Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said. January 18, 2009 8:22 AM Dan Khan said. Cheers, -Dan January 18, 2009 9:04 PM Ivo said. January 20, 2009 1:12 PM Anonymoussaid. April 12, 2009 12:28 AM kenshin said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Embrace technical debt Financial debt plays an important and positive role in our economy under normal conditions. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. Remember Hamlet?

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ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

I feel like “conversion rate optimization” is in 2013 what “social media marketing” was in 2009. Not because they have a conversion problem but because they never really nail the product or how to market it. Pivot the product entirely. The Problem With Traditional Product Development.

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 5, 2009 It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet Some people, when they start to realize the power of using data to inform their decisions, become obsessed with optimization. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU.

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Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Usually the founders duke it out among themselves as to titles and responsibilities and relative shareholdings. If you are the lead founder, if behooves you to sort all this out and get started with a clean organization. How about your Investors ?

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. Is marketing different if you’re in the cleantech business versus medical devices? Innovation – Business Model? Where do the ideas come from?

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Lean, when used in the context of lean startup, refers to a process of building companies and products using lean manufacturing principles applied to innovation. That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 9, 2009 10 years of entrepreneurship I recently passed my ten-year anniversary of becoming an entrepreneur. No business model, either. July 9, 2009 7:32 AM Peter Kane said. July 9, 2009 8:46 AM Anonymoussaid. July 9, 2009 8:48 AM Marco said. And Google? Great post.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

We can’t even rely on a suite of line-extension products. We have to continually invent new categories of products, new platforms, and new business models – all extremely risky bets. When private capital is available in sufficient quantities to satisfy investor and founder liquidity needs, why go IPO?

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K9 Ventures

APRIL 28, 2010

The fund focuses on investing in companies that meet the following necessary but not sufficient criteria: Technical Founders : The founding team needs to be capable of building its own product and have the technical chops to make it happen. Technical Product : The product must have some technical depth.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Introducing the Lean Startup Cohort subscription program Over the past few months, I have been engaged in another customer discovery exercise with passionate early adopters of the lean startup methodology. August 9, 2009 10:28 AM Chris said. I love the business model.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Rashmi Sinha, co-founder and CEO of SlideShare , describes an early version of the analytics package that’s part of the Pro accounts the company announced today. If your company is using minimum viable product , you’ve probably said the same thing yourself. That is the essence of proving the business in micro-scale.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Many startups don’t innovate at all in the product dimension, but use other kinds of innovation: repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was previously hidden, or even simply bringing a product or service to a new location or set of customers previously underserved.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? You have to know your business model. Most startups launch before theyve figured out what business theyre in. Founders push for it. Great article.

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I hate business plan competitions. I Love Business Plan Competitions I had a breakfast with a friend who has founded a few companies in Thailand and started the New Ventures Program at one of their universities. Martin , on May 7, 2009 at 9:36 am Said: The caveat would be for undergrads at a school like Stanford or Berkeley.

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? You got it.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 17, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, May 17, 2009 Last chance to register for The Lean Startup at HP on May 21 This coming Thursday, May 21, is the last time Im currently scheduled to give the full Lean Startup presentation in the Bay Area. Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

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Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

To help shine some light on this topic, I’ve decided to do a series of blog posts of case studies of companies founded in the last 10-15 years that have made the transition from finding initial product-market fit to building a large, scalable, platform company. In 2012, analysts forecast the company will achieve nearly $1.5

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 7, 2009 Fear is the mind-killer Fear is an emotion that slows teams down. Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. link] May 11, 2009 9:04 PM Ian Wilson said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Minimum viable product is a tactic for mitigating risk.

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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. I think Drucker said it best.

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conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. I feel like “conversion rate optimization” is in 2013 what “social media marketing” was in 2009. Not because they have a conversion problem but because they never really nail the product or how to market it. image source.

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Software By Rob

AUGUST 18, 2010

Before: After: And thenI ran into a Mixergy interview where 37signals founder, Jason Fried, talks about their free plan (6:00 into the interview): “… The majority of the revenues for our products come from people who sign up for the paid versions upfront. I saw that 37signals had hidden theirs. 5 Ben K on 08.18.10

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betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing. But, you can iterate and iterate on features, but you cannot iterate your way to a business model. It’s that important.

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Tweet View Comments Guest Author Sep 20, 2009 This guest post was written by Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. It is the first in a series of posts he’s writing about the decisions a young entrepreneur needs to make when she/he is first starting a business. How To Get There. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Refactoring yourself out of business Let me start out by saying I am a big fan of refactoring , the ongoing process of changing code so that it performs the same behaviors but has more elegant structure. January 29, 2009 12:08 AM Mahesh said. Great post, Eric.

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Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Today startups build products differently.

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

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