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.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Paul Graham wrote this just the other day : I didnt consciously realize how much speakers at more public events censored themselves till I was able to compare the same people speaking off the record at YC dinners and on the record at Startup School. I think everyone who’s been around these events long enough knows this to be true.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

Most of these events are free, but they do require that you RSVP. Three premier early-stage venture investors have joined forces to sponsor the event: Baseline , Floodgate , and First Round Capital. Thanks again to all of our amazing sponsors, volunteers and staff who are working very hard to make this event a reality.

San Francisco 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. In fact, in most situations its a bad idea for startups to synchronize these events. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Help you raise money.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

The Message Sitting around a conference room table brainstorming messages that might resonate with customers, or worse having a PR agency doing that for you, is a firing offense in a small company. You should be brainstorming messages with current and potential customers. Is the company hosting/co-sponsoring some event?

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 203

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

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. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

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. What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

One of the things I found most valuable from participating in the Founder Institute was a lesson about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. People told me it was impossible to have our product launch featured on one of the top tech blogs without spending $3,000 on some fancy PR agency. Pursue your passions: Start with the why.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

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. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

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. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

When you read stories of successful startups in the popular and business press, you usually hear about how the founders anticipated several of these challenges in their initial vision. What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. (For and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. By only releasing vanity metrics , companies co-opt the press into helping them mislead others. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.) Vanity metrics are generally bigger. The solution?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2011

If you're in town Saturday night, you'll want to stop by Ignite: Lean Startup , a community-run event that features a number of new voices in the Lean Startup community. There are only a few tickets left for this event as well. Product management and customer development, KISSmetrics. Co-founder, Backblaze.

Czech Republic 114

Czech Republic Costa Rica Brazil Romania 114

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

The most blunt instrument is to simply reach out and contact your customers on a regular basis. For example, IMVU runs frequent promotional campaigns that offer discounts, special events, and other goodies to its customers. You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. We can capitalize on new customers. As with many Silicon Valley failures, a flawless PR launch turned into a flawed customer acquisition strategy. I know of at least five former employees that went on to become startup founders.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Is a market a set of paying customers?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Poplytics – online surveys and analytics AskYourTargetMarket – market research surveys SurveyMonkey - granddaddy of on-line surveys Amazon Mechanical Turk – you can set up a question and get answers PickFu – A/B testing $5 for 50 opinions Collaboration Dropbox – store, sync, and, share files online.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much. Have you personally visited the Content Creator forums and read through the PR thread?

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158