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.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Because of the incredible array of information available, we have a desperate need for filtering mechanisms. Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). There are too many products clamoring for attention. No longer.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

But that team may also include product marketers or other in-house customers who can give insight into the impact that solution trade-offs might have on customers. Its not good enough to hit product milestones and conduct usability tests. dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." Metrics are a key questions startups face.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, November 13, 2008 Five Whys Taiichi Ohno was one of the inventors of the Toyota Production System. His book Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production is a fascinating read, even though its decidedly non-practical. This last step is difficult, but I think its very helpful.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

It is written using the information that the company voluntarily shared, and therefore reflects their current thinking and recollections. It’s common, perhaps the norm, for startups to pivot like that—to discover that a product is catching on in unintended ways worth pursuing. Do you find it helpful?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Recent economic events, technological change, and the rapid diffusion of information about the old models have combined to help us all realize just how important entrepreneurship is - and just how little we really know about it. I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me.

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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. Nothing made any difference.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 5, 2009 It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet Some people, when they start to realize the power of using data to inform their decisions, become obsessed with optimization. Sometimes an early negative result from an experiment is a harbinger of doom for that product, and means it should be abandoned.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next. But, over the years I’ve realized that the toughest problem - the one that matters most and was consistently the most challenging - was figuring out what the product backlog should be.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

When we build products, we use a methodology. We know some products succeed and others fail, but the reasons are complex and the unpredictable. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." The theory of Product/Market Fit is one key component of customer development, and I highly recommend Marcs essay on that topic.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

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? In a mature company with a mature product, the goal is to pay for lots of people to come to your website. SEM is a simple idea. chatted once?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

And if youre giving them all of the information they need to understand the companys strategy, customers, and processes, you can be confident that theyll be able to apply that understanding to their current responsibilities. Take a failed product launch. Whats that you say? Youre not currently doing all of those things?

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Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review 146

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence. Your blogs are full of rational thoughts and has nuggets of information. It is encouraging to know someone with your reputation and connections is evangelizing truly valuable information for start-ups.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

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Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. [.] We will not lose on their products -- after all, most of them are global.

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Its different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is not something that relates to our core competence, and tends not to happen in a repeatable and scalable way. Most important slide: lessons learned Working product Key questions: what does the product do? whats the launch plan?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. And what of the product development team?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Before I close, let me quote just one additional bit of twitter feedback from one of the video beta-testers: bmeschke : @ ericries This is such GREAT information. Say you're not creating a product but doing a service? Slides are below: The Lean Startup fbFund Edition View more documents from Eric Ries.

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Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment 115

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. I agree with the other comments, more information on yourself and what topics youll focus on would be helpful.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Cracking the Code

JUNE 24, 2021

How did you end up heading to Silicon Valley from France to join a startup? BlaBlaCar started in France and became a local phenomenon. Very few startups say they’re building products for California or the US. It’s important to be clear on your own brand, product, and tech platform, too. It becomes too complicated.

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Global Europe France Cofounder 62

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

It wont even get passed the registrant information screen to even get to selecting what you want to register for. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. March 19, 2009 6:11 PM Anonymoussaid.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

He doesnt put out crappy, buggy products and then ask for feedback. My normal answer is that I dont really think thats how Apple products are built. Thats what so many techniques that I advocate are all about: customer validation , minimum viable product , vision pivots , and even throwing away working code.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

They have a product that has a moderate number of customers. Still, theyre not really hitting it out of the park, because their product isnt growing new users as fast as theyd like, and they arent making any money from the current users. On the other, they already have a team fully engaged on making their product architecture better.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

If the CEO wants to completely change the product in order to serve a new customer segment, you need someone in the room who can digest the needs of the new (proposed) business, and lay out the costs of each possible approach. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. Very good and informative.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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. They cant present much information, unless you take the box off the shelf and look at it. Ive also been playing around with the App Store.

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Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

So how are we supposed to get information out in the middle of a pandemic? And you need to look at the data very critically, because the other side of the merger or acquisition is actually trying to frame all the information in a way that is beneficial to that side and against your side. Obviously, I release products at my job.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

The art team would often be involved in the specification phase of a new feature, since they were responsible for the look-and-feel of the product. When the art team would review the final product, they were inevitably outraged – it deviated from the spec in ways they considered major. Here’s why.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2020

I thought that I was signing up for a summer school course and then I got information that it was like, oh, it was at this other site. And then you read one years later called Team of Teams, and it was about how as the US went into Afghanistan to go fight, they started in a very command and control, information efficient organization.

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San Francisco Founder Community Software Review 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Sorry about this being out of context but I wonder if youve read "What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services". The presentation was informative, insightful, and humorous - as you pointed out the many ridiculous assumptions we make as entrepreneurs! Thanks for an enjoyable evening.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an internet connection. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production.

San Francisco 122

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 13, 2010 The Superbowl ad test I am a firm believer in the danger of vanity metrics , numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask the true relationship between cause and effect. Vanity metrics are generally bigger. Vanity metrics. The solution? Is that really news?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

For companies considering adopting a customer-centric strategy, customer development is often one of the most visible and alluring selling points: if a firm knows its individual customers better, it can better tailor its product/service offerings to their needs — and thus capture a greater share of their total dollars.

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Customer Customer Development Acquisition Pennsylvania 162

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 19, 2009 Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a response) Inc Magazine has a great new piece up about the increasing use of the Minimum Viable Product by businesses (and not just startups). Like many companies, TPGTEX rolls out new products several times a year.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

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. He has a good team, and theyve shipped a working product to many customers.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Today, Id like to spend some time on two techniques: the problem presentation and learning what channels of information reach customers. If this was a startup, Id be asking it of a sample of customers even more often, because getting a regular tracking result is helpful for informing your decision loop. Thats an early adopter.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I usually recommend a three-part board, where the left column is where the scrum-style "product backlog" is maintained in priority order, the middle represents tasks in progress, and the right column is for tasks recently finished. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

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. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168