Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product. This is the magic of sales: by learning about each customer in-depth, they can convince each of them that this product would solve serious problems. They are closing orders.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

For example, I quickly learned that when I twittered about the event, more often than not I would make a sale. And of course, if I twitter about the workshop on a Friday afternoon, I won’t know if that had any impact until Monday – unless I want to be a pain and bother someone on their weekend. Great post and great ideas.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Now its time to start to think seriously about how to find a repeatable and scalable sales process, how to position and market the product, and how to build a product development team that can turn an early product into a Whole Product. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Although customers didnt flock to this offering at first, we had enough of a developer program active to start recruiting early adopters to start creating 3D objects for sale in our catalog. That engine of creativity has led to a catalog of something like 2 million virtual goods authored by a hundred thousand developers.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

This makes lean supply chains more robust in the face of the unexpected: if sales suddenly dry up, they are stuck with less unsold inventory and simultaneously have less debt to service. Are the engineers in the customer development team allowed to push quick and dirty "prototypes" to production? One last thought.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do some Customer Development instead. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Of course, the real thanks should go to a startup - Gogo Inflight Internet - that I was lucky enough to meet at a recent workshop. I started my last company with 100% off-shore resources because I could never have completed Customer Development at a reasonable cost of money or regulatory burden had I employed US Citizens.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

This is usually exacerbated by zealous sales persons who oversell the features, or even more typical, promise completely new features. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Amazon PostRank

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Also, our stuff was pretty much useless to our customers if it wasnt full featured AND reliable. Of course, the sales folks had new features as their #1 priority. We ended up rethinking our entire product development process, top to bottom, start to finish. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Is that a lot? Is that good? Amazon PostRank

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

You do get the beneift of total control of your content, so you can guarantee your customers a quality experience. However, virtual goods is a hits-driven business, which means you must constantly figure out what kind of content your customers want. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Amazon PostRank

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

A few of the detailed case studies include: Tech legend Bill Gross building an MVP in 1999 to test demand for online car sales, which grew into CarsDirect.com. KISSmetrics building and empowering cross-functional teams to attack problems in their sales funnels via hypothesis testing. The result: a new idea I called The Lean Startup.

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Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. Third, SlideShare started holding sales calls with large companies to learn what would prompt them to buy the enterprise version.

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San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

This can take the form of a traditional sales pipeline or a registration-activation-revenue chart. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

But instead of spending the time and money to develop products on spec, TPGTEX creates mocked-up webpages that list the features of a potential new product -- such as a system for making radio-frequency identification, or RFID, labels -- along with its price. The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Without a basis for comparison, you first have to drive home the need, then you will have an easy time making the sale (after all, youre the person who they trust to bring it to their attention). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo (and a call for he.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

This is especially useful in situations, like most B2B businesses, where the total number of customers is likely to be small. This case study illustrates one company’s attempt to do customer development by testing their vision with customers before writing a single line of code. Oh, this is just a Photoshop file?

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San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

I wrote about this challenge for iPhone developers, in an essay on retention competition : the battle over what icon the user will click when they go to the home screen. At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

It took hundreds of years for newspapers to learn to behave as worthy holders of this public trust and cover the news without fear or favour, and create a firewall between news and views and the ad-sales side of the operation. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much.

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