Advertising, Continuous Deployment, Founder and Product Development

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

For Neopets, its simply a side-effect of their game-like product design. Either way, you can use any marketing channel thats available to bring in new customers, including word of traditional advertising, SEO, SEM - wherever you can find prospects who are going to find your product addicting.

San Francisco

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Finally the day came, we unleashed the landing page, emailed our existing customers, and started advertising online. False negatives would be an issue, but combining ad words with other forms of advertising, such as guerrilla marketing, might yield a more robust answer. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Demand

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Eric, Any thoughts on how forum feedback fits into customer development and agile product development? Youve probably addressed this in the past, but I continue to be blown away by how fast Blizzard reacts to noise in their forums and rapidly makes fixes to the product. =) November 4, 2008 10:58 PM IMVU said.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 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?

Agile

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment

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

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

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. Good luck, engineering manager. It was painful for a lot of people.

Software Review

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review

Lessons Learned: ScienceDaily: Corporate culture is most important.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

I believe its important that product teams be cross-functional, no matter what other job function the product champion does. ► 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.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Were not going to have any form of advertising, but I am considering trying to offer a scholarship program to worthy entrepreneurs, just as we did for the Web 2.0 The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review

Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers I see lots of startups whose business plans revolve around selling high-value ad space to brand advertisers. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Advertising

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment

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 as Erin mentions above -- replace content with games -- the same dynamics are at work in the advertising world. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Is that a lot?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

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.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: Three freemium strategies

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. Their economics blends elements of the free, advertising-supported, "eyeballs" business with more traditional e-commerce and subscription businesses. Is it that they act as free advertising for our premium product?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium

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. Eric] “The first user experience was actually terrible.&#

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: CPI > CPC

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, January 11, 2009 CPI > CPC Google revolutionized advertising by popularizing pay-per-click. Because social networks have generated staggering quantities of traffic without generating as much economic value from traditional advertising models, theres a big opportunity to buy traffic on a new model.

San Francisco

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment

Good enough never is (or is it?)

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Some startups fail because the founders cant have this conversation - they either blow up when they try, or they fail to change because they are afraid of conflict. Although I wish I could take credit for these pivots, the reality is that they were not caused by my singular insight or that of my other co-founders.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile

Lessons Learned: The ABCDEF's of conducting a technical interview

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

The technical interview is at the heart of these challenges when building a product development team, and so I thought it deserved an entire post on its own. Still, a startup product development team is a service organization. Labels: hiring , product development 5comments: TedHoward said.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Agile Java

Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 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?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: Where did Silicon Valley come from?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 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?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 15comments: Anonymoussaid. Furthermore, I think most of what you are suggesting is applicable in companies/ industries that are not software development. I work in advertising and this system would work to analyze failures. Leave your thoughts in a comment.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review

Business ecology and the four customer currencies

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This attention is valuable to yet another set of people: namely, the traditional businesses (see above) who are using marketing to grow, and are looking to advertise to new prospects. In the old days, these media companies would then themselves plow this profit back into marketing and advertising, and grow.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

It seems your cluster architecture is one of the key architectural constraints making continuous deployment possible. If you cant deploy to 5% of the nodes and check the results, then how would you accomplish continuous deployment? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

You declare how much someone clicking an advertisement is worth to you, and then the search engine does its best to get you as many clicks as it can at that price. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

SEM

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. You create an entire framework of understanding and action based on your product/idea that sets it in motion in a self-sustaining way. Thats how to "launch".

San Francisco

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage

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

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 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?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

But that is not the only source of positioning: brand advertisers have been using packaging and TV ads to do this for years. ► 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.

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral

The Superbowl ad test

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Isn’t it equally possible that this company is spending more money on advertising or marketing than it’s competitors? And it is much more insulated from external effects, like an advertising or PR blitz, than your typical vanity metric. But is that true? Or that there is some other external factor at work? But is that true?

San Francisco

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR

Lessons Learned: Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 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?

.Net

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean

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

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Are advertisers customers, and are they part of a market?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean

Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campaign trail

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 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?

Campaign

Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile

The cardinal sin of community management

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

We kept denying that we had done anything wrong, that the features still worked as advertised, and justifying our decisions instead of apologizing. As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. That is what company founders and staff do not get.

Community

Community Management Lean Software Review

StartUpRoar

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Lessons Learned: Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

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

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

Lessons Learned: The engineering manager's lament

Lessons Learned: ScienceDaily: Corporate culture is most important.

The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class

Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers

Marching through quicksand

Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?

Lessons Learned: Three freemium strategies

Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium

Lessons Learned: CPI > CPC

Good enough never is (or is it?)

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Lessons Learned: The ABCDEF's of conducting a technical interview

Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

Lessons Learned: Where did Silicon Valley come from?

How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis

Business ecology and the four customer currencies

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Lessons Learned: Don't launch

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

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

The Superbowl ad test

Lessons Learned: Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to.

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

Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campaign trail

The cardinal sin of community management

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