Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

It seems your cluster architecture is one of the key architectural constraints making continuous deployment possible. If you cant deploy to 5% of the nodes and check the results, then how would you accomplish continuous deployment? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Trying to answer that question at IMVU led me to discover Google AdWords and the world of search engine marketing. Probably if I had been an experienced marketer, I would have known that tiny volume to be insignificant, and I would have been embarrassed. But anyone who had done direct response marketing before would have known better.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." Theory of market types. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 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). Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Some techniques that Ive found especially helpful: Build your own tracking survey, using a methodology like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to identify and get a regular check-up from promoters (and to screen out detractors). Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

These problems can be anything: development mistakes, site outages, marketing program failures, or even internal missed schedules. Five Whys is designed to avoid these nebulous arguments. So far, it's been a net win to keep supporting it. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Even if it helps optimize one stage, if it slows you down somewhere else, it might not be a net win. Customer Development : a disciplined approach to finding out if there is a market for your product before its too late. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. great observation & summary.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If I have some budget for outside help, should I hire a vendor to help us drive down our payment fraud rates by 1% (ROI easy to predict), or hire a market research firm to give us insights into potential customers (ROI hard to predict)? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

For a marketing job, for example, its reasonable to expect that a candidate will have done their homework and used your product (maybe even talked to your customers) before coming in. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. You need to ask: 1) does the person care about what they work on?

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

The net result was powerful: within six months of starting the company, we were able to get a basic version of our product into open beta. Making UGC work requires good tools, open standards, and proper incentive design. It allowed me to assess the market demand for that offline product before I had the final product baked.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, and more ► January (6) Lo, my 18891 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Add onto that the incredible amounts of infrastructure code that we reused, and we were able to bring our product to market months earlier. Youll notice a pattern: most of the key features that enabled PHPs success are considered among its defects by experts in language design. will make the foundation weak.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Revenue is always my preferred measure, but you can use anything that is important to your business: retention, activation, viral invites, or even customer satisfaction in the form of something like net promoter score. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. 1 comments: Andrew Meyer said. Very exciting.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

The Obama campaign was also very impressive on the online marketing front - their ads were everywhere. About a year ago, they were aggressively recruiting the top online marketing folks. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. November 6, 2008 7:46 AM spanky said. That was really insightful, Eric.

Campaign 84

Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile 84

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, and more ► January (6) Lo, my 18891 subscribers, who are you?

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

What can you do to your product and marketing message to increase engagement? From a strictly "promotional marketing" point of view, they probably run those campaigns more than is optimal (theres always fatigue that diminishes the ROI on promotions the more you use them). Levers of engagement Lets start with the levers of engagement.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

At that early stage, it was the companys first glimpse of what a crossing the chasm strategy might look like: use these early adopters to build a whole product for the education market. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. So how do you get started with customer segmentation? Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, and more ► January (6) Lo, my 18891 subscribers, who are you?

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

The "big guys" of 10 years in the future are probably going to displace those of today, and if we think the market is crowded now, it's scary to imagine how much more so it would be in 10 years. Of course, those were the days when 12 year old, 80% market share, $200mm, 30% net profit companies were the ones going public.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94