Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. And if you neglect maintenance, you may not have a business left at all.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Sounds very similar to agile development which is the way. If you can start getting ROI on a feature in month one of a twelve month project versus waiting until the end, youve comparatively reduced the cost of development by the revenue generated by that feature over 11 months. February 21, 2009 7:39 AM Rocky1138 said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. Usually, they are delivering only a fraction of the revenue they promised. Lets return to our team thats failing to hit their targets. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

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Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

They were accustomed to measuring their progress primarily by gross revenue compared to their targets. They were accustomed to measuring their progress primarily by gross revenue compared to their targets. Naturally, they had just raised money, and their new investors were understandably pissed. for Harvard Business Revie.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

The agile software movement has made numerous contributions: continuous integration, which helps accelerate feedback about defects; story cards and kanban that reduce batch size; a daily stand-up that increases tempo. In fact, excess time pressure is exactly why they think they have these problems in the first place. Amazon PostRank

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Just like in the world of startups, we can start to use micro-scale pilot programs, executed in lean fashion, to gather real facts for making ROI decisions about new project investment. What is the right revenue model? We have to look at fundamental business questions right from the start: what is the right audience?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

42:07) On how the 2008 financial crisis prepared banks for the pandemic. (44:25) And half our clubs were in the state of California in 2008, so was a very interesting time to be a CEO and learned a lot. I think about this in customers and protecting your employees and customers, always protect your P&L, your revenue.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 28, 2009

Some of these benefits are shared by agile systems which have continuous integration but large batch releases, but others are unique to continuous deployment. No automated test is going to catch that, but it still will drive revenue to zero. No automated test is going to catch that, but it still will drive revenue to zero.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, October 30, 2008 John Doerrs 10 lean startup tips I just saw video of John Doerrs talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn&# roundtable event. Not just about expenses, about increasing revenue. Voluntary salary reduction program.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Heck, thats what it says right there in the agile manifesto. In a lot of cases, thats just a fancy name for revenue or profit, but not always. Labels: agile , continuous deployment , lean startup , product development , Test-driven development 4comments: Nivi said. We made it. So can you. for Harvard Business Revie.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Realizing it had taken a wrong turn, SlideShare rethought its approach to premium accounts and ultimately performed what we’d call a value capture pivot , one where the company changes the way it collects revenue from customers. The process started with a few moving parts. The process started with a few moving parts. Amazon PostRank

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Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 23, 2019

She is a former Career Development Program Manager at Google, and she is also the author of What To Do When You Need To Move Out of Your Parents’ Basement … No, that’s not it, we’ll get back to that one. John Jantsch: So before we get into your latest book, what does a Career Development Program Manager do at Google?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

One of my personal heroes, Kent Beck , the creator of Extreme Programming and a truly wonderful writer was logged in and twittering, too. LIKED: Y startups fail, cont deployment vs waterfall vs agile, small batches & learn fr biz metrics #leanstartup As concise a summary as Ive ever seen. "unknown problem" was an eye opener for me.

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Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

These problems can be anything: development mistakes, site outages, marketing program failures, or even internal missed schedules. I pick that example on purpose, for two reasons: 1) most of the companies I work with deal with this problem and yet 2) almost none of them have any kind of training program in place for new employees.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

To increase the number of iterations you have left, you can either increase cash on hand (by raising money or increasing revenues), reduce burn rate, or increase the speed of each iteration. Combining agile development with customer developm. The key is to be able to refute as many major hypotheses as you can. Amazon PostRank

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 28, 2008 The lean startup comes to Stanford Im going to be talking about lean startups (and the IMVU case in particular) three times in the next two weeks at Stanford. September 28, 2008 6:13 PM Eric said. September 28, 2008 7:26 PM Jeff Hammerbacher said. Can I go to one of them?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. Maybe, but the thought never even entered our minds. You can even see the humiliating evidence of my smug incompetence in this absurd article from 1999.) Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

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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? And one day a remarkable thing happened: we started making more than five dollars a day in revenue. SEM is a simple idea. Amazon PostRank

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 29, 2008 Q&A with an actual reader One of my favorite things about having a blog is the feedback I get in comments and by email. Today, I thought Id answer a few questions that came in from a very thoughtful comment from Andrew Meyer. Hes also a blogger, at Inquiries Into Alignment ).

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Not even if its generating revenue. So I don't think the Apple experience should be used to discount lean, agile, or customer development-type approaches. Most executives, especially in startups, dont have the courage to hold their teams to a high standard for new products or features. for Harvard Business Revie. Amazon PostRank

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Now, Andrew’s excellent piece that I quoted from above correctly diagnoses two situations where consumer internet companies often get in trouble: They focus too much on short-term revenue, getting caught in a local maximum via constant optimization. The real value we create is learning how to craft profitable ecosystems.

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rapidrollout.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

I have an interesting project idea, but it requires seasoned programming skills. You’re asking someone to take a chance that with the code they deliver you can get funding or gain some revenue traction. Look out for teams/vendors who work on Agile, so that you are flexible with your requirements. I have a related dilemma.

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Technical Review Fractional CTO Partner CTO Hire 40

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Should you charge from day one, testing the revenue model first? Their speed should be measured in validated learning about customers, not milestones, features, revenue, or even beautiful design. Should you charge from day one, testing the revenue model first? Or should you focus on user engagement or virality?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 22, 2008 Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction Ive mentioned Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a few previous posts, but havent had a chance to describe it in detail yet. The whole episode cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Nice post.

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YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 26, 2016

Despite being a bootstrapped company with little revenue, we over-invested in a central New York City office at a rate of 15% rent to revenue. There are also unforeseen disasters, such as the 2008 financial crisis, that businesses need to be agile enough to overcome.

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wordsting.com

APRIL 4, 2013

We first saw the problem when working with a consulting firm that was helping a client with two of their programs. It helps customers create program strategies, plan change, monitor outcomes, and visualize impact.” Remember in grown-up SaaS companies, the marketing budget, as a percentage of revenue, is typically twice that of R&D.

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Lean Startup Software Review San Francisco 61

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

They asked for my advice, and we went through a number of recommendations that readers of this blog will already be able to guess: adding revenue opportunities, engagement loop optimization, and some immediate split-testing to figure out whats working and whats not. Great post, Eric. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

This single decision wound up costing the company significant revenue and over the course of several months sent its customer growth into decline. I cannot sink any more money into a program that is still having community problems. So we felt confident that removing them wouldn’t have too big an impact. No gain without pain.

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