Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

He’ll talk about making a profit and making a difference in a conversation with New Media Ventures’ Christie George. Ben Horowitz ’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things is driving the conversation around startup management this year. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. Todd Park convened the team that saved Obamacare.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

The Equity Kicker

MAY 16, 2014

Metrics such as cumulative registered users and total number of downloads are often called vanity metrics because they can make you feel good even when your startup is going south. The thought for the weekend then is to avoid vanity conversations and concentrate on getting facts. Startup general interest'

Conversion 123

Conversion Metrics Customer Development Startup 123

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. And the converse is true; Palm would have failed, burning through all their cash, using Handspring’s strategy.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

We’ve organized everything to best simulate a visitor’s experience on a landing page from first click to final conversion. note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Why You Should Focus On Clicks Before Conversions.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Extra Lucrative Conversion Advice. Conversion Optimization Services. Conversion Research. It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. I feel like “conversion rate optimization” is in 2013 what “social media marketing” was in 2009.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Entrepreneurs should always communicate their business’ very latest stage of customer development as part of their investor presentation.

Framework 306

Framework Sacramento Lean Customer Development 306

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

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."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. If youre worried about disappointing some potential customers - dont be. Measure conversion rates. Eric -- This is a pretty interesting idea.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

In this case the basis of competition on the X/Y axes are metrics defined by the users in the existing market. ” conversation with investors. (If The competitive diagram is how develop your first hypotheses about who your customers are. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital.

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Venture Capital Customer Development Business Model Lean 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. Labels: customer development , split-test 7comments: Editor said.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

For instance, tracking ‘months-of-runway’ combined with the month-over-month change to that metric allows us to rapidly identify companies that may be distressed. Customer Development. A well-developed model is Andreessen Horowitz’s Executive Briefing Center. Neither proprietary nor marketable. Minimal cost. .

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

You’ve likely already heard that explainer videos can boost conversions anywhere between ten and ten bazillion percent. With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high. ” metric for featured products & +28.0

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. My aspiration with the Lean Startup methodology has always been to provide such a framework, so that we have more intelligent conversations about what works and what doesnt for startups. Thats what this conference is for.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

And the final lesson was that we were keeping score on our packaging with the wrong metrics – it wasn’t about awards, it was about sales in the retail channel. If you look at the top 3 online retailers by conversion rate, none of these are award-winning designs : [link] [link] [link] However, they convert ~25% of visitors to customers.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. There are financial metrics (Return on Investment, Hurdle Rate, etc.) Lessons Learned.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. 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. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Unfortunately, the video of our sllconf conversation is not online (due to technical problems), but we have a physical tape backup which we are endeavoring to get online soon.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

She suggested that how cofounders fight was a key metric in predicting the success of a founding team. But a few weeks ago after I sat on a panel about cofounders at Startup2Startup there was a small group dinner conversation to dig deeper on the topic. Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture.

Cofounder 329

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 329

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

It will feature a conversation that gets into the details of how non-profit and mission-driven organizations are making use of Lean Startup methods to get closer to their goals, faster. And "Lean Impact" offers a reference point for people to start that conversation—there is real power in naming.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Metrics Angel Investor 167

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2018

Much of the writing on startups focuses on two elements: finding product-market fit scaling the company once #1 is accomplished For product-market fit, we have a lot of source material to work with from the last decade: Steve Blank’s leadership on Customer Development , and Eric Ries’ on the Lean Startup ?—?along Join the conversation!

Warrant 48

Warrant Bootstrapping Framework Hiring 48

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. Unfortunately, this content-less decision-making process is inhibiting the ability of media companies to develop interesting new content at the very time when this supposed expertise should serve as their one true competitive advantage. Is that a lot?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2013

The first month of customer discovery for most of their initiatives relied too much on conversations within the Princeton University community itself (fellow students, faculty and admin). Align and train mentors to embrace customer development. Let the games begin …. ” Lessons Learned. Beertending. Dream Figures.

Lean 282

Lean Cofounder Dividend Business Model 282

ConversionXL

DECEMBER 2, 2020

This arrangement made it challenging to give a quick answer to basic questions on user conversions or to comment on traffic rates and MRR. It wasn’t until we began creating custom dashboards to visualize our data that everything started to click. . The stage in which a customer makes a purchase. Other metrics to monitor.

Churn Rate 78

Churn Rate Analytics Retention SQL 78

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

It provides a basic introduction to analytics as they apply to Lean Startup, including sections on what metrics to use and how to interpret them. For instance, Ben lists out the worst of the “vanity metrics,” a term that describes appealing but meaningless or misleading numbers. Alistair: There are plenty. Consider a restaurant.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When it becomes possible to build products "live" with customers, the cycle time changes and design becomes a much more dynamic process. We still struggle to create Firm software that is defect-free, and it still requires customer insight (and maybe some customer development) to discover what will Delight.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For now, Id like to ask a favor.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128