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. Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. Good stuff.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 29, 2008 The ABCDEFs of conducting a technical interview I am incredibly proud of the people I have hired over the course of my career. On the one hand, it gives you insight into what kind of employee the candidate might be. December 2, 2008 8:53 AM Lisa said. Fantastic post.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Insist on the incredibly high-IQ employees and hold them to incredibly high standards. It never generated positive returns for its investors, and most of its employees walked away dejected. This company had disciplined schedules, milestones, employee evaluations, and a culture of execution. Build a truly mainstream product.

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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. October 20, 2008 9:34 PM Nivi said. October 20, 2008 10:36 PM Nathan said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. October 6, 2008 9:41 PM Eric said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

The same has been true of an unfortunate number of startups, they manage to generate a lot of hype, raise a lot of money, and sometimes make some of their investors, employees, or founders rich. bigs : @ericries says Stealth dev is a (undesirable, failure-presaging) customer-free zone. Use some customer development to find out.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 28, 2008 A hierarchy of pitches Every company will need to pitch itself from time to time. We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. who is the customer? October 31, 2008 8:10 AM entrepreneurialactivism.com said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 8comments: William Pietri said. December 9, 2008 3:10 AM Amy said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Get product into customers’ hands. More on that in a moment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 A new version of the Joel Test (draft) (This article is a draft - your comments are especially welcome as I think through these issues. I would add, though, a further question: Do new employees write code on their first day? Please leave feedback!) Completely necessary.

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Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2009

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

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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 two In part one , I talked about four different kinds of work that every company has to do: innovation/R&D, strategy, growth, and maintenance/scalability. What is customer development?

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, December 6, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part three Those startups that manage to build a product people want have to deal with the consequences of that success. Having early customers means balancing the needs of your existing customers with the desire to find new ones.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

We eventually discovered (via five whys ) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. Because this was such a big cultural change for most new employees, we didnt leave them to sink or swim on their own. For one, it required us to keep our developer sandbox setup procedure simple and automated.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

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

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

For example, I often cite a real example of a problem that has as its root cause a new employee who was not properly trained. 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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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Its easier to believe in a glorious future when you have only zeroes, for everyone: founders, investors, and employees. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) Not everything has to follow lean startup and customer development principles, and I write that as a devoted practitioner of both. August 3, 2009 2:58 AM Phil Winkler said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

They had their own private forum, and a company founder (aka me) personally ran the group in its early days. Every two months, the company would have a big end-of-milestone meeting, with our Board of Directors, Business Advisory Board, and all employees present. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Thats all helpful for recruiting, retaining, and ramping-up a new employee. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? They have a certain amount of trust based on having been part of a common mission, and they share a passion for the projects goals. Expo (and a call for he.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. They spend so much of their time trying to convince everyone around them that their idea is great and the company is doing well: employees, investors, partners, friends, family, significant others - its a long list.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. Not to be outdone, the technologists on the team had also brought their big guns, and the meeting was packed with employees of every level – from VP’s all the way down to me. Yet talent organized improperly can lead to failure.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Its an amazing thing when you can hire an employee who knows more about your code base than you do, and this turned out to be a big source of advantage. In the end, I believe they co-created our product with us. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

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. Over-communicate with employees, investors, customers. Pay attention to where your cash is.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

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.

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www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. We have been lucky enough to have formed strong relationships with family friends and past co-workers, to have a very informal Board of Advisors on hand. Once funding takes place, the angels or VCs will want a seat at the table. I will be having one someday.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

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

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Whether youre a US citizen or an immigrant, entrepreneur or investor, founder or employee, theres something you can do. If you are an immigrant founder who has helped build a company that has created jobs in the US, we need you to tell your story. This is especially true if you live outside the echo chamber of Silicon Valley.

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San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

There is a stark difference between both types of employees. January 16, 2009 6:15 PM Bryansaid. ► 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. January 16, 2009 6:11 PM Anonymoussaid.

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PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

By only releasing vanity metrics , companies co-opt the press into helping them mislead others. Hopefully, they have internal reports that show the true correlation between their features and customer results. Are employees paying more attention to those reports than to the positive press coverage? The solution? Vanity metrics.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It isnt until a customer actually clicks or calls to place an order that TPGTEXs developers will build the software. "We We do not develop a product until we get a paying customer," says Orit Pennington , who co-founded the six-employee company with her husband in 2002.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 31, 2009

If youve been following my efforts in figuring out the best way to evangelize the lean startup , youll know that I am trying to apply customer development principles. And if you know those principles, you may notice that I am trying to pass from the "customer discovery" phase to the "customer validation" phase.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

Priority will be given to employees of companies participating in the fbFund REV program, but I am confident that there will be room for members of the general public who want to attend. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? If youd like to reserve a spot, please RSVP.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 23, 2009

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

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