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. Although there is cost and overhead associated with continuous deployment, the benefits are immense. Danger, Will Robinson.

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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. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

This is a choice that every startup founder must make , so I’d like to dig in deeper. To clarify the discussion, let’s use a simpler model: Companies A and B both sell products with recurring monthly revenue, and both brought in $10,000 in revenue last month. maximizing reach) versus selling more expensive units (i.e.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. Although it costs to pay down the principal, we gain by reduced interest payments in the future. One last thought.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

. (this post was originally published in Harvard Business Review and is co-authored with Nadav Benbarak of Okta.). By viewing product development and marketing as integrated functions, not silos, leading tech companies like Facebook and Pinterest are rethinking their approach to driving growth and achieving breakthrough results.

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Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

. (this post was originally published in Harvard Business Review and is co-authored with Nadav Benbarak of Okta.). By viewing product development and marketing as integrated functions, not silos, leading tech companies like Facebook and Pinterest are rethinking their approach to driving growth and achieving breakthrough results.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. Others say Larry Spitters & Co. Were we anything first?

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. I want to talk specifics, and when you come right down to it, most technology startups dont have a very interesting cost structure.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Weve gone from total obscurity to something people are beginning to misunderstand and even co-opt. I believe it means were achieving product/market fit for a set of ideas. The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. Congratulations.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. equity that belongs to departed cofounders)?

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Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%. That’s not too surprising, because our product was pretty bad in those days. If it costs $0.10

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

Alistair and Ben, co-authors of the book Lean Analytics, will help you sort it out in our next webcast, Lean Analytics for Non-tech Companies. To help turn the conversation specifically to non-tech companies—the topic of our webcast this week —we asked Alistair to answer a few questions. This is confirmation bias, and it kills.

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Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

There were prominent founders of business like PriceGrabber, LowerMyBills and MyLife. We’ll be conducting a series of educational programes covering: fund raising, team building, product development, sales, marketing, business development and how to prioritize your time as a CEO. . And of course we had, TheMan.

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Los Angeles Stealth Securities and Exchange Commission Southern California 276

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. Jason: Yeah, one percent conversion rate is pretty normal. That’s why we’re having this conversation.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2018

Co-located in Shanghai and San Francisco, the AirPop product brand is a line of sensing, high-efficiency air pollution accessories for 4 billion+ people breathing pervasive ambient air pollution. AirPop’s co-founder Chris Hosmer (pictured above) answered our questions for this interview.

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

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. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Keep going.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. As the costs of production fall, it’s getting easier and easier to send in a proposal or even a complete work. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Is that a lot? Is that good? ideas (e.g.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. The software was sold based on installation cost running on local servers for enterprises—which was very, very expensive.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Austin Startup

AUGUST 12, 2019

DATA QUALITY IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SXSW Conference | Track: Tech Industry & Enterprise Speakers: Gustavo Sanchez, Co-Founder of Pandata Tech The Pitch: 80% of digital projects are being hampered by data quality?—?deployed as well as strategies for founders in raising capital and marketing to the public.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Technical Cofounder Artificial Inteligence 51

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 22, 2009

If your startup is growing (or aspires to grow), then the costs of a mistake are always going up. Since the cost of failure is monotonically increasing, it actually makes sense to fail sooner, not later. Thanks so much to everyone who made the trip to SIPA and participated in the conversation, as well as to SIPA and HP for hosting me.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 76

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

There’s been a lot written about the individual characteristics of what makes a great founder , but a lot less about what makes a great founding team and how that’s different from a great founding CEO. In doing so we’ve failed to help founders understand what it takes to build a great founding team. Founders – the idea.

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Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

firstround.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Today, he’s the co-founder and CTO of Artillery , bringing console-quality gaming to the web browser. And even though I was the tech guy surrounded by capable business-focused co-founders, I knew that building a successful company was going to start with a lot more than a command line. Author: Ian Langworth.

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CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version. For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. Do it right, and your conversion rates might be as high as 20%.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 23, 2019

It is no different with us in conversion optimization. Pete Koomen , co-founder of Optimizely , summed it up well: Pete Koomen: “The advantage of testing on the client side is speed and simplicity. Client-side tools let marketers run tests accurately without the help of developers. We nerd out on testing tools.

HTML 58

HTML Flash Mobile Web 58

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

I wasnt sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decidedto ask the founders of the startups wed funded. So I sent all the founders an email asking what surprised them aboutstarting a startup. Be Careful with Cofounders This was the surprise mentioned by the most founders. What hadnt Iwritten about yet?

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Technical Cofounder Startup Cofounder Founder 110

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 23, 2019

It is no different with us in conversion optimization. Pete Koomen , co-founder of Optimizely , summed it up well: Pete Koomen: “The advantage of testing on the client side is speed and simplicity. Client-side tools let marketers run tests accurately without the help of developers. We nerd out on testing tools.

HTML 50

HTML Flash Mobile Web 50

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.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Software By Rob

AUGUST 18, 2010

This change that took all of five minutes to make, led to an 8x increase in paid conversions. Amazingly, this resulted in a 10x increase in paid conversions for the month. conversion rate to paid accounts initially and can convert 2% of the people that stick around for a year. Look at that again. That’s not 8%. That’s 800%.

Software Review 78

Software Review Software Revenue Cofounder 78

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Venture Chronicles

JULY 27, 2010

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Vincent Carbone, the COO and co-Founder of Brightidea. Brightidea calls this “innovation management&# … whatever we agree to call it we intuitively recognize that it is a process that every service and product company engages in.

Cofounder 42

Cofounder Demand Community Operations 42

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. The conversation almost always turns to questions about where to find virtual assistants and how a startup can use one. After your product launch. Point #1: Developing a Proof of Concept. Introduction.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was “how do I find my co-founders?&# And therein lies the problem in finding co-founders for that startup you’re dying to launch. Having trouble meeting folks you think would be good co-founders?

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

He summarized that conversation well, so rather than re-tread that material, Ill quote it here: One thing that I was surprised to learn was that IMVU started out with continuous deployment. They were deploying to production with every commit before they had an automated build server or extensive automated test coverage in place.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? September 8, 2009 6:25 PM dbsaid. September 9, 2009 5:56 AM Dr. Bobsaid.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Since we were only paying per click, it didnt cost us anything to cast a wide net. We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. And then we would use that simple analytics system I mentioned to monitor the conversion rates of customers from each campaign.

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