Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown, and the key to success is building an integrated team that includes product development in the feedback loop with customers. 2008 09 06 Eric Ries Haas Columbia Customer Development Engineering View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. If she is, return the name of the hypothesis she was exposed to before.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Ever since that time, I have struggled to explain how the feedback loop in customer development should interface with the feedback loop in product development. Eric Ries Lean Startup Schematic View Of Agile Development And Customer Development View more presentations from Eric Ries.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Naturally, we already know the standard of quality that they will use to judge our product.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

So, if youre interested in helping avoid mistakes like that, here are the steps: Get a domain name. It doesnt have to be the worlds catchiest name, just pick something reasonably descriptive. If youre concerned about sullying your eventual brand name, dont use your "really good" name, pick a code name.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

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Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I want to thank Techstars for putting this event together and giving me a chance to experience the scene, even if it lacks a name. Building on this, I’ve recently become fascinated with the notion of continuous deployment , a concept that has been popularized by Eric Ries and others. Read the rest.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. It strokes your ego.

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Leading up to a pivot, each cycle, despite our best efforts, the metrics werent good enough. Pivotal Labs doesn't carry "Pivot" in its name by accident. I'm glad there's a 'name' for this part of the process Eric. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. It was painful.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. 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.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Accept that many successful companies are going to want to be backed by big-name firms in other cities. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Then, create an encouraging environment for early-stage companies.

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San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Ironically, meetings like this had given data and experimentation a bad name inside this company. Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. True split-test experiments are easy to classify as successes or failures, because top-level metrics either move or they don’t.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Startups are the lifeblood of our economy.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. As the product got better, we could see the rate getting closer and closer to the mythical “ one percent rule.&# Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. June 8, 2009 1:16 AM Colin said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. Our goal in product development is to find the minimum feature set required to get early customers. Phases of product & company growth. This is a common mistake.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Much of what I have found effective is counter-intuitive, because it requires investing more effort in each hire - all in the name of efficiency. This is another sub-optimization caused by incentivizing the wrong metric. Particularly the Continuous Deployment and Split testing posts. The blog is fantastic as well.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

The key to successful integration of customer feedback is to make each kind of collection part of the regular company discipline of building and releasing products. Anyone who has worked in a real-world product development team can tell you how utopian that sounds. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. a is name, b is address, and c is tax percentage.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Also SJ's obsession with better taste (positively) contributes to the overall product development process. There are some good anecdotes about Chief Engineers in the Toyota Product Development Book. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Will start to pay attention. Great post Eric.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Even with only a few months of development, third parties have crammed every single category in the store full of apps. All I see is a name, an icon, a price, the developers name, and a review star-rating. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. And what distinguishes a good app?

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

Pay attention to whether people are comfortable “naming names&# in the meeting. Labels: five whys root cause analysis , product development 15comments: Anonymoussaid. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. Why didn’t our tests/QA/immune system catch and prevent the problem?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I used to think a giant flat-panel screen that broadcast our companys key metrics would be what was required to get everyone to pay attention to them. Simply put, we upload all the tasks and assign a name to each task. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. 1 comments: Josh Moore said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Since then, PHP (as part of the LAMP stack ) has really been the dominant development platform, at least in the free software and startup worlds. Some of them are probably still cursing my name, because - lets face it - PHP can be pretty painful. The IMVU downloadable client, just to name one example, is written primarily in python.

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PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Who doesnt want to see their name in print? Know what the success metrics are for the launch. gave us two years of a beta product to build up the service and the brand awareness. Now that were beginning our first marketing, the key partners we need have heard our name long enough to trust us. Founders push for it.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Imagine you want to store data about customers, each of whom has "last name" field in your database. The problem should be familiar to anyone who plays Scrabble: not all letter are equally likely to be used as the first letter of someones name. Give each entity a name. For example, consider this simple scheme.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer). Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Now, whenever I screen resumes, I ask the recruiter to black out any demographic information from the resume itself: name, age, gender, country of origin. Now, whenever I screen resumes, I ask the recruiter to black out any demographic information from the resume itself: name, age, gender, country of origin. “Who is this guy?&#

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 13, 2010 The Superbowl ad test I am a firm believer in the danger of vanity metrics , numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask the true relationship between cause and effect. Vanity metrics are generally bigger. Vanity metrics. The solution? Is that really news?

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San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

If youre a startup investor, and you support the goals of the Startup Visa proposal, wed like you lend your name to our efforts. If youre a startup investor, and you support the goals of the Startup Visa proposal, wed like you lend your name to our efforts. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on split testing SSL certificates and the effect of domain names. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. [link] Id love to hear what anybody thinks.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 132

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

The same is true of brand-name products in almost every category (and it can be measured ). Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

No, I am the troll who who stood proudly on the APC until a man who was nothing more than an egotistical and maniacal bully named Clifford Hicks proved once and for all that IMVU only cared about IMVU - and not its community. They stay around and continue to speak out vocally at every opportunity. I'm not just any troll.

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