2008, Customer Development, Lean and Sales

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? 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.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. Thanks for writing this article.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC

The LeanLaunch Pad at Stanford – Class 4: Customer Hypotheses

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) Sales process: buyer/ user/ influencer etc.?

Customer

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud

The Lean Entrepreneur is here

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Last May, I shared the news that long-time Lean Startup advocates Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits were working on a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur featuring illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. That new book is about to hit bookstores everywhere.

Lean

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco

Lessons Learned: The engineering manager's lament

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.

Software Review

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales. The Rise of Mergers and Acquisitions -– March 2003 -2008 After the dot.com bubble collapsed, the IPO market (and most tech M&A deals) shutdown for technology companies. On its first day of trading, Netscape stock closed at $58/share, valuing the company at $2.7

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

In an enterprise sales context, this is called a "repeatable and scalable sales process" - once you know how to do this, your company can graduate from early adopters and make an attempt at the mainstream. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May. .

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product. This is the magic of sales: by learning about each customer in-depth, they can convince each of them that this product would solve serious problems. They are closing orders.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick

Lessons Learned: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done.

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. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Embrace technical debt

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Lean vs. debt In the world of physical goods, the leaner a supply chain is, the less debt is required to operate it. A similar relationship applies to technical debt.

Technical Review

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean

Datablindness

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

I got a powerful taste of datablindness recently, as I’ve started to work with various large companies as partners in setting up events, speeches, and other products to sell around the Lean Startup concept. For example, I quickly learned that when I twittered about the event, more often than not I would make a sale.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

John Doerr's 10 lean startup tips

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. What I find remarkable about this list is how many of them apply to lean startups in good times and in bad.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC

Marching through quicksand

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. 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. Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Its a key lean startup concept. The idea of leverage is simple: for every ounce of effort your product development team puts into your product, find ways to magnify that effort by getting many other people to invest along with you.

Product Development

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Introducing Lean Planning: How to plan less and grow faster

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Today, I want to introduce you to a new concept for starting and growing successful companies: Lean Planning™. Before I dive too deeply into the Lean Planning methodology, it makes sense to talk about its history and where it comes from. Lean Planning is born.

Lean

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review

Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

First, SlideShare is a fantastic product (that I use on a regular basis) and an impressive company example of Lean Startup practices in action. Second, their story illustrates a key Lean Startup idea: proving the business in micro-scale. That is customer development. Did you find this post useful? How are we doing?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a.

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

But instead of spending the time and money to develop products on spec, TPGTEX creates mocked-up webpages that list the features of a potential new product -- such as a system for making radio-frequency identification, or RFID, labels -- along with its price. The Inc story, and many others, does a good job emphasizing its lean-ness.

San Francisco

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, February 28, 2009 Throwing away working code Lean startups work by systematically eradicating waste. 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.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

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. This is one of the bedrock practices of any lean startup , and so its a common piece of advice I give out. Another great article.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. The lean startup focuses on situations where we have both an unknown problem and an unknown solution.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do some Customer Development instead. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage

The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

I hadn’t really thought of it that way before, but there’s a certain comfort in thinking about having a team of people you can lean on for advice, help, questions, support, etc. As leader of your company, the advisors are there to provide you with a personal, confidential, trusted sounding board.&# Why wouldn’t you?

Advisory Board

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity

What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. Similarly, government purchasing is a frustrating series of hoops, even compared to enterprise sales. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

DC

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR

32 Business and Life Lessons: What I Learned Running Companies on 4 Different Continents

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

After the year was over, I landed a job as a sales person for a property portal in Dubai. I quickly proved myself and was promoted to head a small sales and marketing team (6 people) in the company. Even though I learned a huge amount on marketing, leadership and business development, the whole thing was slowly eating me from inside.

Panama

Panama Africa Internet Email

Three decisions to make on virtual goods

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, October 11, 2008 Three decisions to make on virtual goods I was invited to the Virtual Goods Summit yesterday, and got to see quite a few interesting speakers and panels. You do get the beneift of total control of your content, so you can guarantee your customers a quality experience.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Engagement loops: beyond viral

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Engagement loops: beyond viral Theres a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. December 17, 2008 2:04 PM Alex Horovitz said.

Viral

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Case Study: Using an LOI to get customer feedback on a minimum.

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

This is especially useful in situations, like most B2B businesses, where the total number of customers is likely to be small. This case study illustrates one company’s attempt to do customer development by testing their vision with customers before writing a single line of code. Read on and judge for yourself.

San Francisco

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean

Lessons Learned: Refactoring yourself out of business

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

This is usually exacerbated by zealous sales persons who oversell the features, or even more typical, promise completely new features. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup

Lessons Learned: What is a market? (a guide for hackers)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Without a basis for comparison, you first have to drive home the need, then you will have an easy time making the sale (after all, youre the person who they trust to bring it to their attention). Toughest part of the sale is to get agreement that you really can deliver benefits that they didnt previously know were possible.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean

The cardinal sin of community management

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

It took hundreds of years for newspapers to learn to behave as worthy holders of this public trust and cover the news without fear or favour, and create a firewall between news and views and the ad-sales side of the operation. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much.

Community

Community Management Lean Software Review

StartUpRoar

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Trending Sources

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

The LeanLaunch Pad at Stanford – Class 4: Customer Hypotheses

The Lean Entrepreneur is here

Lessons Learned: The engineering manager's lament

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Lessons Learned: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done.

Embrace technical debt

Datablindness

John Doerr's 10 lean startup tips

Marching through quicksand

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

Introducing Lean Planning: How to plan less and grow faster

Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium

Lessons Learned: Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a.

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs

What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups?

32 Business and Life Lessons: What I Learned Running Companies on 4 Different Continents

Three decisions to make on virtual goods

Engagement loops: beyond viral

Case Study: Using an LOI to get customer feedback on a minimum.

Lessons Learned: Refactoring yourself out of business

The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)

Lessons Learned: What is a market? (a guide for hackers)

Top 30 Startup Posts for July 2010

The cardinal sin of community management

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