article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 30, 2008 What does a startup CTO actually do? Often times, it seems like people are thinking its synonymous with "that guy who gets paid to sit in the corner and think technical deep thoughts" or "that guy who gets to swoop in a rearrange my project at the last minute on a whim."

CTO 168
article thumbnail

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

If you havent seen it, Pascals recent presentation on continuous deployment is a must-see; slides are here. Yet there’s a lot of mystery around pivots, and entrepreneurs ask all the time how you know it’s time to commit to a new direction. kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Fear is the mind-killer

Startup Lessons Learned

I spent some time with his company before the conference and discussed ways to get started with continuous deployment , including my experience introducing it at IMVU. Moreover, approaching the problem from the direction that I had intuitively is a recipe for never reaching a point where continuous deployment is feasible.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Beware the new hire who has "extensive experience" in startups or big companies - using a different growth driver. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and Ive written about their pain in The product managers lament and The engineering managers lament. The last thing you need is a manager telling you how to do your job. Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) By the time the entrepreneurial bug hit me, the dot-com boom was in its waning days. So much for timing. But I managed a few "good learning experiences" before throwing myself full-bore into IMVU.

article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

You can also download our presentation, " Just-In-Time Scalability: Agile Methods to Support Massive Growth." Labels: agile , continuous deployment 1 comments: timothyfitz said. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?