Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Where did Silicon Valley come from? I think the absolute best reading on this subject is a book called Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 by AnnaLee Saxenian. And what were they doing beforehand?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Here are a few: We know what customers want. By hiring experts, conducting lots of focus groups, and executing to a detailed plan, the company became deluded that it knew what customers wanted. But that was two full years before any customers were allowed to use it. Stealth is a customer-free zone.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Id like to call special attention to Kurt Carr s perspective (lets hope he finishes his five-part series): Now that I’m back in Ohio (I was one of the token foreigners in a room full of Silicon Valley residents), I have found myself reliving and rethinking much of what I saw there. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. We finally settled on a $1.99 Setup a simple website.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. The biggest source of cost/time advantage that all lean companies have is avoiding building features that customers dont want. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster.

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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. There are just too many of them out there. Is that a lot?

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www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Metrics for cyclical businesses. Customer Equity. Silicon Valley melting pot. Thank you Japan. The company and network of suppliers and allies need to have the best technology for solving the customers’ problems. Business Essays, Blogs, and Musings. Finance and budgeting. Let the Games Begin!

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

The problem is that the most authentic innovators and entrepreneurs are in the Valley. I want more than anything to come to Silicon Valley after I graduate and join the vibrant ecosystem. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Because five whys kept turning up a few key metrics that were hard to set static thresholds for, we even had a dynamic prediction algorithm that would make forecasts based on past data, and fire alerts if the metric ever went out of its normal bounds. What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Im not offering extensive studies or research to support this conclusion; the evidence from my peers right here in the innovation capital of America, Silicon Valley, is absolutely overwhelming. Asked to help, I am confident that Silicon Valley and every other innovation center will step up. They are nerds.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If I have some budget for outside help, should I hire a vendor to help us drive down our payment fraud rates by 1% (ROI easy to predict), or hire a market research firm to give us insights into potential customers (ROI hard to predict)? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

This is especially true in Silicon Valley. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

At Toyota , they are called Chief Engineer : Toyota realizes that the Chief Engineer job is probably the most important one in the company because the Chief Engineer listens to the customer and then determines what the functions need to do to address the customer’s desires. What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Take a look: This full-day Master Class focuses on how to build a startup from the ground up to focus on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. Im working on a future post where Ill share the details of how I used customer development to shape both the content and packaging of this event, so look for that soon.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

For many of us in Silicon Valley, one of the notable events of the crisis was Brian's public stance about the role of corporate leadership in social issues. In Y Combinator, they talk a lot about this idea, "Well, go talk to the customers." Then talk to the customers, improve the product. And I remember I just.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do your customers really read TechCrunch?

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2010

Heres an excerpt: Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster - WSJ.com Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists often churn out how-to business books and fancy themselves as management gurus, but few see their methodologies adopted. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Much of what makes the USA, and Silicon Valley in particular, such a great place to start a company is the result of good government policy. 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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

For a marketing job, for example, its reasonable to expect that a candidate will have done their homework and used your product (maybe even talked to your customers) before coming in. Were there to serve customers direclty, as well as all of the other functions of the company. and 2) can they get excited about what your company does?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Ive previously written about the advantages of having a pathetically small number of customers , and how to get started with customer segmentation. it seemed time to return to the subject of investigating who my customers are. Thats a common pattern to gaining customer insight. Customer knows they have a problem.

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www.ere.net

JULY 15, 2012

Common reason for failure: no metric or feedback mechanism to measure the percentage of applications that were routed to the wrong job. Common reason for failure: the absence of a metric or feedback mechanism to measure the percentage of applications that were misclassified or that advanced without meeting minimum standards.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 9, 2010

The event is being produced in partnership with Charles Hudson, who puts on many of Silicon Valleys top events, including the forthcoming Freemium Summit. The event is being produced in partnership with Charles Hudson, who puts on many of Silicon Valleys top events, including the forthcoming Freemium Summit.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

His posts are born of tremendous research into the secret history of Silicon Valley , and if you haven’t read those essays, you should. His posts are born of tremendous research into the secret history of Silicon Valley , and if you haven’t read those essays, you should.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

This is especially true if you live outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley. This is especially true if you live outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? There are four ways to get involved below.

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crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 27, 2015

How To Connect Social Media Metrics to In-Store Foot Traffic crowdspring.co/1FalO0D. 4 Steps to Creating Authentic Stories Your Customers Will Want to Read crowdspring.co/1Mz9ojz. Make your own customized pancake portraits | DesignFaves crowdspring.co/1BCrL5v. The Zany Cats Of Japan’s Edo Period crowdspring.co/1CdVmCI.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: Five Whys Where did Silicon Valley come from?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

There are many articles by many experts ( myself included ) extolling the virtues of listening to customers. In fact, there are so many of these propaganda pieces that this question might naturally cross your mind: if listening to customers is so great, why do we need so much propaganda? We did not take this step lightly.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 22, 2008 Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction Ive mentioned Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a few previous posts, but havent had a chance to describe it in detail yet. It does it all by asking your customers just one magic question.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

When I first wrote about the advantages of having a pathetically small number of customers , I only had 5 subscribers. Of course, 1000 customers is pretty pathetically small too. Its also time to start thinking about customer segments. So how do you get started with customer segmentation? Thank you all for stopping by.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

And then, at my first Silicon Valley startup , I watched friends get laid off in successive waves as it started to fail. Instead, lets focus on building companies that matter , on creating real value for customers, and learning. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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