Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

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www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Lead Gen: I utilized my friends, professional contacts, and Harvard networks by sending out emails to list serves, reaching out to people, and getting referrals.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

What those sites have in common (despite their very different audiences) is that something is causing their customers to become addicted to their product, and so no matter how they acquire a new customer, they tend to keep them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

I spent most of my time with TechStars, who were my hosts for the trip. And they expose the startups to a vast network of mentors, none of whom get paid for their involvement. And do your customer development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Spray files across cheap disks on your network. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. Pay less for storage.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

But the early customers all compared it to MySpace. 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.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

This was a modern city in a hurry to make a first impression – think of what Rome looked like in the time of the empire or New York in the 1920’s – now it’s Beijing announcing that China has arrived. David Lin and the Microsoft China Accelerator was gracious enough to host two wonderful days of events for me.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

From my side, i network with many startups all the time, and i am constantly trying to persuade them to adopt the new age mindset, but its often no easy task. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Lane also founded Wheelhouse, a Canadian organization that supports other entrepreneurs through mentorship, access to early stage capital, and connections to global business networks and executive expertise. . ” I called this trade show company that was putting on this great marketing event in New York City.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

For example, I’ve talked often about our belief that an instant messaging add-on product would allow IMVU to take advantage of a network effects strategy. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product. When a third-party hosts that same library for you, and you acess it via an API, it should count, too.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I was constantly coming up with arguments to save it: that we couldnt be sure that the feature wouldnt be useful later, that maybe some customers liked it even though most didnt, that it wasnt consistent with our company values to become a proprietary IM network. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Why Are They Referring New Customers Completely Unprompted? One on one interviews, surveys, and other customer development techniques can help to reveal this. For Roku, it was 45 days after a new customer had been enjoying the service. For AirBnb, it was after someone hosted or returned from a stay.

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Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Lane also founded Wheelhouse, a Canadian organization that supports other entrepreneurs through mentorship, access to early stage capital, and connections to global business networks and executive expertise. . ” I called this trade show company that was putting on this great marketing event in New York City.

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Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Im going to be speaking on June 3rd at an event sponsored by the Technology Entrepreneurs Exchange (TeXchange), "the premier networking organization in Texas for business executives and entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas and share experiences." The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Not everything has to follow lean startup and customer development principles, and I write that as a devoted practitioner of both. It would be far more useful to discover how Apple really does develop their innovative products it rather than assume that they follow the principles that you and I espouse.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

And in some markets its decisive, because of well-known network effects (as happened with Microsoft, eBay, and many others). But if your product category doesnt have strong network effects, word of mouth alone is not usually enough to fend off a competitor who also has a quality product. So what model will prevail on the iPhone?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

I went to excellent public schools (so-called science magnets) that had computer classes, which meant they had networked computers that I could use. If we network them together, theyll answer each others questions and collaborate on projects we can hardly imagine. But I was also very lucky. Theyll take it from there.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. How did they do it? By listening to their users.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

This was a modern city in a hurry to make a first impression – think of what Rome looked like in the time of the empire or New York in the 1920’s – now it’s Beijing announcing that China has arrived. David Lin and the Microsoft China Accelerator was gracious enough to host two wonderful days of events for me.

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David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

incubators, e.g., the many options in New York. intrapreneurs, e.g., the employee of GE who is tasked with launching a new business. Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year.

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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.]? So why you?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

This is true of most web application servers, caches like memcached, and all of the network infrastructure that connects them. Im not talking about high-level abstractions (like an object-oriented view of a customers data). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, the works. The product didnt convert well enough, the mainstream customers we were driving werent ready for the concept, and the event fed expectations about how successful the product was going to be that turned out to be hyper-inflated.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I started my last company with 100% off-shore resources because I could never have completed Customer Development at a reasonable cost of money or regulatory burden had I employed US Citizens. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

I’ve previously documented that early-on in IMVU’s life, we made the mistake of building an IM add-on product instead of a standalone network. We would bring customers in for a usability test, and ask them to use the IM add-on functionality. (For and for which customer? and for which customer?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Or follow all of the New York Times columnists equally? This is good news for everyone except those who have huge legacy investments in large-batch distribution. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Does anyone really watch the full NBC lineup anymore?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

All the usual ideas are good ones: I support inviting more women to speak at conferences , the creation of women-centric networking events like Women 2.0 All the usual ideas are good ones: I support inviting more women to speak at conferences , the creation of women-centric networking events like Women 2.0

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Processes that, in the Industrial Age, were tightly scripted, with predictable outcomes, must in the Networked World, become adaptable, contextual, and focus on getting measurable (often surprising!) The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thanks for the post, Eric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

When I entered the company, I realized that there were no process and I quickly applied what I know about agile software development. My responsibility at the time I joined the company was to develop a product that is to be deployed on a social network (hint hint, FB). I am basically a one-man shop.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand. High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

I also have to include this caveat: we werent purely a software company - we built telecom network devices, hw and sw. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Software Eng. here who spent a couple years in Eng. then five years in Product Mgt.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo New York New York, NY Nov 19 The Lean Startup at MIT Boston, MA Nov 20 Lunch workshop at Dogpatch Labs Boston, MA Dec 17 Lean Startup Cohort program begins San Francisco, CA KISSmetrics KISSmetrics is loading.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

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. Social network page views are much more likely to be internally focused; ads are more of a distraction.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For network-effects businesses, like Skype , just being on the network is enough to create value. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Recently, hes been engaged in a customer validation exercise around a new concept for a political action-oriented social network. Recently, hes been engaged in a customer validation exercise around a new concept for a political action-oriented social network. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

For example, if any of the mobile ad networks gets major traction, they may become a dominant way that people discover new apps. If the rating in the App Store is based on usage, I am sure those popular social networking applications are sure to be in the top and the hot seat always. The observation sounds strange.

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