Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. We’re building the wrong product!” Tossing their agile development process and at times their entire business model in the air, the company would go into fire-drill mode and engineering would start working on whatever his latest insight was.

Founder 321

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 321

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

They would make commercials about a new book series, and then run the commercials at times when the TV rates were low (late night, UHF channels, etc) If they got enough orders, they then decided to print the series. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). There are too many products clamoring for attention. Test-marketing is now easier than ever before, thanks to leveraged distribution channels like AdWords and Facebook. Is that a lot?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Again, its critical to focus your marketing launch on those publications, venues, and channels that your potential partners are paying attention to. 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. Dont scale.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Ash Maurya is the founder of WiredReach , a bootstrapped startup that he has been running for seven years. Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. This case presents a further complication: desktop software.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

There are other models, in other distribution channels. As the AppStore becomes increasingly saturated one of the goals of the socialDeck platform is to create an alternative distribution channel -- a way to drive installs of casual games outside of the AppStore oligopoly. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Today, Id like to spend some time on two techniques: the problem presentation and learning what channels of information reach customers. In particular, Ive focused on the two channels of communication that were most commonly suggested in the first survey: conferences and books. Combining agile development with customer developm.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Returning to our example of the beleaguered founder who still has the pager, before hiring an operations guy, try promoting someone from within to take on the job. Given that most recruiting channels are pay-for-performance, its usually cheaper, too, because it has a lower conversion rate. Expo SF (May.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

As notification channels get stuffed full of these messages, customers tune them out (or platforms have to put in place dramatic limits on access). The solution for app developers caught in this vicious cycle is to develop competency in positioning. the fatigue rate of customers in that notification channel 2.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

mashable.com

MAY 24, 2011

May 23, 2011 by Christina Warren 20 Share on Tumblr email share Share on Tumblr email share The Mobile App Trends Series is supported by Sourcebits , a leading product developer for mobile platforms. Sourcebits offers design and development services for iOS, Android, Mobile and Web platforms.

Mobile 90

Mobile Web Social Media Software Review 90

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

Customer discovery turns founders’ initial hypotheses about their market and customers into facts. These visionary customers will give the company the feedback necessary to add features to the product over time. Enthusiasts who spread the good news about your product to friends, family or co-workers are often called evangelists.

Customer 119

Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A minimum viable product in this category must answer the question: does my media content or channel command the attention of a valuable audience? Minimum viable product is a tactic for mitigating risk. Startup founders need to use their own judgment to ask: which is the riskiest assumption underlying my business plan?

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

She has a separate team, with its own culture and office, and a mandate straight from top management to innovate without regard to the company’s historic products, channels, or supply chain. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So far, so good. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. Great for visualizing work of product development. Agile eLearning.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

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. Early this year, SlideShare launched custom channels.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 31, 2009

My overwhelming takeaway from the most recent Lessons Learned survey is that there is tremendous hunger out there for in-depth opportunities for entrepreneurs of all stripes to develop their lean startup skills. As you can tell from recent posts, Ive been experimenting with different formats and channels to try and find the best way to help.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

g2s The very abbreviated version of Customer Development (channeling Steve Blank ). ► 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. once it launches. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 92

San Francisco DC Washington Lean 92

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Because the book is chock-full of examples of how to do this in older industries, I will focus on my experience integrating NPS into an online service, although it should be noted that it works equally well if your primary contact with customers is through a different channel, such as the telephone. is usually asked on a 0-10 point scale.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. As the channel gets more and more crowded, just launching an app in the store is getting worse and worse as a strategy for each new entrant. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

Those who have tried to build apps that exist just as glorified landing pages or marketing channels have generally failed. And, most importantly, you have several reliable communciation channels to talk to them including including email, profile notifications, feed items and status messages. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

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. Founders are constantly being barraged by incoherent and contradictory advice.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

Maybe location-specific "channels"? ► 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 68

San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

They are largely invisible in the normal channels where customer service and community management pays attention. As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. It has channels to speak to but they continue to be closed and frankly rather rude.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158