Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Employees only. By learning to be rapidly responsive and agile. September 23-26 - TBA I'll be in New York and then Washington DC for media on these days, but don't have anything public on the schedule to announce. Friday, September 16 - Seattle On Friday, I fly to Seattle, where I'll be for two days. Register here.

Lean 155

Lean Seattle Los Angeles San Francisco 155

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. Instead, we do everything possible to validate the founders belief. We dont just abandon the vision of the company at every turn.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2018

They are talking about everyone who chooses to be self-employed – from a corner food vendor without a high school diploma to a high-tech founder with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.). There was little loss when they missed hiring employees who had entrepreneurial skills. They found: Signaling.

Entrepreneur 336

Entrepreneur Business Model Capital Gains Aggregator 336

Up and Running

APRIL 3, 2017

At Bond Street , we’re experts in term loans , but we cover just about everything related to small business, including how to hire the perfect employees for your new company. For small business owners, committing to a new employee’s salary is daunting. See Also: Is It Time to Hire an Employee? Step 5: Go live!

Social Media 96

Social Media Employee Media Hiring 96

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

On the one hand, it gives you insight into what kind of employee the candidate might be. The six key attributes spell ABCDEF: Agility. When talking about their past experience, candidates with agility will know why they did what they did in a given situation. I was wondering if you could expand on finding a technical co-founder.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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. I used to give copies of Four Steps out to my employees, in the hopes that it would instantly indoctrinate them into the methodology of Customer Development. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Hearpreneur

JUNE 21, 2017

My Mama, the founder of Yuca’s Hut in Los Feliz, CA, didn’t allow a lack of college degrees or a business plan to deter her from launching her dream. It’s an important quote for employees and business owners to internalize, because a company is people working toward success. I own a brand strategy agency in New York.

Entrepreneur 52

Entrepreneur Africa Cofounder CTO Hire 52

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Andy Mathieson, a founder and managing member at Fairview Capital , was particularly supportive. With 21 employees today, kaChing is devoted to recruiting professional managers and finding product/market fit , first for money managers, then for consumers. The response was surprisingly positive. Thus far the results are encouraging.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. Instead, five whys kept leading to problems caused by an improperly trained new employee, and wed make a small adjustment. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Although Im not a developer, I am captivated by the lean and agile start-up model that you write about. I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. Combining agile development with customer developm. Tried it with multiple browsers. Expo SF (May.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

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.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Combining agile development with customer developm.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Lean manufacturing , agile software development , and Theory of Constraints are all examples of this idea in action. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

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. Its not that the idea behind them is wrong, but I think agile team-building practices make scheduling per se much less important. Youd better.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

While there are dozens of lessons I could take away from these entrepreneurs’ experiences, I want to highlight three common mistakes founders make in the early stages of a startup. There is no doubt that starting a new business is hard work. There is no doubt that starting a new business is hard work. But this is a mistake.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Software Review Balance Sheet Partner 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?"

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, the works. 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. We really did it well, with a great PR firm and great coverage. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

When I first encountered agile software techniques, in the form of extreme programming , I thought I had found the answer. I explained it to people this way: agile lets you make the trade-offs visible to whole company, so that they can make informed choices. Even worse, agile wasnt really helping me ship higher quality software.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

bhargreaves.com

MARCH 7, 2010

Many capable founders aren’t developers, and I frequently meet with entrepreneurs that have taken a very different path. Actually any shop that does agile development with daily and weekly releases should. Scissor.com is another agile option. Agile dev shops should bring discipline and quicker results.

Hiring 40

Hiring Technical Review Agile Software Review 40

Agile VC

JULY 16, 2014

To these folks, Boston’s founder pool is a leaky bucket… a young founder who moves to Silicon Valley, New York, or elsewhere is a sign of frailty of Boston’s startup ecosystem. And talent flows in many directions (all three co-founders of NextView are all Silicon Valley transplants to Boston).

Boston 208

Boston Silicon Valley San Francisco Cofounder 208

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. 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. is it a revolutionary and novel idea? is this team the one to back? who is the customer?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

It has to balance competing goals of establishing clear ownership, while avoiding talented employees getting stuck. ► 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.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

We eventually discovered (via five whys ) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. Because this was such a big cultural change for most new employees, we didnt leave them to sink or swim on their own. For people we hired from larger companies especially, this was challenging.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

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

JULY 2, 2009

For example, I often cite a real example of a problem that has as its root cause a new employee who was not properly trained. I pick that example on purpose, for two reasons: 1) most of the companies I work with deal with this problem and yet 2) almost none of them have any kind of training program in place for new employees.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

The advantages of cross-functional teams are well documented, and for a thorough treatment I recommend the theory in the second half of Agile Software Development with Scrum. I want to focus here on one particular strength: the ability to operate semi-autonomously. Lots of little projects erodes teamwork and builds up work-in-progress.

San Francisco 74

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 74

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. Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. But did they leave the world a better place than before they existed?

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) So I don't think the Apple experience should be used to discount lean, agile, or customer development-type approaches. The videos are Steve explaining the company's path forward to Next employees.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

But what I remind them is that great grades and successful founders/technology entrepreneurs have at best a zero correlation (and anecdotal evidence suggests that the correlation may actually be negative.) There’s a big difference between being an employee at a great technology company and having the guts to start one. I love Google.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 332

mashable.com

MAY 9, 2011

a New York-based sizzle reel production company specializing in promotional videos for PR and marketing professionals, and the Young Entrepreneur Council. I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs what fledging tech startups should be looking for in a CTO hire to ensure founders get the right person for the job.

CTO Hire 73

CTO Hire Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review 73

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

They had their own private forum, and a company founder (aka me) personally ran the group in its early days. Every two months, the company would have a big end-of-milestone meeting, with our Board of Directors, Business Advisory Board, and all employees present. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Thats all helpful for recruiting, retaining, and ramping-up a new employee. ► 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. You dont have to guess who their mentor will be.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. Yet absent a family obligation or something similar, nobody left until 7, 8, 9pm, or later even though we were too cheap to provide dinner for employees back then in the early days.

Startup 120

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. I think Drucker said it best. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. Not to be outdone, the technologists on the team had also brought their big guns, and the meeting was packed with employees of every level – from VP’s all the way down to me. Yet talent organized improperly can lead to failure. Expo SF (May.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. Yet absent a family obligation or something similar, nobody left until 7, 8, 9pm, or later even though we were too cheap to provide dinner for employees back then in the early days.

Startup 188

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 188