Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." You get increasing growth by optimizing the viral loop , and you get revenue as a side-effect, assuming you have even the most anemic monetization scheme baked into your product.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 26, 2011

And it doesn’t help you much in search engine optimization. Keep in mind that people are generally impatient when browsing websites and slow load times do impact conversions (getting people to buy your products or services). Search engines prefer websites that are properly organized. It simply annoys your users.

Web 127

Web Design Flash SEM 127

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 4, 2016

After all, your customers ultimately will want to learn more about your company’s products and services, and a dedicated website will help them do so. Showscase your products and services. You’re selling a product or service. Make sure that you clearly showcase that product or service on your homepage.

Web 48

Web Small Business Design SEM 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. They are not the generalists required for new product startups. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation.

Product 223

Product Entrepreneur SEM Lead Generation 223

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 27, 2021

You can promote your site effectively by investing in SEM, SEO, generating top-quality content, and even on paid advertising on search engines. You can even think of using some fast learning skills to learn SEM and SEO on your own. If you are not adept at SEO, you can seek help from SEO experts.

SEM 135

SEM Marketing Campaign SEO 135

searchengineland.com

MAY 30, 2012

Enterprise SEM. Overview: What Is SEM? SEM Columns. Our SEM Events. How To: SEM / Paid Search. More Search Engines. That would be liking hiring a jockey without seeing him ride or a heart surgeon based on her MCAT scores. The result – I’ve hired some of the best co-workers imaginable.

SEO 54

SEO SEM Social Media Search 54

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. So dont just kill the feature - iterate.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. They are not the generalists required for new product startups. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur SEM Lead Generation Social Network 267

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 3, 2015

How to Consistently Hire Remarkable Data Scientists | First Round Review – buff.ly/199A8u1. Trada, the Google Ventures-Backed SEM Crowdsourcing Firm, Closes Its Doors mklnd.com/1xPy1rc. The 7 Factors to Consider When Pricing Your Startup’s Product | – buff.ly/1Nz6b62. The Shut-In Economy – buff.ly/1FWcjEj.

Small Business 48

Small Business Design Social Media Software Review 48

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

Our team includes 12 top-notch engineers from NVidia, Microsoft, Stanford, Berkeley and Cornell. On top of that throw in a bunch of web servers and SQL databases, cross-platform 3D graphics code and a highly scalable physics engine and you get the idea. We are also one of the stickiest sites on the internet.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco CTO Hire Developer EC2 92

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 2, 2018

From traditional advertising to social media, online review management to blogging, search engine optimization to direct mail – it’s all marketing. But, according to Forbes, the small businesses that are happiest with their marketing performance hired outside agencies to handle it for them. Click To Tweet. Click To Tweet.

Small Business 73

Small Business Software Review Social Media Marketing 73

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. Nothing made any difference. Just put in your credit card.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process. (See

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

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

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 24, 2018

Most small businesses and young startups can’t afford to hire marketers. That leaves those companies in a tough situation: they need to market to grow their business but they need to grow their business to hire marketers. Search marketing. Ahrefs is valuable for getting an inside look at what your competitors are doing online.

Social Media 51

Social Media Marketing Analytics Audience 51

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 24, 2018

Most small businesses and young startups can’t afford to hire marketers. That leaves those companies in a tough situation: they need to market to grow their business but they need to grow their business to be hire marketers. Search marketing. Ahrefs is valuable for getting an inside look at what your competitors are doing online.

Social Media 48

Social Media Marketing Analytics Audience 48

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

If you’re building a startup, you’re likely to be in one of these two situations: Launching and selling a new product that nobody’s ever heard about, and probably don’t even know they need, or… Improving an existing product or service, which means that you’re going head on against someone with more traction, people, and money than you.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 4, 2017

This is generally split into two areas, though they’re often used together to some varying proportion: Search Engine Marketing. Search engine marketing is intent-based keyword bidding on search networks such as Google Adwords and Microsoft Bing. You know that multitasking is bad for your productivity. Social and Display Ads.

Channel 118

Channel Marketing Viral SEO 118

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

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. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it. Completely necessary.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

VC Adventure

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Marc Barros , the founder of Contour cameras wrote a great follow-up to my post on your company’s shift from a product focus to building out a sales and marketing organization that’s definitely worth reading. Square ) to building a small company focused on great products (e.g., A few excerpts here: 1. 37 Signal s).

Sales 75

Sales Product Marketing SEM 75

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Many of them have really cool products shipping or about to be released, and I wholeheartedly agree with my friends at the iFund that the next generation of applications is going to be amazing. The store determines which products sit on which shelves, and which yours sits next to. Ive also been playing around with the App Store.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

In the very early days, the trick is to find anyone at all who can understand you when you are talking about your product. In our first year at IMVU, we thought we were building a 3D avatar chat product. As product people, we thought of competition in terms of features. that we learned different.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. These tests are written by the engineers themselves, and they must all pass every time.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. Can they tell a good release from a bad one?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

ConversionXL

MARCH 29, 2017

Rob Sobers of Varonis confirms… Rob Sobers , Varonis : “While traditional marketing teams might appear to operate like growth teams in terms of the channels they use (SEM, content marketing, email, etc.), It Starts with the Product. It should go without saying that growth starts with the product. Growth Engineer.

Marketing 48

Marketing Distribution Retention eCommerce 48

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. And while its true that metrics sometimes can lead to a better product, in my experience just as often they had led to no insight whatsoever, like fancy reports that nobody reads or after-the-fact rationalizations (with graphs!) Well, lack of usage, really.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

VC Adventure

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Marc Barros , the founder of Contour cameras wrote a great follow-up to my post on your company’s shift from a product focus to building out a sales and marketing organization that’s definitely worth reading. Square ) to building a small company focused on great products (e.g., A few excerpts here: 1. 37 Signal s).

Sales 48

Sales Product Marketing SEM 48

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

So one of the first things we did was to hire an Oracle expert and get to work. You can turn your entire application infrastructure investment into a pay-as-you-go variable cost, and bring new products to market at speeds an order of magnitude faster than just 10 years ago. 1 comments: flixsterwidgettest said. yeah, its awesome.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

You can find out what it would take for them to adopt your product, and then follow up a week later and see if they did. Same with finding out what it would take to get them to recommend your product to a friend. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? You can even meet the friend.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. This kind of result is typical when you ship a redesign of some part of your product. Without split-testing, your product tends to get prettier over time. First of all, why split-test? One last note on reporting.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Transformify

AUGUST 27, 2017

All of the above is true, but it is also true that many startups have failed because they hired too early, too fast, or fired too late. Many of the points below can be found among the best hiring practices for startups and there is nothing wrong with them in general. Then the hiring begins. Hire full-time employees.

Hiring 64

Hiring Software Review Burn Rate Startup 64