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. I used to think that investments in metrics were a form of waste. Labels: product development 4comments: Doug said.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

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. My experience is in Enterprise Software - where we are forced to chunk features into formal releases. Robert August 25, 2009 5:25 AM Bernard said.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

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. Can this methodology be used for startups that are not exclusively about software?

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Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. For software, the easiest batch to see is code. This is easiest to see in deployment.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

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. The breakthrough idea of agile is that software should be built iteratively, with the pieces that customers value most created first.

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Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

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. Please leave feedback!) Do you fix bugs before writing code?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I thought Id share a little bit of that, too: I’ve been interested in different approaches to software development going back to 1987 when – in my first company Feld Technologies – my partner Dave Jilk and I started talking about “semi-custom software development&# (way ahead of its time).

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

You cant make these global efficiency improvements until you get clear about the goal of your development process. That leads to a seemingly-obvious question: what is progress in software development? It would be hard to argue against this product development strategy, in general. I am not a developer.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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. They just assumed it was the way software companies worked. Sound good?

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 28, 2009

Or, phrased more hopefully, "I see how you can use continuous deployment to run an online consumer service, but how can it be used for B2B software?" That continuous deployment leads to lower quality software than software built in large batches. Or variations thereof. Implicit in these concerns are two beliefs: 1.

Continuous Deployment 122

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Metrics 122

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. Were a software company, so what we do everyday is turn ideas into code.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

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? Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. But its helpful to take a detailed look inside the highly agile process used by Google to ship software. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

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. No vanity metrics should be looked at. No vanity metrics should be looked at.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 2, 2008 On deployment My favorite question to ask a software development team is "how do you do a release." How long does the software sit un-deployed? Software is generally always getting better or getting worse. How fast do they iterate? Does it require weeks of QA?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. I know many people who think that software works like magic, but to me it actually was magic.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. But along the way, something strange happened. Massive proprietary databases?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. One is used by engineers to refer to the process of getting code fully integrated into production.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, Hey Someone else who is extending the agile/lean approach beyond just developing software. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Labels: events 2comments: Andrew Meyer said.

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Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. But first I think we need to save the product manager from that special form of torture only a waterfall product development team can create. This post has been removed by the author.

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San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2009

Agile Vancouver : Lean Development for Lean Times On Tuesday April 21st, we are hosting an afternoon event on the application of Lean Principles to software development. This workshop brings together leading thinkers from Lean Production and Lean software. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

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Agile Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

dalelarson : "Metrics are people, too." leanstartup ericnsantos : #w2e #leanstartup Metrics should be Actionable, Accessible and Auditable. Metrics are a key questions startups face. Metrics are people too" is a reminder I constantly needed when I was a manager. ericries s talk on Lean Startups absolutely fantastic.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

For those whove heard it, it contains a length discourse on the subject of agile software development and extreme programming, including its weaknesses when applied to startups. I had a background in lean manufacturing (book knowledge, anyway) and lean software development (hands on) before encountering Lean Startups.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. More recently it's skewed to software & web. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Its an essential discipline of good software development, especially in startups. Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Labels: agile , product development , Test-driven development 11comments: William Pietri said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Also SJ's obsession with better taste (positively) contributes to the overall product development process. There are some good anecdotes about Chief Engineers in the Toyota Product Development Book. Apple's first hit product was Apple II, which came after I. Will start to pay attention. Great post Eric.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Maybe operations has changed the OS configuration in production in a way that is incompatible with some developers change. In many traditional software organizations, branches can be extremely long-lived, and integrations can take weeks or months. I would like the users of my software to test and give their feedback to me.

Software Review 136

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 136

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Kent Beck is deservedly famous for his many contributions in the software industry. Kent Beck is deservedly famous for his many contributions in the software industry. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Do you know the difference between Durant and Sloan ?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? When we build products, we use a methodology. For software, we have many - you can enjoy a nice long list on Wikipedia. Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

I believe it is a full, company-wide turn through the OODA loop (for a software business, see especially Ideas-Code-Learn ). Customer Development : a disciplined approach to finding out if there is a market for your product before its too late. What counts as an iteration? Work in small batches. oy, my nerd colors are showing.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

While the customer development framework of Four Steps is universally relevant, The Entrepreneur’s Guide updates its practices for modern startups. Four Steps primarily centers its stories and case studies on B2B hardware and software startups. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

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. Best of luck, Your Software." (OK, OK, thats not exactly what it said.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

This case presents a further complication: desktop software. Without being able transparently modify the software in situ, is it still possible to deploy on a continuous basis? Continuous Deployment is a process by which software is released several times throughout the day – in minutes versus days, weeks, or months.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

It felt like software that grownups were supposed to use, and we didnt qualify. It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68