Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. August 3, 2009 10:52 AM Chris Hopf said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way.

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Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, April 9, 2009 Built to learn Its been an exhilarating ride since the Web 2.0 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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

► 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

JANUARY 30, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 30, 2009 Achieving a failure We spend a lot of time planning. Departments were built and were even metrics-driven. But there was no feedback loop to help the company find the right metrics to focus on. I know of at least five former employees that went on to become startup founders.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

And the final lesson was that we were keeping score on our packaging with the wrong metrics – it wasn’t about awards, it was about sales in the retail channel. Reply Bill Allred , on May 1, 2009 at 10:46 am Said: This is a really common pitfall. We hadn’t taken the time to learn the basics of packaging ourselves.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ▼ June (3) What is a startup?

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. More on that in a moment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. Labels: customer development , split-test 7comments: Editor said.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything. I say this as a founder: the contribution of founders is always overestimated. The danger here is that new founders, looking at existing founders, will think that theyre supermen that one couldnt possibly equal oneself.

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San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Labels: product development Speed up or slow down? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

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Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. May 6, 2009 3:03 PM Ivan Acosta-Rubio said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 1, 2009 The Steve Jobs method Image via CrunchBase Its been a long time since I did a post that was primarily a link to another blog with commentary, but I came across something today that I really want to share. August 1, 2009 7:39 AM Ravi Mohan said. August 1, 2009 8:11 AM Michael said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 3, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up Last week I had a real blast meeting with the companies at the fbFund incubator at Palo Alto. bigs : @ericries says Stealth dev is a (undesirable, failure-presaging) customer-free zone. See Validated learning about customers for more info.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. February 21, 2009 12:10 AM Harold Fowler said. February 21, 2009 7:39 AM Rocky1138 said. February 21, 2009 12:26 PM Anonymoussaid. February 21, 2009 3:08 PM SCC said.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

the version that would facilitate the investment of real money) was planned for late-2009. Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. the version that would facilitate the investment of real money) was planned for late-2009. The result? The response was surprisingly positive.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Building a new startup hub Last week, I had a unique opportunity to spend some time in Boulder at the behest of TechStars. And do your customer development. These quotes are, as is my custom, straight from twitter. August 28, 2009 1:15 PM Derek Scruggs said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Employees should be masters of their own time Every startup should have a culture of learning. In order to give people the data they need to apply the strategy, we were very open with our company metrics, making all reports generally available and easy to run. Dont even go there.

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Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review 146

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture. Keep posting and thank you!

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 27, 2009 Cash is not king Cash on hand is just one important variable in a startup’s life, but it’s not necessarily the most important. Unfortunately for the current crop of founders, there is intense pressure to engage in selective memory when companies tell the story of their founding.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" 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. April 21, 2009 4:51 PM Geethan said. Great article!

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customer development to online marketing. Thank yo u January 3, 2009 4:07 PM BillSeitz said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 6, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund slides and video As a follow-up to my previous post on my talk for fbFund at Facebook , there was enough interest in watching video of the talk that I have finally uploaded it using Apples MobileMe. July 6, 2009 4:21 PM Anonymoussaid. July 6, 2009 8:43 PM Eric said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Were trying to put some of these "its the system, stupid" ideas into practice on NileGuide (www.nileguide.com) April 28, 2009 9:19 PM Jake Faris said. September 3, 2009 12:25 PM Omar Ead said. Wouldn't it make more sense to Learn (customer discovery) then proceed to ideas,code, data, implement and measure? Great points Eric.

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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? Do some Customer Development instead. Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. Know what the success metrics are for the launch.

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. July 13, 2009 7:38 AM George said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Continuous deployment and continuous learning At long last, some of the actual implementers of the advanced systems we built at IMVU for rapid deployment and rapid response are starting to write about it. February 10, 2009 10:14 PM Anonymoussaid. I am not a developer.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder. Similarly, 24% of all the patents filed in the US in 2006 had a foreign resident as inventor or co-inventor. For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder.

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

► 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? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market.

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Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105