Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Enter “ The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses “, a New York Times bestseller by founder of IMVU (creator of 3D avatars) Eric Ries. Validated learning should be the goal of all entrepreneurs. This reduces guesswork, time, money and effort.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Without producing physical goods, every entrepreneur now can succeed in selling other manufacturers’ products online. Have you developed any vision of a product development strategy? To calculate precisely how much you need to spend on that, analyze the following factors: Developers’ seniority. Hourly rate.

eCommerce 113

eCommerce Software Developers Software Development Hosting 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. This engineering manager is a smart guy, and very experienced.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Its a key lean startup concept.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for a disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to InvoiceTracker. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. I agree with the less is more product development approach, but for a different reason. Now that is fun.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

YoungUpstarts

MAY 30, 2019

In 2013, I left a CTO job overseeing a 50-person product engineering team for the same job at a four-person startup. CTOs, often acting as VPs of product capacity, must develop product specs and then provide them to developers and engineers. Release notes are an engineering team’s “sales gong.”

Management 138

Management Product SCRUM Early Stage 138

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young. Of course, their answer is that the second intends to get to market faster, but every engine has limits regardless the fuel applied. Raising money from professional investors, even friends and family, takes time.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

” Below are our favorite pieces from the past few years, divided in to a few key categories: fundraising, company building, product development, industry trends, and the life of a VC. 7 Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make in VC Pitches and How to Fix Them “Different partners in a VC firm are different.

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. There is no magic lever for growth, so several initiatives are required, with metrics to assess value returned. Real growth always requires real marketing.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Over my career as a serial entrepreneur I observed that since the late 1990s, no early-stage Silicon Valley investor had used business plans to screen investments.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. What good are these metrics if they dont help guide product or business decisions?

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

Brant and Patrick undertook a difficult challenge: to provide a generally accessible introduction to Customer Development, without diluting its impact or dumbing-down its principles. The Entrepreneur’s Guide is an easy read. Many “airport business books&# urge entrepreneurs to never give in. I think theyve succeeded.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. What are the characteristics of a lean startup?

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

David Cohen

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Of all of the things I’ve helped build in my career as an entrepreneur and investor, I think the thing I’m most proud of is the network of amazing entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors around TechStars. Then on Wednesday, entrepreneur and best selling author Godin presented the final keynote, “Startup Storytelling.”.

Boston 82

Boston Cofounder Software Engineering Acquisition 82

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. But since I spent a long time in a hybrid CTO/VP Engineering role, I still have this nagging question. I want to add one last idea, even though I recognize it is controversial, bordering on the boundary between the CTO and VP Engineering. Heres my take.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Ever since that time, I have struggled to explain how the feedback loop in customer development should interface with the feedback loop in product development. Eric Ries Lean Startup Schematic View Of Agile Development And Customer Development View more presentations from Eric Ries.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Ari Newman is an entrepreneur, mentor, investor, and a friend. He works at Techstars where his responsibility is to ensure that the connections between alumni, mentors, and staff are as robust as they can be – helping entrepreneurs “ do more faster ” day in and day out. Heads down on product, they say.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. Refreshing to finally see lean and agile thinking emerge in product/business-floors and not only in technology. Great Post - could not agree more.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. Any team that creates an experiment must monitor the metrics and customer reactions (support calls, forum threads, etc) while the experiment is in-progress, and abort if something catastrophic happens. It promotes rapid iteration.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? Trying to answer that question at IMVU led me to discover Google AdWords and the world of search engine marketing. SEM is a simple idea.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

I thought a good place to start was with the origins of the idea that "software design" should be considered a discipline in its own right, on par with computer science, software engineering, and computer programming. Great engineers see it and smile. This is called set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE). [1]

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

No engineering team. So instead of having sales, marketing, and business development, we have a problem team implementing customer development. But where it makes sense, that team may also include engineers building new experiments or prototypes to try with customers. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too."

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

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. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

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. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

I was an engineer on the engineering team. For one, the engineers consider the artists stupid; the artists consider the engineers arrogant. The engineering team would then build that feature, mimicking the UI as close as they could using the current primitives supported by the system. The meeting was tense.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Even though some aspects of the product were eventually vindicated as good ones, the underlying architecture suffered from hard-to-change assumptions. After years of engineering effort, changing these assumptions was incredibly hard. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

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. why couldnt the engineer see the problem in their sandbox?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

I was told they werent sure, because all of their engineers were currently busy refactoring. The engineering team has decided its reached a breaking point, and is taking several weeks to bring it up to modern standards, including unit tests, getting started with continuous integration , and a new MVC architecture. Great post, Eric.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121