Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Most of the people building our product werent themselves target customers. So there was simply no substitute for seeing actual customers with the product, live. Today, when I talk to startup founders, the most common answer I get to the question "do you talk to your customers?" Dont confuse passion with volume.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do some Customer Development instead.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The event will include a talk from Eric on The Lean Startup over dinner, followed by moderated table discussion and then final Q&A with Eric.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders! goap #ericries InvisibleGaijin : #goap #leanstartup Eric Ries talks about importance of "visionary customers" in startup success. Startups need to spend time with these customers. Brilliant insight.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

Unfortunately, they are disinterested in doing the hard work to help early stage entrepreneurs and companies. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When it becomes possible to build products "live" with customers, the cycle time changes and design becomes a much more dynamic process. We still struggle to create Firm software that is defect-free, and it still requires customer insight (and maybe some customer development) to discover what will Delight.

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Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In other words, we want to use the spreadsheet to quantify our progress using the most important unit: validated learning about customers. One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

Three premier early-stage venture investors have joined forces to sponsor the event: Baseline , Floodgate , and First Round Capital. Three premier early-stage venture investors have joined forces to sponsor the event: Baseline , Floodgate , and First Round Capital.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I liked the flattering Venture Hacks commentary so much Ill just quote it: Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. The customer is known, the product is known, and all we have to do is act. He believes that many early stage startups are labors of learning.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2009

I believe this is part of what made the first workshop such a success - the people in the room were visionary customers who therefore came ready to work, not just to be entertained (by contrast with what I see at some of my speaking engagements). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

What all these teachers had in common were two things: they were technology early adopters that were willing to take a chance on a new software product, and they all had similar problems organizing their classes and students. Im Community Manager at VenCorps, co-host of commandN. What is customer development?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

For short stories - I think it is always good to introduce some practical problem (you might have heard from entrepreneur at early stage) and how the lean startup method helped solved that. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94