Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. For more on continuous deployment, see Just-in-time Scalability.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Traveling the past year, I have heard loud and clear that its time for the Lean Startup movement to enter its next phase. I believe it means were achieving product/market fit for a set of ideas. Doesnt the communication overhead of a large team lead to chaos of overlapping experiments and continuously-deployed bugs?" "If

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

When we build products, we use a methodology. We know some products succeed and others fail, but the reasons are complex and the unpredictable. a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit." The theory of Product/Market Fit is one key component of customer development, and I highly recommend Marcs essay on that topic.

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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. Safely because it is clear that the manager in question didnt do his homework.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months. What’s going on?

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www.subelsky.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Mike Subelskys Blog Wednesday, November 11, 2009 Lean startup tools for Rails apps A few months ago I was invited to dinner with the Geeks on a Plane crew when they stopped in Washington, and had the opportunity to meet one of my heroes, Eric Ries , author of the Startup Lessons Learned blog. Email This BlogThis!

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. As Lean Startup methods have been used now for a number of years, we’ve become increasingly interested in how companies use them to sustain growth. Next Tuesday, October 22 at 10a PT, we’ll take a look at this advanced entrepreneurship question.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, May 1, 2009 Lean Startup webcast post-game Wow, what an incredible turnout for webcast this morning, right on the heels of a phenomenal crowd at startup2startup last night. Its been a great twelve hours for the lean startup! wogsland : Still not understanding the "lean" aspect. What a thrill.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Having had a number of years to try and answer this question at cocktail parties and social gatherings of all kinds, I thought Id try and expand on his framework a little, and then try and use these answers to help make suggestions for those who are trying to get people to buy virtual goods.

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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. And does our product really solve the problem weve promised them?

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I’ve lived through the over-architecture failure – where attempting to prevent all kinds of problems wound up delaying the company from putting out any product at all. In this framework, we’ll tend to either invest in the proposed prevention or do nothing. There are just so many ways for a startup to fail.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

One of the most common questions I get about the lean startup methodology is, "but what about Steve Jobs ?" He doesnt put out crappy, buggy products and then ask for feedback. So how do you reconcile his success with the lean startup, which seems to suggest the opposite?" And he doesnt shy away from big-bang launch events.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Product launch) In todays world, there is no reason you have to do these two things at the same time. Establish credibility with potential partners.

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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. The most common need is becoming more customer-centric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

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 "just fix it" mentality is counter-productive here. This is one of the bedrock practices of any lean startup , and so its a common piece of advice I give out.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

If you read Lean Thinking , you can enjoy numerous examples of companies that replaced multi-million dollar MRP systems with a simple white board. The lean manufacturing guys call this visual control and its very powerful. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. for Harvard Business Revie.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Engagement loops: beyond viral Theres a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. And what causes them to choose one product over another?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

When we started IMVU in 2004, we could rely on a staggering amount of open source software that jumpstarted our initial product offering. Add onto that the incredible amounts of infrastructure code that we reused, and we were able to bring our product to market months earlier. and Rails as a web framework. I certainly dont.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

(a guide for hackers) (This post was inspired by a conversation with Nivi from Venture Hacks , but is otherwise not his fault) There has been a proliferation of frameworks and metaphors lately that are designed to help startups avoid the all-too-common fatal mistake of failing to find a market. Is a market a set of paying customers?

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Split-testing, like almost everything in a lean startup , requires judgment. Each experiment is like a little mystery, and if you can get into a mindset of open-mindedness about the answer, the answers will continually surprise and amaze you. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Its an art, not a science.

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