Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Apparently a school in Australia has taken his suggestion, and you can read all about it at Marc Prenskys Weblog: Cell Phones in Class -- A Huge Breakthrough. 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?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Own the development methodology - in a traditional product development setup, the VP Engineering or some other full-time manager would be responsible for making sure the engineers wrote adequate specs, interfaced well with QA, and also run the scheduling "trains" for releases. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

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

JULY 28, 2010

They were interested in the tools and new distribution medium kaChing provided. They were interested in the tools and new distribution medium kaChing provided. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? These managers weren’t concerned with transparency.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

In management jobs related to operations – that is, the people tasked with actually making and distributing physical products – this kind of thinking is now considered ludicrous, thanks to a century of progress. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Hello Eric, Great talk at the fb developer garage. Im passionate about music (topspin like companies)and movie (jaman like companies)distribution. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Im a recent grad, with emphasis in entrepreneurship, who cannot afford to go to this.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. So why you?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. I agree with the less is more product development approach, but for a different reason. Now that is fun.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 28, 2010

To ensure that those who are regular contributors to the movement to be able to attend as well, Ive given each Lean Startup Meetup leader a set of discount codes and a few half-price tickets to distribute to their members. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 109

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 109

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

My belief is that the root cause of the IPO shortage is that successful startup companies cannot find productive ways to invest large amounts of money to scale anymore. For software companies especially, scaling distribution and development is comparatively cheap. The old ways aren’t working.

IPO 166

IPO San Francisco Lean Silicon Valley 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. We already know who to distribute the product to (or else why would we care what they think?).

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 7, 2008 The App Store after the gold rush I wrote earlier about the issue of distribution advantage on the iPhone. I think its helpful to think about two kinds of competition for distribution: acquisition competition and retention competition. So what can you do?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Our tests suite takes nine minutes to run (distributed across 30-40 machines). This development philosophy created a culture around rapid prototyping of features, followed by testing them against large numbers of actual customers. It would be hard to argue against this product development strategy, in general.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

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

AUGUST 1, 2009

Also SJ's obsession with better taste (positively) contributes to the overall product development process. There are some good anecdotes about Chief Engineers in the Toyota Product Development Book. Some of these reaffirm that they do indeed validate assumptions through interaction with customers.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

There are often counter-intuitive changes in customer behavior that depend on little details. In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. When we’re optimizing, product development teams encounter similar situations.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Even the most radical Bell Curve -style thinkers have to concede that even if there are differences between men and women in the distribution of these traits on average, these curve have substantial overlap, and there should still be a lot more of them represented in high-tech startups. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

This is great for something like a huge DHT or a distributed work queue. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Consistent hashing has the property that only a small number of entries need to be remapped when a node is added or removed.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

This is especially useful in situations, like most B2B businesses, where the total number of customers is likely to be small. This case study illustrates one company’s attempt to do customer development by testing their vision with customers before writing a single line of code. Oh, this is just a Photoshop file?

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144