Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

That green button was part of a customer flow, a series of actions you want customers to complete for some business reason. If its part of a viral loop, its probably trying to get them to invite more friends (on average). Why did customers like your change so much that they didnt change their behavior one iota ?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Having just retired from a career as an entrepreneur I had started thinking about why startups were different from large companies. Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them. As soon as possible!&#

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

This model has not translated well to the world of social networking, because customers of social networks engage sites in a different way than customers of search engines. If you ask an expert in Facebook apps to come help build yours, youll usually hear the same advice: build your app for virality. Bring your questions.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Most first-time entrepreneurs aren’t prepared for the challenges they will face building a startup, and yet they wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. How founders find the determination to push through tough times was the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Filed under: Customer Development.

Entrepreneur 262

Entrepreneur Cofounder San Francisco Campaign 262

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

At a high level, anything that drives virality should be free. To take your specific example about virality - why do we want to have more users sign up? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph. If a startup is pre-product/market fit, growth hackers can make sure virality is embedded at the core of a product. Rinse and repeat.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

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.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. If your app has strong word-of-mouth or viral components, your retention drives new acquisition, and its not so important to have good placement in the store. Its like knowing the future.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. I bet you over-engineered your startup – [link]. How to Be Happy: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective | Forbes – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. Those companies who have learned to build apps that optimize the viral loop dominate in every category where they compete. Not many customers ever browse the app directory or search for specific apps - they dont have to, they find out about apps by being invited by a friend.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

” April, 2012 – Andrew Chen writes Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing , which goes viral (2.4K Now, people begin defining growth hacking as a process, a systematic approach, a “viral loop”, etc. An Epic List of 100 Growth Hacks for Startups by Search Engine Journal. How Is Growth Hacking Defined Today?

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Most first-time entrepreneurs aren’t prepared for the challenges they will face building a startup, and yet they wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. How founders find the determination to push through tough times was the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Filed under: Customer Development.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder San Francisco Campaign 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

This is a common problem that results from viral-loop optimization. By copying the exact same registration flow as every other successful viral app, many viral apps completely lose their positioning. Customers cant even remember what apps theyve signed up for, and become entirely dependent on notifications to bring them back.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. 10 Must-See Documentaries for Entrepreneurs | CNBC – [link]. Google App Engine is ready for primetime says Reddit/Hipmunk co-founder – [link]. Seth Godin is only partially correct – [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

The first few changes, like a price change, may not require a lot of engineering effort. But they require coordination across departments – engineering, marketing, customers service. When registration is too easy, customers can get confused about what they are registering for.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

When people (ok, engineers) who have been trained in this model enter most startups, they quickly get confused. How can we do split-testing when we have only a pathetically small number of customers ? Customers can only tell you want they think they want, and tend to have a very near-term perspective. and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Theoretically, i can visualize the Continuous Integration as RAD ( Rapid action development) along with iterative method, which we used to study in Software Engineering's Process model. We, the s/w engineer have to rethink about the solution, the code which need to change, which would reflect the right change.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and Ive written about their pain in The product managers lament and The engineering managers lament. And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Hire a CTO or VP Engineering.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 5, 2014

Yesterday Kissmetrics blogged A recipe of viral features used by the fastest growing startups. It’s a good read for anybody who wants to increase the number of free customers they are getting. It’s engineered. In other words virality is science not art. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s a design principle.

Viral 92

Viral Lean SEO Software 92

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

Many great engineers Ive worked with (especially the type I talked about in the hackers lament ) seem to think that if they get along well with someone in an interview, theyll be a good addition to the team. I experienced this when I was the engineering manager at a small company. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 83

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan. If the viral coefficient is 0.9,

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Either way, you would have been better off focusing your split-test on high level metrics that measure how much customers like your product as a whole. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Bring your questions.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

To give you a better idea of what entrepreneurs in this industry are thinking about during each phase of the startup process, I interviewed SaaS entrepreneurs from all over the world, including our own COO Noah Parsons. Practical Market Research Resources for Entrepreneurs. How to Write a Business Plan in Under an Hour.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea. Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life? 5 Comments 30 Answers Tristan Kromer , I help entrepreneurs find co-founders. "Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life?

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Perhaps you should think of putting these posts, when they have grown, together into an ebook, a manifesto for growing entrepreneurs? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

San Francisco 74

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

Editor's note : This is the second in a two-part excerpt from the book The Startup Owner’s Manual , a step-by-step how-to guide for entrepreneurs. In this excerpt, authors Steve Blank and Bob Dorf continue to explain the Customer Discovery Philosophy (see Part One, " Is Your Startup a Valid Vision or Just a Hallucination? ").

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Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Since I first started writing about vanity metrics , I’ve met more and more entrepreneurs who are struggling with a simple question: how can I tell a vanity metric when I see it? Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. Is that really news?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Lean Startup Circle - a mailing list of dedicated and helpful entrepreneurs. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Bring your questions.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

government has embraced Lean methodologies to reinvigorate its innovation efforts was the focus of the latest episode of my SiriusXM radio show, Entrepreneurs are Everywhere. I-Corps teaches scientists and engineers how to get their technical ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace using the Lean Startup processes. How the U.S.

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Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Washington Government 120