Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

When I was going through the co-founder “dating” process, I’d found a potential partner through my network who seemed to be perfect. I knew that there were issues with my potential partner, but I also knew that the company would grow at a slower pace if I had to start the co-founder search from back at square one.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Unfortunately, positioning our product as an "IM add-on" was a complete mistake.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Small Business Force

AUGUST 31, 2013

Picking a partner or co-founder isn't like finding a new friend. So, how do you avoid finding yourself in a similar situation somewhere down the road between you and your partner/co-founder? Picking the right partner or co-founder for your business can portend whether that business succeeds or not.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Partner Technical Review Founder 40

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Alternative Capital. “

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. Hold the phone far away from your ears.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

However, you could still build an Instagram-like product inexpensively, in the $100,000 to $300,000 range over a three-to-six-month period,” says Werdelin. Founder Kevin Systrom launched Instagram with 25,000 beta users on October 6, 2010; two years later, the app continues to see massive growth, recently reporting 150 million active users.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods.

Forecast 60

Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Here’s why that is important: when users are on your website you want to convert them to become paying customers. It’s true that the carrier then gets their huge slice for being the billing and payment engine but the idea is that you as a website more than make up for this in terms of customer conversion. 13mm in Series B.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

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 Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2014

In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival. With the new rapid prototyping tools, products can be physically built for analysis, rather than just conceptualized. Network with potential cofounders and strategic partners.

Entrepreneur 246

Entrepreneur Detroit California Cofounder 246

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Unfortunately, customers hated that initial product.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

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. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 26, 2012

Today's roundtable was co-hosted with the Jacksonville Startup Weekend. MJ Charmani, founder of iStart Jax, a business accelerator, and one of the key organizers of the event, introduced today's session with additional reports on last weekend's event. Direct selling simply is not the right solution for bringing this product to market.

Jacksonville 114

Jacksonville Florida PPC Programming 114

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Of course, its possible that after the product is shipped and customer feedback is solicited, the next product design might be different. Yet a huge class of modern software projects are being developed in a very different context. Let me quote an example that I used recently: Remember IMVUs initial IM add-on product?

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. He has a good team, and theyve shipped a working product to many customers.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Say you're not creating a product but doing a service? Im currently working on doing video tutorials for technophobes, and while i understand the value of customer feedback, would charging from day one still apply? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 115

Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment 115

Up and Running

MAY 12, 2015

Drawing on advice from our own Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software and Josh Cochrane, our VP of Product Development, I’ve broken down a few of the different options for entrepreneurs looking for feedback on their pitch. The three who agreed to do it had some semblance of a relationship with the founders beforehand.

Angel Investor 60

Angel Investor Software Review Technical Cofounder Due Diligence 60

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

The graphic below balances the risks cofounders take with their relative contributions to help answer this question. This covers one of the most common situations I encounter: For a pre-funding web startup whose team includes only a non-technical cofounder, how much equity should an incoming technical cofounder get?

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

I went to excellent public schools (so-called science magnets) that had computer classes, which meant they had networked computers that I could use. If we network them together, theyll answer each others questions and collaborate on projects we can hardly imagine. But I was also very lucky. Theyll take it from there.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Im going to be speaking on June 3rd at an event sponsored by the Technology Entrepreneurs Exchange (TeXchange), "the premier networking organization in Texas for business executives and entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas and share experiences." It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0,

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And they expose the startups to a vast network of mentors, none of whom get paid for their involvement. And do your customer development. These quotes are, as is my custom, straight from twitter. When they could hear the customers complaints in their own voice, it became clear when it was time to up the quality level.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

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

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)?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

When you have an infinitesimal number of customers, it can be embarrassing. But as long as your ego can take it, there are huge advantages to having a small number of customers. Most importantly, you can get to know those few customers in a way that people with zillions of customers cant. can I talk to them?" So why you?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

If we accept the verdict of customers instead of pundits, I think these claims are easy to dismiss. One is used by engineers to refer to the process of getting code fully integrated into production. Another is used by marketing to refer to what customers see. Just you, your code, and your customers.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

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: So how many of those 20,000 people are paying customers? Edwin: Okay, I have different types of customers.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Tracking such revenue can be a challenge but is possible to approximate the revenue impact of PR activities via the use of unique URLs, customer surveys, etc. Any function within your startup that involves iterative learning, passion and/or close proximity to your customers should not be outsourced. Networking (20). Sales (12).

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

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. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand. High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

This model has not translated well to the world of social networking, because customers of social networks engage sites in a different way than customers of search engines. Social network page views are much more likely to be internally focused; ads are more of a distraction.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Transformify

APRIL 12, 2020

Hence, customer support representatives, account managers and all other remote workers who are required to work on a predefined schedule are likely to be classified as ‘’employees’’ Attending regular team calls, participating in training programs, etc. ’’ Round-tripping.

Bangladesh 98

Bangladesh Philippines Salary Cofounder 98

Up and Running

JUNE 17, 2015

Where to start your search: Look to your own network first. with the simple reply of, “By networking!” We all know networking builds connections, but for new entrepreneurs, it can be hard to start. Focus on expanding your network, and making connections with others in a variety of industries whom you can learn from.

Incubator 60

Incubator LLC Networking Kansas City 60

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. In this model, your free users trade their time for the benefit of your paying customers. Free trial.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Some startups avoid getting customer feedback for precisely this reason: they are afraid that if early reactions are negative, theyll be "forced" to abandon their vision. One such practice is to pivot from one vision to the next.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167