Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In this post I hope to talk about how to do it well, in terms appropriate for both audiences. In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Beware The Need for Critical Mass I’m going to lead with a quote from Seth on this one: “Failing for small audiences is a loud cue that you will fail even bigger with big audiences.&# The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

Ive been even more impressed by the various Greasemonkey compilers out there, that let you turn a Greasemonkey script into a full-blown Firefox extension, for easy distribution. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. Leveraged distribution channels.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

"In a phase change the things that made you successful before don't work anymore" It's tough to cross the chasm without "being remarkable" The distribution and word-of-mouth or word-of-mail that results from being remarkable can sometimes be the difference between crossing the chasm, or falling in and never getting out.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Another thought would be to outline who the intended audience for your blog is and the topic areas you will focus on. This is a good sign for you! :) I subscribed because I was inspired by the O'Reilly video, and feel I want to go deeper into the customer development field. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Instead, each potential customer has to go through a self-serve process of signing up and paying money. Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. They know how much it costs to bring in a customer and they know how much money they can expect to make on each one.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, September 18, 2008 How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of iPhone-related companies lately. There are other models, in other distribution channels. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. I havent found any yet.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. Funny story, after Bill presented at TED (back when Amazon was still a small company) Jeff Bezos was in the audience.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. Spray files across cheap disks on your network.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customer development to online marketing. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

.&# But we also invalidated a hypothesis that customers wanted an avatar; we had to learn a whole new way of explaining the benefits of avatar-mediated communication because our audience didn’t know what that word meant. What about companies, like Siebel, that started with partner distribution first?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an internet connection. This is just like a startup to me, complete with distribution and product development challenges, ecosystem design and many, many customers. Writing a book.

San Francisco 122

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

For most of its existence, PHP didnt have a standard package-distribution system or very good module support. Although this was annoying for sysadmins, security consultants, and language purists (and for those who had proprietary modules that couldnt be bundled), it was a huge boon for developers.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much. The CAB, DC (aka the C3) and the APC fought hard to help you guys please the general audience, and at many times, the moderators as well, heck there were forum mods on the councils. You earned their loyalty.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158