Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. I am heavily indebted to earlier theorists, and highly recommend the books Lean Thinking and Lean Software Development. (So The lean startup is an application of Lean Thinking.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

This was 2004, and we had never even heard of MySpace, let alone had any understanding of social networking. It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

For companies in the early-adopter phase, you can play "the earlyvangelist game" whenever a customer turns out to be too mainstream for your product. Pick a similar product that they do use, and ask them "who was the first person you know who started using [social networking, mobile phones, plasma TV, instant messaging.]?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

As with services like Yelp, reviewers can tend to be the subset of people who were disappointed by the product, not those who liked it or even loved it. This can even vary by category, as people apply different criteria to games vs. utilities vs. social networking apps. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74