Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down. Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. This is the speed-up-or-slow-down moment.

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Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Many assume it was a cakewalk, based on the success LinkedIn has enjoyed over time and the current stature of our founder/CEO Reid Hoffman (now Chairman). is the leading consumer internet company with Terry Semel as CEO. Yes… he was a very successful PayPal exec and previously co-founder & VP Product of SocialNet.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

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San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read. It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff. I think theyve succeeded. The Entrepreneur’s Guide is an easy read.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

I am grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success, especially my co-organizers Charles Hudson and David Sachs. Unfortunately, the video of our sllconf conversation is not online (due to technical problems), but we have a physical tape backup which we are endeavoring to get online soon.

San Francisco 133

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

The same has been true of an unfortunate number of startups, they manage to generate a lot of hype, raise a lot of money, and sometimes make some of their investors, employees, or founders rich. Ive been there: is it me or my cofounder thats crazy? Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. Iterating at whiteboard !=

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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. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Go on an agile diet quickly. More on that in a moment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. Leave a comment or reply to someone else. Fostering that dialog is important. Expo SF (May.

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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. Yet other agile principles suggest the opposite, as in YAGNI and DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork. Reconciling these principles requires a little humility.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Weve gone from total obscurity to something people are beginning to misunderstand and even co-opt. The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. If a relatively small number of highly-motivated entrepreneurs attend, then well have an intense and intimate conversation.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Most important slide: about the founders In a pitch meeting, try to spend as much time as possible talking about the key questions for your pitch. If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. who is the competition? will they fail fast? Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

It was actually my co-founder Will Harvey who taught me to present this data in the simple format weve discussed in this post. You need to make sure you dont get away from trying bold new things, using some combination of your vision and in-depth customer conversations to come up with the next idea to try. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Most importantly, if you know a high-quality entrepreneur who you think would add to the conversation, would you be willing to try and convince them to attend? We changed our model to B2B and adopted Agile around 2002. Would you be willing to link to the Master Class info page from your blog? Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%. That’s not too surprising, because our product was pretty bad in those days. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. If you want to get ahead in this new world, agile is already not agile enough, lean is too fat and investing money in processes which tell you whether you're doing the right thing will put you on the right track but not out in front. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 2, 2010

By all accounts, the conversation was a success. By all accounts, the conversation was a success. ► 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. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 149

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

► 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 visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Expo SF (May.

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Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

I guess it should not be a surprise that Founders have lots of challenges working with developers. Challenges I started by asking the founders in the room to tell me some of the challenges they have working with developers. Developers (and Founders) are challenged to know how much is okay in terms of bugs.

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Technical Cofounder Developer Fractional CTO CTO Hire 280

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2020

They co-founded it with former U.S. Jen is the founder and former executive director of Code for America. You can listen to our conversation on Apple Podcasts , Google podcasts , or wherever else you like to download podcasts. She has been an advocate for a more responsive, a more resilient, more agile government.

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New Jersey Government CTO America 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : Still, startups develop some kind of process — whether its disciplined, haphazard, bureaucratic or empowering — because building a great product depends on it. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 28, 2010

This conference will be the first of its kind: an opportunity to have a conversation about the future of the lean startup movement. We want everyone who can contribute to that conversation to be there, regardless of their ability to pay. Im hopeful that other companies will step up and become scholarship sponsors, too. Expo SF (May.

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Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 109

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, March 6, 2010 Startup Visa update As I write this, I am traveling at 30,000 feet on Virgin Americas excellent IAD->SFO nonstop, following an intense few days of conversations in Washington, DC about the Startup Visa. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple. Read the rest of Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics at The Conversation on Harvard Business Review. Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple.

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2009

Loved it and great speaker, but disagree with portrayal of agile only dealing with known problems #leanstartup Im really interested in perspectives on this point. For example, the agile practice of an in-house customer or product owner that can make authoritative prioritization decisions seems like it doesnt translate very well to startups.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 76

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. ’&# They removed the core plan, and conversions went up. ’&# They removed the core plan, and conversions went up.

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San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

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 ? The Proof Is In The Revenue.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

fbFund REV featuring Eric Ries The Lean Startup Host: fbFund Type: Education - Lecture Network: Global Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009 Time: 1:30pm - 3:30pm Location: fbFund REV Garage Street: 164 Hamilton City/Town: Palo Alto, CA RSVP Here So, if you are in the Bay Area and want to swing by Palo Alto on Thursday afternoon, come join the conversation.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

How do you drop a phrase like "voluntary salary reduction tool" and then not describe it :) Unless youre simply talking about the standard "hey, take less cash and Ill give you more options" type conversation. When you said "tool" I thought you actually meant you had a tool. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It makes successful founders famous. It makes successful founders famous. It sells newspapers and magazines. It helps companies with PR.

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San Francisco Lean PR Metrics 167

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

Some disgruntled younger partners left in the mid-90s… two co-founded Benchmark Capital (Bruce Dunlevie & Andy Rachleff). But eventually some disgruntled younger partners left and two started August Capital (Dave Marquardt & John Johnson) and one co-founded Benchmark (Bob Kagle). But it’s not quite that simple.

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Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

A lot of conversation was about what "the federal government" should do. ► 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. Startup=Experiment. link] Amen! Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco DC Washington Lean 92

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. 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. Thats why its so essential to have a co-equal problem team.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. Do it right, and your conversion rates might be as high as 20%. These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. Do it wrong, and your LTV gets very close to zero.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 1, 2009

My challenge for the new year is getting the word out about our product (AwayFind), while of course improving on conversions, etc. ► 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 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Those conversations are the best way to look for patterns in the noise. Im Community Manager at VenCorps, co-host of commandN. I worked at Flock, ConceptShare and co-founded Raincity Studios in Vancouver. Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60