Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I am heavily indebted to earlier theorists, and highly recommend the books Lean Thinking and Lean Software Development. I also owe a great debt to Kent Beck, whose Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change was my first introduction to this kind of thinking. (So Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. We were looking for four students for the program, four developers in training, and we ended up getting 700 applicants in a week.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 143

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. We were looking for four students for the program, four developers in training, and we ended up getting 700 applicants in a week.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Sunny Shah , assistant director and faculty of the ESTEEM Graduate Program at the University of Notre Dame. Sunny Shah.

Cofounder 192

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 192

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. While these acquisitions have teams of great researchers, they rarely contribute actual revenue generating products (because most never reached that stage when they were acquired.)

Artificial Inteligence 320

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 320

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. on medical device revenues, regardless of profitability delays or cash-flow breakeven. The National Institute of Health (NIH) is also setting up translational centers through its NCATS program.

Startup 296

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 296

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. Every time an engineer checks in code, they are batching up a certain amount of work.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Intel under their last two CEOs delivered more revenue and profit than any ever before. For the first 75 years of the 20 th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs. Filed under: Corporate Innovation , Customer Development.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Continuous deployment is another such technique, one with a unique power to change development team dynamics for the better. One is used by engineers to refer to the process of getting code fully integrated into production. Another is used by marketing to refer to what customers see. Why does it work?

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

I think this idea is particularly appealing to those of us from an engineering background. And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Sunny Shah , assistant director and faculty of the ESTEEM Graduate Program at the University of Notre Dame. Sunny Shah.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Your most powerful growth engine is your existing customer. Customer content and engagement built rapid growth in the success of Intel ’s social media and Web-based marketing efforts, increasing “customer contacts” by a factor of tenfold and overall page views by 100x. That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

If all the engineers work on the same thing at the same time, and all the marketers do the same, and QA, and ops, all the way down the line, then each department develops its own team-based private reality. They were accustomed to measuring their progress primarily by gross revenue compared to their targets.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Lets return to our team thats failing to hit their targets. Amazon PostRank

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory - income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models - seems like another planet.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. That sounds like a simple thing, but back then, in the tech world, it was mostly engineers talking tech, bits and bytes. …”.

Brazil 160

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 160

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on. What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. While these acquisitions have teams of great researchers, they rarely contribute actual revenue generating products (because most never reached that stage when they were acquired.)

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 120

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. That sounds like a simple thing, but back then, in the tech world, it was mostly engineers talking tech, bits and bytes. …”.

Brazil 120

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

Last week the teams tested their Revenue Models hypotheses: what are customers willing to pay for? Partners are the external companies whose product or service combines with your Value Proposition to create a complete customer solution or “whole product&# to satisfy customers. Week 8 of the class. Veritas turbines.

South Dakota 223

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 223

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

Now with over 750 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.) In corporations, the CEO and executives have risen through the ranks for their skill on executing existing programs/missions. In a company you know you’ve been successful when you generate revenue and profit. Now back to the class. .

San Diego 143

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 143

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 28, 2009

The second shift in mindset required is to separate the concept of a marketing release from the concept of an engineering release. Just because a feature is built, tested, integrated and deployed doesnt mean that any customers should necessarily see it. Thats good for QA and for engineers. Faster (and better) feedback.

Continuous Deployment 122

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Metrics 122

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Lets see why.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2018

Is your organization full of Hackathons, Shark Tanks, Incubators and other innovation programs, but none have changed the trajectory of your company/agency? Over the last few years Pete Newell and I have helped build innovation programs inside large companies, across the U.S. Think of this as the innovator’s support group.)

Programming 322

Programming Incubator Leadership Silicon Valley 322

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 10, 2014

We didn’t know it at the time, but with that investment we had paid for front-row VIP seats to witness the origins of Customer Development and the Lean Startup. Since 2013, DC I-Corps has trained over 150 teams with the kind of impact NSF and Steve envisioned when they launched the program. It’s a Capitol Idea.

Maryland 274

Maryland Lean DC Virginia 274

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Just like in the world of startups, we can start to use micro-scale pilot programs, executed in lean fashion, to gather real facts for making ROI decisions about new project investment. What is the right revenue model? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

And in comes the Google App Engine as Google's offering in this context. Well, it turns out that to port long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. Building new apps is also not as simple. Enter OrangeScape.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Everyone from the receptionist to engineers is selling. Not just about expenses, about increasing revenue. Voluntary salary reduction program. Make sure for planned revenues you have "leading indicators" to know if you will hit it. Theres no better way to learn what customers want (or hate!).

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. That is customer development. “But it never happened.&# [Alas, customers dont know what they want!

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

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. flavor of a question-and-answer, poll-your-friends site with a distant revenue model and no user acquisition strategy.

Stealth 41

Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 23, 2015

Knowing your customers is the single biggest driver of startup success, and there’s no substitute for getting out of the building to learn about their problems and needs. Like Matthew, Jason sees enormous value in talking with customers: The biggest thing I learned was just how much you don’t know. It was enlightening.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

These problems can be anything: development mistakes, site outages, marketing program failures, or even internal missed schedules. I pick that example on purpose, for two reasons: 1) most of the companies I work with deal with this problem and yet 2) almost none of them have any kind of training program in place for new employees.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164