Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 25, 2011

It’s been just over a year since the inaugural Startup Lessons Learned conference , and it’s time to do it again. The Lean Startup movement has made tremendous progress in the past year. Kent Beck himself helped us explain that “quality work” means something different when we’re facing the extreme uncertainty of a startup.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 5, 2009 It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet Some people, when they start to realize the power of using data to inform their decisions, become obsessed with optimization. Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. But this is wrong, too.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 17, 2009 Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free Im honored to announce that my Lean Startup session at the Web 2.0 Everyone else can register to come to both sessions for free, including the Lean Startup talk in the main conference. What does this mean for you?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Most of the time, the experiments you run will have a zero percent conversion rate - meaning no customers were harmed during the making of this experiment. It was one of those brilliant startup brainstorms that comes to the team in a flash, with a giant thunderclap. Measure conversion rates. Ive linked to your article from mine.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. As an entrepreneur, I often saw the best practices of general management fail startups. Without further ado.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 3, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up Last week I had a real blast meeting with the companies at the fbFund incubator at Palo Alto. The Lean Startup fbFund Edition View more documents from Eric Ries. We tend to equate startup success with making money, but that is a poor choice.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 29, 2010 New conference website, speakers, agenda The Startup Lessons Learned Conference on April 23 is fast approaching. Traveling the past year, I have heard loud and clear that its time for the Lean Startup movement to enter its next phase. Earlybird Admission pricing ends in just two days.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. They are on-schedule and on-budget, but their gross metrics are way off.

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Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Thats not the goal of a lean startup. It increases the runway without additional cash.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I have personally sold many copies of his book, and continue to recommend it as one of the most important books a startup founder can read. It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff. I think theyve succeeded. The Entrepreneur’s Guide is an easy read.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem) Lean startups don’t optimize. At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. That’s right.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

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Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Jim Murphy is a long-time agile practitioner in startups. But startups sometimes have trouble applying agile successfully. Embedded in that assumption is why startups fail. Notice that the unit of progress changes as we move from waterfall to agile to the lean startup. Hes often felt that there was something missing.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Expo Intensive rocked, the mainstream media has started writing about the Lean Startup, and - most of all - the movement continues to grow and evolve. First of all, the Startup Lessons Learned conference exceeded my wildest expectations. He inspired me to take a deeper look at what we all thought we understood about startups.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I joined a financial services tech startup in 1999. You can click here to learn more.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

And then we would use that simple analytics system I mentioned to monitor the conversion rates of customers from each campaign. Its now a technique I recommend for any web-based startup. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Fundamentally, lean startups do more with less, because they systematically find and eliminate waste that slows down value creation. I want to talk specifics, and when you come right down to it, most technology startups dont have a very interesting cost structure. As a mentor of mine always says, "Startups dont starve, they drown."

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Ill exclude those non- lean startups who basically exist for the purpose of raising bigger and bigger sums of money. If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 8, 2009 What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups? Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. And what hurdles could be eliminated?

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Just like with startups, this is a hybrid question. Is that a lot?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Its an essential discipline of good software development, especially in startups. Nonetheless, I want to talk about a dysfunction Ive seen in several startups: they are literally refactoring themselves to death. I thought we were having a successful conversation. Back to my conversation with the company I met recently.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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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. In a startup, we should take full advantage of our options, even if they feel dirty or riddled with technical debt. Startups are always moving, so invest in moving faster and better.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Whats new is that we have learned to apply those principles in new contexts, like the extreme uncertainty that is the soil in which startups grow. Are there examples of using Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) productively in the customer discovery phase of a startup? So, in that spirit: thanks, Mitch.

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Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, December 6, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part three Those startups that manage to build a product people want have to deal with the consequences of that success. And still being a startup means continuing to innovate as well as keep the lights on. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, March 11, 2010 For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? for Harvard Business Review) In the latest article for my series in HBR, I discuss the problem of how to figure out how much process startups should have. When done right, it can help startups accelerate even as they scale.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, March 6, 2010 Startup Visa update As I write this, I am traveling at 30,000 feet on Virgin Americas excellent IAD->SFO nonstop, following an intense few days of conversations in Washington, DC about the Startup Visa. Our trip was bipartisan, bicameral, and bi-branches-of-government.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 2, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, April 2, 2010 Interviews Robert Scoble came by my office to learn about the Lean Startup and the Startup Lessons Learned Conference on April 23. By all accounts, the conversation was a success. Show, in which we discuss Lean Startups and the upcoming Lean Startup Intensive at the Web 2.0

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 149

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 28, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, March 28, 2010 Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Thanks to the generosity of sponsors, Im pleased to be able to announce two scholarship programs for upcoming lean startup events. Now the company is growing, profitable, and proving that lean startups can scale.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 13, 2010 The Superbowl ad test I am a firm believer in the danger of vanity metrics , numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask the true relationship between cause and effect. Vanity metrics are generally bigger. Vanity metrics. The solution? Is that really news?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

Youll need bundles, promotions, category and segment managers, and algorithms for upsell, cross-sell, and conversion optimization. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. In other words, a marketing department.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, October 30, 2008 John Doerrs 10 lean startup tips I just saw video of John Doerrs talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn&# roundtable event. What I find remarkable about this list is how many of them apply to lean startups in good times and in bad.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Join the lean startup discussion at Facebook on Thursday I recently agreed to join Facebook s fbFund incubator as a mentor. Part of that includes giving a presentation for the fbFund companies on the lean startup methodology. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 4, 2010 Stop lying on stage Entrepreneurs crave information about successful startups, and they should. About half the interesting things I know about famous startups, I learned at YC dinners. Most of the received wisdom about business and entrepreneurship is simply wrong.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 Getting started with split-testing One of the startup founders I work with asked me a smart question recently, and I thought Id share it. Split-testing, like almost everything in a lean startup , requires judgment. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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