Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

This was 2004, and we had never even heard of MySpace, let alone had any understanding of social networking. So the natural comparison, we thought, would be to other 3D avatar based products, like The Sims and World of Warcraft. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

It was fall 2004, and the presidential election was in full swing. Hopefully that will take some of the sting out of the fact that you had to engage in a little trickery. To motivate you to give this a try, let me tell you a story from the early days of IMVU. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Austin Startup

MAY 14, 2019

But if you work in an environment where the person working next to you is a full-time Account Manager at an unrelated company, and a freelancer in the same workspace is working on their own web design projects, and you’re all working independently while sharing the same space… you are coworking! If you put up walls, there’s no point.

Austin 48

Austin Community Networking America 48

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 11, 2014

I started reading a great blog called Business Pundit in 2004. Even then, Rob was an optimizer, trying to map the best routes around Austin. We will integrate the design and be live for testing end of next week. It was written by a guy about my age down in Louisville, Kentucky. That was the year Twitter took off.

Louisville 102

Louisville Term Sheet Kentucky Ukraine 102

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 1, 2011

A customer can resonate with the fact that your mission is to bring peace and harmony to the world, but it’s just as likely that there’s a market hungry to do business with a company that believes bringing beauty to the world through incredibly simple design is why they do what they do.

Marketing 74

Marketing Social Media Small Business Engineer 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

When we started IMVU in 2004, we could rely on a staggering amount of open source software that jumpstarted our initial product offering. Youll notice a pattern: most of the key features that enabled PHPs success are considered among its defects by experts in language design. I can design with my brain coming first - the way I like it.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

It’s not animated video backgrounds or design that “pops” So what is it? Interaction Design Foundation wrote a great article on this. Mainly, I do not understand why there is not a single mention of an event in Austin on the page. You can bring them, through message and design match, a relevant experience.

Matching 48

Matching PPC Conversion Charlotte 48

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

Some highlights, at least for me: We experienced a great science experiment for the scenario: what would happen if a big company tries to compete with you given complete knowledge about your idea and designs? What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 28, 2021

Come to Austin! Oh, and don’t mind our completely deregulated electrical grid designed around a paranoid fear of national government and shameless prioritization of profits over people. Union Square Ventures raised its first fund in NYC in 2004 and it wouldn’t see the first local IPO from that fund, Etsy, until 2015.

New York 88

New York New York City Miami Cofounder 88