Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown, and the key to success is building an integrated team that includes product development in the feedback loop with customers. 2008 09 06 Eric Ries Haas Columbia Customer Development Engineering View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" If the CEO wants to completely change the product in order to serve a new customer segment, you need someone in the room who can digest the needs of the new (proposed) business, and lay out the costs of each possible approach.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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 8, 2008

It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. I cant really imagine how much it cost our "grownup" counterparts at other dot-com startups to get their first app up and running. Looking back, that was a special moment.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

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.

Los Angeles 276

Los Angeles Stealth Securities and Exchange Commission Southern California 276

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. For readers concerned about the chasm, I recommend reading Seth Godin's thoughts on "Being remarkable" and finding a unique edge/twist for your products and marketing (edgecraft). we dont talk enough about how it feels.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Up and Running

MARCH 1, 2016

See Also: Got “Founder Fit”? So, if I were going to invent something, I’d probably start by creating an affordable jeweler’s workbench, not least because I’d be able to test it, and because I already know all the distribution channels I’d need to hit in order to sell it. He calls this “the secret of the market.”.

Non-disclosure Agreement 60

Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Non-Compete Naming 60

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. LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. That''s changing, slowly.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

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.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 3, 2012

Incorporated in 1998 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the company’s network of over 100,000 globally distributed servers provides an infrastructure layer that accelerates the distribution and delivery of content, media and applications. Even more tragically, the company's founder, Danny Lewin, was killed on one of the 9/11 airplanes.

Distribution 49

Distribution Lean Massachusetts Cofounder 49

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

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

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He is also struggling with the pricing structure, because until he can get to volume printing, the cost per unit is way too high. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. Bokér/1 Next David Sarna with Hendon, Stamford Hill & Co.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He is also struggling with the pricing structure, because until he can get to volume printing, the cost per unit is way too high. Raymond has built a nice business through efficient distribution deals and will do about $250,000 in revenue this year. Bokér/1 Next David Sarna with Hendon, Stamford Hill & Co.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Our tests suite takes nine minutes to run (distributed across 30-40 machines). Ship more infrequently While this may decrease downtime (things break and you roll back), the cost on development time from work and rework will be large, and mistakes will continue to slip through. On commit automatically run all tests. We made it.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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

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

AUGUST 1, 2009

Which comes to the second major principle: halt work that leads to more waste, even if it means abandoning sunk costs. For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) This is a version of the andon cord technique from lean manufacturing. Great post Eric.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. link] And - of course - going through [link] and reading up on the various different approaches different companies have (successfully) taken towards getting scalability at reasonably low cost. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We ran ad campaigns against every single product we could think of in an adjacent market space to ours. 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.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

David Teten

JULY 30, 2013

I met some time ago with Brad Wisler, co-Founder of SproutBox , and shared with him our research on portfolio value creation by venture capitalists. SproutBox might accurately be placed in the Mentor category or Portfolio Operator category, but our primary value is very specifically in hands-on product development.

Portfolio 114

Portfolio Indiana Cofounder Operations 114

David Teten

JULY 30, 2013

I met some time ago with Brad Wisler, co-Founder of SproutBox , and shared with him our research on portfolio value creation by venture capitalists. SproutBox might accurately be placed in the Mentor category or Portfolio Operator category, but our primary value is very specifically in hands-on product development.

Portfolio 114

Portfolio Indiana Cofounder Operations 114

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

This has two major drawbacks: the central directory can become a single point of failure, and there is a performance cost for having to consult the directory ever time you want to access data anywhere in the cluster. This is great for something like a huge DHT or a distributed work queue. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

In the last five years, there’s been this sort of acknowledgment of the consumerization of the enterprise, which is consumer product development, design methods applied to business software, of which SaaS and cloud and all these things are examples. I can switch to SaaS for less than the cost of the maintenance on the old software.”

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

We walked them through what we thought would be the major application of our product. We backed into prices from all sorts of angles, estimating the time-cost of equivalent functionality, competitive offerings, other tools we were potentially displacing -- but in the end, we lobbed a few numbers at them and waited to see if they flinched.

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 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. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. [.] We will not lose on their products -- after all, most of them are global.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

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. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production. The result is a profound democratization of the digital means of production.

San Francisco 122

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? They are many more examples.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

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. A "senior" PHP gal for around 55-62.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

YoungUpstarts

MAY 13, 2016

by Jeffery Kang, CEO and founder, IngDan. Yet, entrepreneurs in the US – who are drivers of this change – are subjected to exorbitant cost models of production, creating a lag in innovation. It’s an election year. Analysts forecast that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016.

Artificial Inteligence 100

Artificial Inteligence China Incubator Startup 100

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. tells you how much adwords cost. free, distributed source code control management system. Great for visualizing work of product development.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53