Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. The Business Model Generation was co-created by 470 Business Model Canvas practitioners from 45 countries.

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Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

Ryan Hoover is the co-creator of Product Hunt and EIR at Tradecraft. Even its founders couldn’t quite describe it, let alone foresee what it would become. For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building.

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types. He would go on to be a co-founder of two mechanical engineering software companies.) I chose to hire engineers from within each of our target markets and set up “Steve’s one month MBA course for engineers.” At the time this was a pretty controversial decision.

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Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition).

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Founder Dialogues : Eric Paley plays talk show host on this recurring fireside chat style event that has featured Boston’s BEST founders. OnStartups: One of the largest online startup communities founded by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah. Boston Hardware Startup Meetup – Meetup organized by the founders of BOLT.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

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. More on that in a moment. And yet, their investors are frustrated.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. 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. See Validated learning about customers for more info. See you next time.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Rich Karlgaard , publisher of Forbes and co-founder of the Churchill Club refereed the event. BTW, the definition of entrepreneurship I describe at 2:50 into the video is described in detail in the post “ You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur.&#. Filed under: Customer Development.

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Silicon Valley United States Cofounder Customer Development 196

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. It never happened in any time frame I can remember, and it definitely won’t happen today.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media LLC 260

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. All I have to say it WOW!

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

We don’t delineate between seed or pre-seed rounds, but as that definition has come into vogue, it’s clear that we are quite active as both “pre-seed investors” and “institutional seed investors.”. Regardless of check size, the reality is that the earlier a company is in its lifecycle, the more time we tend to spend with founders.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndication 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Additionally, he is the co-founder of ConnectYard , a social analytics platform for e-learning platforms. We did do a lot of … customer discovery.

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Cofounder DC Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on. Some companies and founders refuse to serve existing customers, and are always lurching from one great idea to the next.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. Really enjoyed your speech, but Boulder's startup community is definitely older than 5 years. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Provide early seed capital, and be the ones to make those introductions.

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San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

When I reread the plan several years ago for amusement, it motivated me to go dig up plans for other successful companies that I was a co-founder of or early investor in, including NetGenesis and Harmonix. I went on to create a company, with my partner Dave Jilk, that bore very little resemblance to that business plan.

Business Plan 193

Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Michael Ingle , founder of Clean Sleep mattress sanitizing service. Graeme Gordon , founder of Sneak Guard , creator of safe responsible storage containers.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Fort Worth America Silicon Valley 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. Coincidentally, NewContext —the presenter of this year’s Lean Startup Conference-- announced today that these designers, all of them founders of Proof , have joined their company.

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Lean New York City Cofounder New York 160

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. who is the customer? Most important slide: about the founders In a pitch meeting, try to spend as much time as possible talking about the key questions for your pitch.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Ash Maurya is the founder of WiredReach , a bootstrapped startup that he has been running for seven years. Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Read on to find out. Things started to slip.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

It definitely can be useful to judiciously take on small amounts of debt. For more examples, see the "-ilities" section here: [link] Design is definitely dynamic, and definitely benefits from feedback, so I'm also in favor of shipping early and often. That said, I agree with a lot of your more detailed points.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Rich Karlgaard , publisher of Forbes and co-founder of the Churchill Club refereed the event. BTW, the definition of entrepreneurship I describe at 2:50 into the video is described in detail in the post “ You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur.&# Instead of a brawl it turned out to be collegial, entertaining and informative.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley RSS United States Entrepreneur 161

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For now, Id like to ask a favor.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

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. How many employees would a medium-sized business have in your definition? Some people have different definitions of that.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 20, 2010

As a good student of startup theory, especially modern theories of customer development, this time I was methodical and purposeful. A year after leaving Smart Bear, having talked with dozens of startup founders about their marketing woes, I realized 100% of them needed the marketing-measurement engine I built at Smart Bear.

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Startup Campaign Turkey Customer Development 239

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Continuous deployment is another such technique, one with a unique power to change development team dynamics for the better. First, continuous deployment separates out two different definitions of the terms “release.&# Another is used by marketing to refer to what customers see. Why does it work?

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Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

We were excited by the response at last year’s Lean Startup Conference to Diane Tavenner’s eye-opening talk on her experience implementing Lean Startup methods at Summit Public Schools, the California charter for which she is CEO and co-founder. Join them on November 21 at 9a PT, along with conference co-host Sarah Milstein.

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Lean New York City Startup San Francisco 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? By reducing the decisions we have to make to a series of quantitative questions, we can avoid a lot of real-life messiness.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

But as a bootstrapper, you (by definition) have little-to-no money other than what you personally put into the business. What tends to give are what you really need to be focusing on most at the start of your business: customer development, customer outreach, marketing, copy, and design. You’ve raised.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

Guest Post by Jennifer Maerz, Contributing Editor of Lean Startup Co., Our customer-first, rapid trials-rapid discovery ethos is adaptable to all varieties of mission driven, enterprise, and startup companies around the world. The customer development theory was an eye opener and gave us the final push to launch this venture.

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Kenya Lean Community Africa 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

So let’s begin with a definition of a startup that captures its essential nature, and tries to leave behind the specific associations of the most famous startups. Isn’t the word human redundant in this definition? And yet the newness of a startup’s product or service is also a key part of the definition.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders.

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San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

My co-hosts were Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley , hosts of the well-known Startup Success Podcast. Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. How cofounders can collaborate without going crazy.

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Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. How cofounders can collaborate without going crazy. Each one starts from a different place and a different definition of that. Melissa: OK.

Widget 204

Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Anything that doesnt contribute to figuring out what customers want is waste, even if its a cool feature. I think where we get into trouble is we have many definitions of quality. Excepting for cosmically co-incidental success stories, the fuzzy requirement stuff never congeals as a holistic engineering exercise.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

We don’t delineate between seed or pre-seed rounds, but as that definition has come into vogue, it’s clear that we are quite active as both “pre-seed investors” and “institutional seed investors.”. In my prior post, I talked about the rise of the pre-seed and a more nuanced definition of a pre-seed based on milestones, not financing labels.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndication 28

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So let’s turn our attention from what may happen in the future to what is definitely happening in the present. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Here are a few of my observations from the trenches: Personal brands are displacing organizations brands.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113