Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Im excited to have just published the first of several articles on entrepreneurship for the Harvard Business Review online. Unlike previous cross-posting Ive done for blogs, where a lot of the discussion happens here, Id like to ask you to take a minute and click through to read the full article.

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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. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

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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. Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. But this is wrong, too.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. I highly recommend this book for all entrepreneurs, in startups as well as in big companies. Heres the catch. Theory of market types.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

For the rest of us, there is an alternative: to create credibility by building a lean startup. Rather than just focus on the right kind of pitch to use, I wanted to write about the kinds of startups that create lasting value, and therefore are great companies to fund even in down times. You can read the article to find out why.

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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? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

See Paul Grahams Why Nerds are Unpopular to learn more) Take a look at this article on a programming Q&A site: How old are you, and how old were you when you started coding? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. 1] For more on SBCE, see this MIT Sloan Management Review article. So, in that spirit: thanks, Mitch.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 20, 2010 Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the Lean Startup) The Wall Street Journal covers the Lean Startup movement in todays paper. The article includes comments from Kevin Dewalt and Drew Houston. The article includes comments from Kevin Dewalt and Drew Houston.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

That’s what most startup decisions are like. Because of the extreme unknowns inherent in startup situations, we are all blind – to the realities of what customers what, market dynamics, and competitive threats. This startup has been busy transforming their culture and process to incorporate split-testing.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Just like with startups, this is a hybrid question. So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. 12comments: Dougvs said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

What led you to become a subscriber, versus just reading an article and leaving like everybody else? (or, In order to convince me, Id to see another link to an article here somewhere that I enjoyed. Read some articles, liked what I saw. I want to get an idea of how startup guys think. How did you hear about it?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, March 11, 2010 For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? for Harvard Business Review) In the latest article for my series in HBR, I discuss the problem of how to figure out how much process startups should have. When done right, it can help startups accelerate even as they scale.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 21, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 21, 2008 Lean startups vs lean companies Venture Hacks has a great article today on lean startups. If youre not familiar with their work, and how it relates to startups, this is a great place to start. But I do think it is a misconception of what lean startups are all about.

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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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Dont forget to leave a comment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 24, 2009 The lean startup at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Image by Jessica_Mah via Flickr Last week I had the opportunity to lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at Haas, which is always a great learning experience - for me at least! Eric takes a different approach.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, August 20, 2009 The Promise of the Lean Startup Im honored to have a guest post on GigaOm to introduce the concept of the lean startup to their audience. The ultimate goal of a lean startup is to identify where its vision intersects with what reality can accommodate.

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SVPG

JULY 31, 2013

This article is a little bit different, but if you make it to the last paragraph, I''m hoping it will help better explain where I''m coming from. In the spirit of the inspirational This I Believe project, I thought I would share with you the beliefs that underly so much of my writing and teaching. I believe in technology. Or Six Sigma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

I spent some time with his company before the conference and discussed ways to get started with continuous deployment , including my experience introducing it at IMVU. Moreover, approaching the problem from the direction that I had intuitively is a recipe for never reaching a point where continuous deployment is feasible.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

If you look at the typical startup, you will see the vast majority of their energy and time invested in building new technology. We act as if the biggest risk to startup success is that the technology won’t work. Thanks for the interesting article. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, May 1, 2009 Lean Startup webcast post-game Wow, what an incredible turnout for webcast this morning, right on the heels of a phenomenal crowd at startup2startup last night. Its been a great twelve hours for the lean startup! Thats what gives startups their disruptive innovation edge.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

Andrew Chen recently did a great article on the economic model underlying freemium (it includes a detailed spreadsheet, too!). Your article disticly illustrates the models in which one can make free work. I also work for a startup and we have been grappling with the same problem ever since we went public. I like that concept.

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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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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 19, 2009 Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a response) Inc Magazine has a great new piece up about the increasing use of the Minimum Viable Product by businesses (and not just startups). See “ It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet &# for more.) Read the rest.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 2, 2009 How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis In the lean startup workshops , we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the technique of Five Whys. My intention is to describe a full working process, similar to what I’ve seen at IMVU and other lean startups. First, a caveat.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

MarkH : Key takeaways from Erics great talk #w2e #leanstartup 1) "building a culture to learn " @ericries Marks point is the one that seems to have had the biggest impact from the talk as a whole: that startups should be built to learn. The lean startup focuses on situations where we have both an unknown problem and an unknown solution.

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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? In fact, in most situations its a bad idea for startups to synchronize these events. Most startups arent so fortunate. My answer is almost always the same: dont.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In the summer of 1999, I started working on a startup from my college dorm. And the great ideas that became todays successful tech startups dwarf anything that had been done to that point. Nonetheless, my first startup was a tool for college students from elite colleges to create resumes and help them find jobs. Great post!

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

One of the most common questions I get about the lean startup methodology is, "but what about Steve Jobs ?" So how do you reconcile his success with the lean startup, which seems to suggest the opposite?" Plus, the premise of the question misunderstands the lean startup, too. And he doesnt shy away from big-bang launch events.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 8, 2009 What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups? 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. And what hurdles could be eliminated?

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 8, 2008 Continuous integration step-by-step Lets start with the basics: Martin Fowlers original article lays out the mechanics of how to set up a CI server and the essential rules to follow while doing it. As with many lean startup practices, its getting started thats the hard part.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Most of the content for my presentation is drawn from my original article on engagement loops , with new diagrams courtsey of my friends at Kontagent and a few new examples. When I work with startups on improving engagement, I really try to emphasize the importance of their most powerful lever: positioning. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Those who have the endurance are the ones that tend to lead teams and join startups, because you just cant be successful in a startup situation without empathy. When a startup encounters difficult technical problems, this is the guy you want solving them. I would characterize them as intolerant but not arrogant. What a waste.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

For startups (and other innovators ), that’s a decisive advantage. The work itself, especially in startups, depends primarily on intelligence, communication, creativity and empathy. Vivek Wadhwa and his team continue their excellent work investigating the true nature of entrepreneurship.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, January 4, 2009 Sharding for startups The most important aspect of a scalable web architecture is data partitioning. Sharding for startups To support a single partitioning scheme is easy, especially if you design for it from the start. But startups rarely have either luxury. to store it.

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