the features – new and old – of the product. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.) Vanity metrics are generally bigger. But is that true?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Engagement loops: beyond viral Theres a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. And what causes them to choose one product over another?

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Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Build a truly mainstream product. Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. Build the product in stealth mode to build buzz for the eventual launch. Everyone had fun; the product worked. Focus on quality.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

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. Is a market a set of paying customers? Tough sell.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 11, 2009 The cardinal sin of community management Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. It took me a long time to understand that benefit of our product. This probably sounds illogical.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158