Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 30, 2008 Refactoring for TDD and interaction design In TDD , we follow a rhythm of “test-code-refactor.&# This basic pattern is useful in all aspects of product development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Software Review 74

Software Review San Francisco Design Continuous Deployment 74

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. Do you fix bugs before writing code? Please leave feedback!)

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Here’s a guest post from Frank.

San Jose 257

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 257

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. And a certain amount of chaos reigned too.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

He has a good team, and theyve shipped a working product to many customers. If engineers want more time to spend making their old code more pretty, they are invited to do so on the weekends. The idea is that once we move to the new system (or coding standard, or API, or.) Its become "legacy code" and part of the problem.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on. Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on. Expo SF (May.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

This article previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. And by product, I mean the creation of new hardware, services, software, tools, operations, tradecraft, etc.

Government 317

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 317

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. If we accept the verdict of customers instead of pundits, I think these claims are easy to dismiss.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. The same might be said of good software. Here we have the beginnings of a theory of design for software.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. After talking to its resellers and customers I realized that SuperMac was the only company that could be described as “fifth in a group of three.” They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 151

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Each specialist takes up his part of the spec (UI, middleware, backend) and cranks out code. So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. In exchange, the team agrees to show each piece of working code to the product manager for his approval.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. But there is more to technical debt than just the interest payments that come due. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. You can click here to learn more.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. That died with waterfall software development. It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 233

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 233

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Expo Intensive rocked, the mainstream media has started writing about the Lean Startup, and - most of all - the movement continues to grow and evolve. I went to the conference thinking that I was well grounded in the basics of the Lean Startup approach and that attendance would hone the edges of that understanding.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Your natural tendency when an investor says yes will be to relax and go back to writing code. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

I was the junior guy on a project team; I was called in to do some technical due diligence for reasons that were obscure to me, because the team already had much more senior engineers assigned to it. Lets start holding people accountable solely for their contribution to the only thing that matters: validated learning about customers.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

His most recent company, Filtrbox, participated in the inaugural Techstars class (Techstars Boulder 2007) and was a win for all parties involved; Filtrbox was acquired in 2010 by Jive Software (NASDAQ: JIVE). One of them used to be a lead developer at [insert hot consumer tech company here]. Heads down on product, they say.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

The importance of the customer feedback cycle & the role it plays for AWeber. How to get your software business to the point where you can hire a business development director. Hunter shares some extremely valuable insights that will prove useful in building beneficial relationships and getting highly qualified customers.

Developer 104

Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

The “strategy” of learning who SuperMac’s customers were, what solutions they needed and what our repositioning would be was a three month effort. it was the speed of the applications that customers were using to get their work done. So I was going to give our customers metrics neither they or anyone else had ever seen before.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Understanding the left-side of the mission model canvas ( activities, resources , partners , and costs) forces all teams to ask, “Are we building a product for a DOD/IC customer only or do we have a “dual-use” product that could be sold commercially and get funded by venture capital?”. This post is a continuation of the series.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

See Paul Grahams Why Nerds are Unpopular to learn more) Take a look at this article on a programming Q&A site: How old are you, and how old were you when you started coding? We also learned that law is code , and that leadership was needed to build thriving communities in a digital age. Can I send you a review copy?

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. It did not mean building a startup into a company to flip or hype on the market with no earnings or revenue, but building a company that had paying customers. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 224

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 224

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. I did my best to capture video and audio; a YouTube playlist and Slideshare slidecast are below: Slides (with audio): 2009 08 19 The Lean Startup TechStars Edition View more presentations from Eric Ries. These quotes are, as is my custom, straight from twitter.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

At Palo Alto Software, I am surrounded by entrepreneurs. Our LivePlan customers are entrepreneurs, our founder and staff have run and sold companies, the Bplans readers are aspiring entrepreneurs (or actual entrepreneurs), and as I sell my own handmade jewelry, I like to think I have a very small claim to the title. Your customer.

Curation 60

Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. A description of the problem you’re solving for your customers, and your solution to the problem, which is usually your product or service.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. And how could they possibly review a blog?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

And the odds in your favor are even higher, as most of your peers wouldn’t even get into the game due to some unspoken belief that in a meritocracy, good things will come to those who wait. I had been teaching Z8000 design to customers for the last year and a half. I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. The product or website (be it software, e-commerce, or a service) might be awesome , but if it puts itself in front of the wrong market, or packages itself so the right market can’t figure out why it’s awesome, the startup will fail.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

You don’t need to collect the full set (tech, industry, product, customer, etc). If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and reviewing commits.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38