Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. I was the junior guy on a project team; I was called in to do some technical due diligence for reasons that were obscure to me, because the team already had much more senior engineers assigned to it. As a technical fix, it was brilliant.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. but rest assured they would be.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Of the techniques he mentioned, I think four are fundamental and critical for any lean startup: TDD (or the even more politely named TATFT ) Continuous integration Automate your deployments Collect statistics The tools to help you do these things are getting better and better every day, but dont confuse tools with process.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. Similar results apply in product management, design, testing, and even operations. Normally I focus on the techniques you need to reduce batch size, like continuous integration.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

And a special thanks is due to all of our presenters, panelists, and mentors. Although many of the non-technical folks in the room didnt understand what was happening in the moment, plenty of hackers were on high alert. If thats true, its primarily due to your hard work, building companies and testing new ideas. We all owe you.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. Safely because it is clear that the manager in question didnt do his homework. Leave a comment or reply to someone else.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. Recent economic events, technological change, and the rapid diffusion of information about the old models have combined to help us all realize just how important entrepreneurship is - and just how little we really know about it.

Lean 146

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

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?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and whats changed since then) My recent article on technical debt and its positive uses generated a fair bit of controversy. You can follow some of that debate here and here ; I continue to believe that this idea is correct.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Continuous deployment and continuous learning At long last, some of the actual implementers of the advanced systems we built at IMVU for rapid deployment and rapid response are starting to write about it. Code reviews and pairing Great practices.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? So launches become an emergent property of the system.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Id like to talk about a technique Ive used to help manage this growth without slowing down. Playing with new technologies. Managers in this area have to take a portfolio approach, promoting ideas that work and might make good candidates for further investment. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Im also excited to share two long-form reviews from actual attendees. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. You can learn more about that by reading The engineering managers lament.) Technically you argue it goes back 30 years when StorageTek was founded.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

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.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 16, 2009 Continuous deployment with downloads One of my goals in writing posts about topics like continuous deployment is the hope that people will take those ideas and apply them to new situations - and then share what they learn with the rest of us. Thanks for the comments.

Continuous Deployment 68

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

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.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

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. May 14, 2009 5:23 AM David said.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. What started as a technical problem actually turned out to be a human and process problem. We didnt even practice TDD across our whole team.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

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. Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. The last thing you need is a manager telling you how to do your job.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

The person running the meeting does not have to be a manager or executive. That’s because Five Whys will often pierce the illusion of separate departments and discover the human problems that lurk beneath the surface of supposedly technical problems. This should make it easy to get buy-in from other managers or executives.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration. I do this as a core part of the Product Management process I use at all startups. Refreshing to finally see lean and agile thinking emerge in product/business-floors and not only in technology. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

For those who hunger for a rigorous approach to managing product development, Donald Reinertsens book is epic. Reinertsen weaves together ideas from lean manufacturing, maneuver warfare, queuing theory, and even the architecture of computer operating systems and the Internet. That is what we started with on the Internet 30 years ago.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Yes, you may be more familiar with the term open source, but lets give credit where credit is due , at least for today). Ignore the famous people who are busy giving lots of speeches about how technology X will change the world. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Try it, you just might like it.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Due to an interaction effect between your hardware, solar flares, and quantum flux, this virus will crash your computer and erase your hard drive sometime soon. Managing these situations is hard for any company, but potentially lethal for a startup. Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 5, 2009 The curse of prevention Beware!

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# Especially in teams that are managing by objectives (or OKRs), the pressure to deliver is intense. Good managers work hard to create an environment where this courage thrives. The latter is actually more dangerous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

From a technical point of view, its amazing. All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. The reviews are all over the map. But even clicking through to see a screenshot and some reviews is incredibly time consuming, given the hundreds of apps in most categories.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

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. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. We can skip the chasm. Fail faster.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Part of this is due to their determination to overtake us, but part is due to structural changes in the nature of entrepreneurship. The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

But it also seems like it could severely limit your long-term options: Once youve actually managed to make it through the first couple years and build up a customer base, you now have to invest thousands of man-hours into aggressively refactoring, and replace reams of PHP code with code thats secure, maintainable, and reliable. Nice article.

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 11, 2009 The cardinal sin of community management Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. Nothing worked, until we finally had one of our community managers start talking to real customers on the phone.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158