Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. But since I spent a long time in a hybrid CTO/VP Engineering role, I still have this nagging question. If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? I mean, have you seen other people? They might do anything ! Heres my take.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. His teenage daughter has Type 1 diabetes.

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Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 327

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I read a ton of existing literature and came up with a formal methodology for search I called Customer Development. Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development at Haas business school. Eric’s insight was that traditional product management and Waterfall development should be replaced by Agile Development.

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Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 292

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." You get increasing growth by optimizing the viral loop , and you get revenue as a side-effect, assuming you have even the most anemic monetization scheme baked into your product.

San Francisco 167

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I read a ton of existing literature and came up with a formal methodology for search I called Customer Development. Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development at Haas business school. Eric’s insight was that traditional product management and Waterfall development should be replaced by Agile Development.

Lean 184

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 184

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

In the very early days, the trick is to find anyone at all who can understand you when you are talking about your product. In our first year at IMVU, we thought we were building a 3D avatar chat product. As product people, we thought of competition in terms of features. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Startups needed millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product out the door to customers. A hardware startup had to equip a factory to manufacture the product. VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Thus began the 5-year dot-com bubble.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. This kind of result is typical when you ship a redesign of some part of your product. Without split-testing, your product tends to get prettier over time. First of all, why split-test? One last note on reporting.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Customer development. This speeds up the Ideas-Code-Data feedback loop.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

AUGUST 4, 2016

Hacking for Diplomacy is a new course from the Management Science and Engineering department in Stanford’s Engineering school and Stanford’s International Policy Studies program that will be first offered in the Fall of 2016. Hacking for Diplomacy is not a product incubator for a specific technology solution.

Lean 165

Lean Government Agile Africa 165

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Processes are always deteriorating or self-regulating. Do they measure?

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. These tests are written by the engineers themselves, and they must all pass every time.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

By now the nine teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad Class were formed, In the four days between team formation and this class session we tasked them to: Write down their initial hypotheses for the 9 components of their company’s business model (who are the customers? what’s the product? what distribution channel? Xu Cui (Ph.D,

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Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 238

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Our open source counterparts who did solve the scale problem, had some serious hardware costs to deal with. So did I when I finally found myself building an app with real scalability, a few years later, but a combination of our just-in-time scalability technique and great open source scaling tools, made it manageable.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Steve Blank

AUGUST 4, 2016

Hacking for Diplomacy is a new course from the Management Science and Engineering department in Stanford’s Engineering school and Stanford’s International Policy Studies program that will be first offered in the Fall of 2016. Hacking for Diplomacy is not a product incubator for a specific technology solution.

Lean 120

Lean Government Agile Africa 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

The Lean Startup: a Disciplined Approach to Imagining, Designing, and Building New Products.: The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. Expo to explain the lean startup concept to a larger audience.

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Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

During the same period (1987 – 1990) and I did some work at MIT under Eric von Hippel on “user driven innovation with regard to software development&# which today would probably fall under the heading of “open source software development approaches.&# Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

A growing startup with a well-run product team will have a history of steady progress. For readers concerned about the chasm, I recommend reading Seth Godin's thoughts on "Being remarkable" and finding a unique edge/twist for your products and marketing (edgecraft). How do you plan for it?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

You have customers, they are using your product, and you are trying to help them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? I see startups struggle with this all the time.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Usability testing is great for coming up with ideas about what to change in your product, but dont forget to split-test those ideas to make sure they work, too. Read more at How to Usability Test your Site for Free | Noah Kagans Okdork.com Labels: listening to customers 1 comments: HKagan said. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

You can find out what it would take for them to adopt your product, and then follow up a week later and see if they did. Same with finding out what it would take to get them to recommend your product to a friend. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So why you?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Hacking for Defense is a new course at Stanford’s Engineering School in the Spring of 2016. Our goal is to open-source this class to other universities and create the 21 st Century version of Tech ROTC. Rapidly iterate technology to produce solutions while searching for product-market fit. Sign up here.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Labels: events 3comments: Alexandre Gomes said.

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Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

We work in prototypically four-week iterations, with quality engineers and software developers working in close collaboration. During this period, the Palantir Gotham team grew from five developers to around 35. During this period, the Palantir Gotham team grew from five developers to around 35. It wasn’t always this way.

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Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 5, 2008 Great open source scalability tools from Danga If you are trying to build a scalable LAMP service, its always best to start with the original and still quite relevant presentation, from Brad Fitzpatrick when he was at LiveJournal. You can find the 2005 version here.

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Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

His friends at General Electric said he was wasting his time on the gas combustion engine because the world was going electric. -- ErrantX 215 days ago | link. The story of the v-8 engine is a bit different. However you get to a good product is how you need to get to a good product. From "Think and Grow Rich".

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Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. Keep split-testing, but keep this iron rule: if it doesnt change customer behavior, its not a feature.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68