Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

The book lays out a disciplined approach to make sure this period doesnt last forever, and clear criteria for when you know its time to move to an execution footing: when you have a repeatable and scalable sales process, as evidenced by early customers paying you money for your early product. If I get sales I will expand on the site.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

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. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. My blog has over 14000 subscribers, for example. Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Although customers didnt flock to this offering at first, we had enough of a developer program active to start recruiting early adopters to start creating 3D objects for sale in our catalog. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma. for Harvard Business Revie.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

When I was working my first programming jobs, I was introduced to the following maxim: "time, quality, money - pick two." When I first encountered agile software techniques, in the form of extreme programming , I thought I had found the answer. Of course, the sales folks had new features as their #1 priority.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

This makes lean supply chains more robust in the face of the unexpected: if sales suddenly dry up, they are stuck with less unsold inventory and simultaneously have less debt to service. The Extreme Programming folks call those "spikes", and generally don't check them in.) One last thought. for Harvard Business Revie.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. One of my favorite gadgets at home is the Harmony Universal Remote. for Harvard Business Revie.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Designed for large businesses, the channels let a company share several types of documents, brand the channel with their own design elements, and then include display advertising, contest promotions, blog aggregation, social media integration and metrics reporting. The idea seemed to SlideShare to be a natural direction.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Voluntary salary reduction program. This can take the form of a traditional sales pipeline or a registration-activation-revenue chart. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I used to think that investments in metrics were a form of waste. Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. The only reason we learned the art of metrics-based decision making at IMVU was out of necessity. We set sales targets from day one, $300 the first month.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Then, the company spends no more than a few hundred dollars marketing the product through search engines and to the contacts in its sales database and LinkedIn. Then, the company spends no more than a few hundred dollars marketing the product through search engines and to the contacts in its sales database and LinkedIn.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

So instead of having sales, marketing, and business development, we have a problem team implementing customer development. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." leanstartup ericnsantos : #w2e #leanstartup Metrics should be Actionable, Accessible and Auditable. Metrics are a key questions startups face.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Know what the success metrics are for the launch. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. for Harvard Business Revie.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I'll add one more point: The SBIR program is based on a dated notion of small business research, and the multi-year process doesn't line up with the speed of many modern startups. Similarly, government purchasing is a frustrating series of hoops, even compared to enterprise sales. You can see the design of the program here.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

TDD plus continuous integration works as a natural feedback loop: if the team is working "too fast" to produce quality code reliably, tests fail, which requires the team to slow down and fix them. Use pair programming and collective code ownership. Pair programming is the most radical, but also the most helpful.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

Sales depend on being right (whereas in UGC we can pretty much try anything, and promote the winners). Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Levers of engagement Lets start with the levers of engagement.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

We got instantaneous feedback on the validity of the idea and started our sales process concurrently. LOIs, while clearly not as good as signed sales contract, do have meaning and are valuable. We got instantaneous feedback on the validity of the idea and started our sales process concurrently. for Harvard Business Revie.

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

I would also suggest, and the engineers will almost certainly hate this suggestion, that the decision-maker asks for hard metrics to justify the refactoring effort in the first place. Only one occasion was a substantial rewrite justified based on performance metrics. And we all know what the success rates of rewrites are! Homer said.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

So imagine youre applying for a programming job. And now all those "qualified" candidates who you were competing against in scenario #1 are starting to look unqualified, because although they may be experts in something, they dont know Ruby, and youve convinced the client that Ruby is the be-all-end-all of programming languages.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

It took hundreds of years for newspapers to learn to behave as worthy holders of this public trust and cover the news without fear or favour, and create a firewall between news and views and the ad-sales side of the operation. I cannot sink any more money into a program that is still having community problems. No gain without pain.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158