Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, February 11, 2009 The free software hiring advantage This is one of those startup tips Im a little reluctant to share, because its been such a powerful source of competitive advantage in the companies Ive worked with. This approach gives you an edge in hiring. Instead, engage with the project.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most startups don’t have the luxury of hiring an experienced PM early in their journey. Many founders have to turn to brute force to figure it out, even when they themselves don’t have practitioner product management experience. all our problems will be solved when this magical product is released !”

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 17, 2010

If this is your attitude, your conception of tech support is completely backwards and you're missing out on important channels for marketing, product development, and sales. Yes, I'm flagrantly paraphrasing the legendary Kathy Sierra , but the idea applies as much to tech support as to product development.).

Technical Review 245

Technical Review Sales Turkey Software Review 245

Brandanew

APRIL 25, 2016

Hire external writers. You can spend your energy towards client acquisition, collaboration, and product development. For those of you, who are just beginning, I definitely recommend starting yourself off on the right track and learning the best processes. You will need internal or external resources for this job.

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The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 20, 2014

THANK YOU SO MUCH MATT, I WILL DEFINITELY BE USING YOU AGAIN AND WILL RECOMMEND TO MY FRIENDS. The timing often depends on previous experience, key hires and the growth of the business. Whereas as hires come on board and the product develops our involvement has scaled down to more of a mentoring role and for tactical projects.

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Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 95

Spencer Fry

DECEMBER 16, 2019

I've chosen to continue to lead product, but I've given up almost all of my responsibilities in regard to marketing and support. New hiring responsibilities. We now have 6 product developers — if you include our CTO — and they're often working on different projects. Our individual departments got bigger.

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CTO Hire Wiki Product Development Matching 44

bhargreaves.com

MARCH 7, 2010

Most disturbingly, I’ve occasionally found myself agreeing with an entrepreneur’s decision to hire a development shop to build their product. The reasons why I am not a big fan of development shops are too numerous to go into here. You probably aren’t the best person to hire and manage a developer.

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Hiring Technical Review Agile Software Review 40

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. Reply Amit , on January 22, 2010 at 11:34 am Said: Great article!

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 27, 2020

It’s not just some vague buzzword to us, so we thought it would be helpful to provide more context on our definition of mission-driven and why it’s central to our investment thesis. . Jam’s Dani Grant and Mohd Irtefa are committed to making digital product development dramatically more collaborative. . For example….

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Founder Portfolio Leadership Product Development 188

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

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San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 29, 2008 The ABCDEFs of conducting a technical interview I am incredibly proud of the people I have hired over the course of my career. This second objective plays no small part in allowing you to hire the best. Hiring decisions are among the most difficult, and the most critical.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration. Definitely highlights the beauty of the web.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched. Start-ups by definition have few, if any, of these.

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Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

How many employees would a medium-sized business have in your definition? Some people have different definitions of that. I mean they have these definitions. Meetings are definitely one of those places, but email is another primary way that that comes in. Jason: Okay. I’m just clarifying. Edwin: Yes.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

The Lean Startup Conference is an event by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs—except that our definition of “entrepreneur” may be different from the one you have in mind. Eric has talked often about recognizing a startup as an organization designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 31, 2016

It could be more revenue, hiring clients or launching a new product or service, but every new year is an exciting time because it’s ripe with opportunity. 1 – Developing Software. Goal #2: hire more employees. And if I can hire even one more employee, I will have won in 2017. 11 – A Few Things.

Entrepreneur 71

Entrepreneur Software Review New Zealand Mobile 71

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Examples of this are well-known, and (in my definition) include any product that causes new customers to sign up as a necessary side-effect of existing customers normal usage: Facebook, Myspace, AIM/ICQ, Hotmail, Paypal. Beware the new hire who has "extensive experience" in startups or big companies - using a different growth driver.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Hearpreneur

NOVEMBER 29, 2020

It’s definitely an inspiring time! Besides, I am involved in every hiring decision, so I surround myself with talented people who share my vision and values, which is key to happy working relationships. I never know if I will be wearing my marketing hat, my finance hat, my product development hat, or my lawyer hat.

Entrepreneur 140

Entrepreneur Artificial Inteligence Technical Review LLC 140

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

So What is Customer Development? Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, developed a methodology for creating businesses that runs in parallel with the traditional product development process. The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses.

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Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 25, 2012

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter Drucker. Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams by Lou Adler. Winning at New Products: Accelerating the Process from Idea to Launch, Third Edition by Robert G. The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig.

Merger 228

Merger Leadership Design Management 228

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. 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. What made them exceptional?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

7:15] How do you manage the fact that somebody is hiring you to do marketing, but you can’t really do marketing if you don’t get into every aspect of their business? [10:20] Clare Price (07:24): And that's why one of the things that I'm doing with is developing what I call a ecosystem of right partners. 13:49): Sure.

Marketing 76

Marketing Differentiation Sacramento Small Business 76

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Here are my definitions. If any of the answers are “Yes,” then hire them a bit later as an early employee. They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. I think we’ve been imprecise in defining three different roles. Founders – the idea.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

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. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown, and the key to success is building an integrated team that includes product development in the feedback loop with customers. 2008 09 06 Eric Ries Haas Columbia Customer Development Engineering View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

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Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Keep delivering something new and fresh.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 1, 2018

Though most founders would agree culture is important in an organization’s success, it often takes a back seat to product development and generating a profit in the early stages of an organization’s life. The founder and first hires have overcome obstacles and understand the behaviors that prove to lead to success.

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Cofounder Hiring Leadership Employee 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 27, 2010 Good enough never is (or is it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Definitions of common financial terms. Product development. Queuing theory and product development. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. So you want to ship the product early? Growth, Profitability, and the Stock Price. Metrics for cyclical businesses. Let the Games Begin! Stock buybacks.

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team. But lean startups cant afford to be satisfied with just that definition, because there are situations where working code is itself a form of waste.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

But I will tell you not to have too little or too much, because those definitely ruin the food or product. This development philosophy created a culture around rapid prototyping of features, followed by testing them against large numbers of actual customers. If a feature worked, wed keep it. If it didnt, wed trash it.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123