Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. The best entrepreneurs manage cash flow ruthlessly and never delegate decisions about spending money. Things will cost more than you expect.

Burn Rate 223

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 223

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. It has to be found and managed.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Have you developed any vision of a product development strategy? And keep in mind that the best option is to develop at least 5 domain names connected to your brand’s name to find an unoccupied domain. Decide on what actually you need to have a more detailed vision on how much it will cost you.

eCommerce 113

eCommerce Software Developers Software Development Hosting 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. The best entrepreneurs manage cashflow ruthlessly and never delegate decisions about spending money. Things will cost more than you expect.

Burn Rate 262

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Entrepreneur Salary 262

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. Customer development (the understanding of customer needs) must be married to agile development (a process which drives waste out of product development).

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

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. This engineering manager is a smart guy, and very experienced.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Tech IPO prices exploded and subsequent trading prices rose to dizzying heights as the stock prices became disconnected from the traditional metrics of revenue and profits. Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios. The result? Carpe Diem – Seize the Cash.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. The best entrepreneurs manage cash flow ruthlessly and never delegate decisions about spending money. Things will cost more than you expect.

Burn Rate 120

Burn Rate Hockey Stick Startup Salary 120

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

But for founders who do their homework, the cost of entry is lower and the opportunity is higher than ever. Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. Years ago, it cost a million dollars for a new e-commerce site, one that you can now create for almost nothing with current tools and technology.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Once you have assembled the right core team, I recommend prioritizing as follows: First, meet with your portfolio company management. Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

by Lu Zhang, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund. On the other hand, if you arrive at a VC pitch without a comprehensive understanding of the industry you’re hoping to compete in, or without a clear path to profitability or a thoughtful product-development road map, you’ll likely leave empty-handed.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 11, 2015

Once upon a time, your company may have been able to shake it off if you threw a marketing idea against the wall and found it didn’t stick, or developed a line of products customers didn’t seem to like. Develop products customers want. That’s not true anymore. The bottom line?

Analytics 100

Analytics Customer Acquisition Metrics 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

Define success metrics, and measure progress regularly. Initially, you may be able to do everything in your startup, including product development, marketing, and shipping orders. Everyone on the team, including yourself, will be more confident and productive if they see things happening on a predictable schedule.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Agile Social Media Metrics 308

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. You can view previous essays in this series here: Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods.

Forecast 60

Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody. Being a manager didnt sound fun - deep down, who really wants to be held accountable for other peoples actions? So I wound up learning the discipline of managing other people.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

YoungUpstarts

JULY 7, 2017

To put a finer point on it, we have found that when you adhere to the following three demand-based priorities companies can drive growth while saving 20% or more of total costs – costs that are often completely overlooked through traditional cost-savings mechanisms. Complexity in the system explodes, as do costs.

Green 133

Green Demand Dividend Metrics 133

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Convertible debt financings have become an increasingly attractive approach for seed rounds because it delays the valuation discussion, costs less from a legal standpoint, and is an easier financial instrument to “keep raising more small amounts of money” on. No updates, screen comps, or metrics have been publicly shared yet.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

I strongly believe that the first few hires of a startup should belong to the growth department, whether they’re marketers, community managers, or salespeople (selling your product is the best way to learn how to improve it). 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

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. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. They are closing orders.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. If you are contracting or outsourcing, this is even more important.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Board meeting gets scheduled Nobody thinks too much about it until a week or two before Management team has a last-minute scramble to pull materials together Management is super focused on its daily work of … winning customers, signing biz dev, shipping product … so this prep is a last minute “fire drill” and is seen as a slight distraction.

Stock Options 226

Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. There are financial metrics (Return on Investment, Hurdle Rate, etc.) Lessons Learned.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Up and Running

MARCH 17, 2022

The operational plan covers the details of marketing campaigns, short-term product development, and more immediate goals and projects that will happen within the next year. What metrics matter and how will you track them? What marketing campaigns will you run and what will they cost? How will you measure success?

Business Plan 145

Business Plan Operations Lean Forecast 145

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 6, 2011

Lisa Marino of RockYou , a leading developer of social games and advertising solutions for social media, is focused on building a great team with more gaming DNA to improve the quality of the games it publishes: Make RockYou the place talent wants to be. 2011 culture growth HR new years resolutions product management'

Stealth 60

Stealth Startup Lean Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. Although it costs to pay down the principal, we gain by reduced interest payments in the future. One last thought.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

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.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

An “At the Beach” option now provides that pause button at a negligible cost, which has not only stopped churn, but put it into reverse gear, all while reducing customer hassle! We don’t have any traditional metrics in our customer support team. See Also: 15 Tips for Dealing with a Client Who Won’t Pay.

Customer 60

Customer Retention Startup Metrics 60

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. Please leave feedback!) Do you fix bugs before writing code?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

By the end of his workshop, you will know how to apply innovation accounting to truly track the progress of your product. Patrick Sheridan will lead a workshop on bringing mobile development to established companies , especially for execs and team leaders. If there’s a problem in production, developers need to own it.

Continuous Deployment 162

Continuous Deployment Norway Lean Analytics 162

ctotodevelopers.blogspot.com

JULY 11, 2012

I cover several topics including agile software development, software startups, web 2.0, social networking, SaaS, content management, media, enterprise 2.0 The x-axis depicts technical complexity, risk, and cost which are all related. decide on success metrics, measure, and then decide if additional investment is warranted.

Agile 40

Agile Architecture Offshore Software Developers 40