Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time. So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?"

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Technology cycles have become a treadmill, and for startups to survive they need to be on a continuous innovation cycle.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. What about a hardware business with some long-lead-time components?

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SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Hopefully everyone understands that in technology companies, continuous innovation is not an option. Ben uses the analogy of war time vs. peace time. I have witnessed many established companies that are clearly in war time but continue to behave as if in peace time.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and Ive written about their pain in The product managers lament and The engineering managers lament. Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. When they see a problem with the teams process, why dont they just fix it?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Expo SF (May.

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The Next Web

JANUARY 24, 2014

We have three universities in the top 100 of the Shanghai ranking for engineering and technology. Think of Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon), Guido van Rossem (founder of Python programming language and senior engineer at Dropbox) or the more senior Gerard Kleisterlee (chairman of Vodafone).

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 Waves of technology platforms I still remember the first time I switched to LAMP. So one of the first things we did was to hire an Oracle expert and get to work. That startup didnt turn out so well, but not for lack of technology. Expo SF (May.

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Examples might be a recommendation engine, search engine, matching engine or something with a complex interface. If you do not break it down into small pieces, its hard to make progress with part-time resources, freelancers, etc. Third party products are used appropriately.

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sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Derek Sivers about me blog books email list contact How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen 2010-06-19 Do you have an idea for a website, online business, or application, but need a programmer to turn that idea into reality? Say, “We are hiring a developer to create only the beginning of an application. Hire one from each.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 2, 2008 Just-In-Time Scalability At my previous company, we pioneered an approach to building out our infrastructure that we called "Just-In-Time Scalability." You can also download our presentation, " Just-In-Time Scalability: Agile Methods to Support Massive Growth."

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

(Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. I help lead the Engineering Leadership SIG at SDForum and wonder if you would be interested in speaking to our group about lean starups.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. As the CTO/VP Engineering, I was the worst offender. That means that I (and other engineers) were able to participate in the problem team discussions. Thats why its so essential to have a co-equal problem team. Context matters.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

There was a time when "web content" was considered "not code" and therefore not routinely source controlled. I know plenty of people who prefer more advanced source control system, but my belief is that many agile practices diminish the importance of advanced features like branching. Can you make a build in one step? Youd better.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Trying to answer that question at IMVU led me to discover Google AdWords and the world of search engine marketing. 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. Labels: search engine marketing 4comments: Tauya said.

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SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

I’m a long way into development and I’m 90% done and we are having issues getting it completed Developers like to over engineer. I.e., they need a developer more than they need a CTO. Developers like to over engineer. But my developers want to go into way too much detail. In fact, they often don’t really understand the business.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

All of these are true waste, and they generally happen because somebody is optimizing for their particular part of the puzzle, not for the team as a whole. Labels: agile , listening to customers 3comments: hauteroute said. Split-test experiments that go on forever? Great points Eric. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. In almost all Agile Development systems, thousands of automated tests are run against every change to the software.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Later, when the company was much larger, we had everyone on our engineering team agree to sit in on one usability test every month. It wasnt a huge time commitment, but it meant that every engineer was getting regular contact with an actual customer, which was invaluable. Expo SF (May. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. 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. It may be that all the doomsayers are right.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Processes are always deteriorating or self-regulating.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Among his ideas are that todays kids should be taught in class in a way that is relevant to their actual lives, which necessarily means allowing them to use technology. Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

At IMVU, when wed hire a new engineer, we could get them to ship code to production on their first day, even if they had never programmed in PHP before. Which makes them exactly the kind of programmers companies should want to hire. In my role as a CTO, Ive always tried to choose the right tool for the right job.

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blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

Update: The end is near, Expensify is hiring a.NET programmer! As you might know, we’re hiring the best programmers in the world. If you are a startup looking to hire really excellent people, take notice of.NET on a resume, and ask why it’s there. Guess which technology we have the least trouble with.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We talk a good game about technology adoption curves and crossing the chasm, but most of us dont seem to recognize when its happening. Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas. we dont talk enough about how it feels.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

We had all the tools in place but we didn’t actually practice agile development. No fancy tools needed here — it’s about the mentality, attention to detail, and the actions that foster agile development, not the tools & systems you set up in place to facilitate this. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lots of engineers are busy checking in and deploying their work. Meanwhile, a dozen other engineers are getting annoyed, because this constant bouncing is making it harder for them to work (they cant deploy changes while tests or the cluster are in red-alert mode). Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Labels: iPhone , search engine marketing 3comments: Blake Engel said. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Hey Eric, very interesting post. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 28, 2008 The lean startup comes to Stanford Im going to be talking about lean startups (and the IMVU case in particular) three times in the next two weeks at Stanford. Its exciting to see the theory and methodology being discussed in an academic context. When will you be speaking? wow, dead on.

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