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Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? 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." And what about if deployment takes forever?

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Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

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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Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

Startup Lessons Learned

That data is completely consonant with the people I know who are successful technologists today, and similar patterns are documented in each recent wave of technology innovation. There would be no Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, or countless other job-creating tech companies today if early computers required corporate authorization to use.

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Marching through quicksand

Startup Lessons Learned

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. But the same technologies that make life difficult for traditional marketers also offer them unprecedented new opportunities.

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Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Startup Lessons Learned

Build a world-class technology platform, with patent-pending algorithms and the ability to scale to millions of simultaneous users. As far as I know, there are no products that are immune from the technology life cycle adoption curve. Ship it when its done, not a moment before. Insist on high levels of usability, UI design, and polish.

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The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)

Startup Lessons Learned

Part of this is due to their determination to overtake us, but part is due to structural changes in the nature of entrepreneurship. Luckily for the rest of us, he was able to find his path to a green card, and now employs 24 Americans in West Lafayette, Indiana. But today, it is getting harder and harder to maintain.