Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I was constantly coming up with arguments to save it: that we couldnt be sure that the feature wouldnt be useful later, that maybe some customers liked it even though most didnt, that it wasnt consistent with our company values to become a proprietary IM network. But code written that doesnt help the company succeed is a sunk cost.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

This was 2004, and we had never even heard of MySpace, let alone had any understanding of social networking. It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

From my side, i network with many startups all the time, and i am constantly trying to persuade them to adopt the new age mindset, but its often no easy task. Im also in this for the long term and realise they may need to fail a few times before the message really hits home. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 115

Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment 115

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Spray files across cheap disks on your network. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. Pay less for storage.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

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." The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you?

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. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Continuous Deployment 113

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When we became a standalone network, it didnt matter how easy it was to add new networks, since we never did. Worse of all, the plaintext codes we were used to sending were considered non-authoritative, since they could be pulled off a third-party network. It had a pretty good technical design.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. All the usual ideas are good ones: I support inviting more women to speak at conferences , the creation of women-centric networking events like Women 2.0 There’s a lot more we can do than just these ideas.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) The customer understands experience, and social networks, since they make pervasive p2p economically viable, accentuate customers' ability to mirror each other and articulate customer experience.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

And in some markets its decisive, because of well-known network effects (as happened with Microsoft, eBay, and many others). But if your product category doesnt have strong network effects, word of mouth alone is not usually enough to fend off a competitor who also has a quality product. So what model will prevail on the iPhone?

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. Engineers in the very small world of silicon and semiconductors would meet at the Wagon Wheel and swap technical problems and solutions with co-workers and competitors. It's the "Pay-It-Forward" culture.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Finland IP Networking 141

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

For example, I’ve talked often about our belief that an instant messaging add-on product would allow IMVU to take advantage of a network effects strategy. When we became a standalone network, it didn't matter how easy it was to add new networks, since we never did. This happened quite often in the early days of IMVU.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

I recently went to a networking event for one of the seed funds that invested in PandoDaily, and I’ve never seen such worry on the faces of the entrepreneurs. “Founders don’t think their problems are due to trends. And in fact, overall trends are a second-order effect for founders.” Sarah Lacy.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 24, 2020

When co-founders Hannu Rajaniemi and Nikolai Eroshenko realized their work was applicable to a coronavirus vaccine, too, they changed direction immediately. I grew up in Finland. And then co-founded Helix Nano Technologies, or HelixNano, which I am now the CEO of. HelixNano was founded to develop cancer vaccines.

Founder 60

Founder Technical Review Leadership Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

The IT and networking "big boys" rule and any start up apps are summarily squashed on the premise that they may upset the status quo re: IT infrastructure. The US is headed to be a second rate or third rate power if policy isn't changed to permit new and ground breaking applications to operate in large networks.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. This trend is so strong, this is actually a question I recommend to screen potential investors: "How do you know its time to launch the company?" Thats how to "launch".

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Pick a similar product that they do use, and ask them "who was the first person you know who started using [social networking, mobile phones, plasma TV, instant messaging.]? For companies in the early-adopter phase, you can play "the earlyvangelist game" whenever a customer turns out to be too mainstream for your product.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Processes that, in the Industrial Age, were tightly scripted, with predictable outcomes, must in the Networked World, become adaptable, contextual, and focus on getting measurable (often surprising!) results rather than specific scripted outcomes. Thanks for the post, Eric. Very well-thought-through.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 19, 2014

Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark are close runners up, leaving the rest of the world trailing sadly behind. As reported by entrepreneurship.org , even when women have the skills needed to run ‘high-impact ventures, the lack of strong networks can dwarf their growth.’ Make the WOW Pledge.

Iceland 138

Iceland Burundi San Diego Rwanda 138

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

The site is now a sad footnote in the history of Social Networking Services. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. How did they do it? By listening to their users.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

My responsibility at the time I joined the company was to develop a product that is to be deployed on a social network (hint hint, FB). ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

I’ve previously documented that early-on in IMVU’s life, we made the mistake of building an IM add-on product instead of a standalone network. 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.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Excepting for cosmically co-incidental success stories, the fuzzy requirement stuff never congeals as a holistic engineering exercise. I also have to include this caveat: we werent purely a software company - we built telecom network devices, hw and sw. Software Eng. here who spent a couple years in Eng.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

These individuals, possessing talent, experience or real-world networks, will continue to function as ‘virtual gatekeepers’ in the next-generation media industry. Though technology tools and Web 2.0 ideas (e.g. Second, mass-marketing will continue to play an important role in creating awareness of products and services.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

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 4, 2009

This is true of most web application servers, caches like memcached, and all of the network infrastructure that connects them. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

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

JUNE 23, 2009

fbFund REV featuring Eric Ries The Lean Startup Host: fbFund Type: Education - Lecture Network: Global Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009 Time: 1:30pm - 3:30pm Location: fbFund REV Garage Street: 164 Hamilton City/Town: Palo Alto, CA RSVP Here So, if you are in the Bay Area and want to swing by Palo Alto on Thursday afternoon, come join the conversation.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. For network-effects businesses, like Skype , just being on the network is enough to create value. These are companies that generate revenue by offering a free product with an upsell or premium version.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

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. As a result, CPI advertising is incredibly cheap.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

For example, if any of the mobile ad networks gets major traction, they may become a dominant way that people discover new apps. If the rating in the App Store is based on usage, I am sure those popular social networking applications are sure to be in the top and the hot seat always. The observation sounds strange.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Could we have built the first college-based social network five years before Facebook ? 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. Maybe, but the thought never even entered our minds.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Facebook , LinkedIn , and other successful social networks have elevated this technique to a high art. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Organic notifications.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

I hope people will use this to recruit and share jobs/candidates in their own networks, letting retweets etc. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. carry the word out wider.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68