Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

You get increasing growth by optimizing the viral loop , and you get revenue as a side-effect, assuming you have even the most anemic monetization scheme baked into your product. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

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. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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. (See

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. This kind of result is typical when you ship a redesign of some part of your product. The new design improved on the old one in several ways, but these improvements didnt translate all the way through the funnel.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. But I don’t think so. By doing the job.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence. Your "startup-lessons-learned" are very valuable. Would love to get in touch.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Long gone from Zilog I saw the picture of the original Macintosh design team.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

It’s common, perhaps the norm, for startups to pivot like that—to discover that a product is catching on in unintended ways worth pursuing. Yet there’s a lot of mystery around pivots, and entrepreneurs ask all the time how you know it’s time to commit to a new direction. Which is a nice story.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

In the very early days, the trick is to find anyone at all who can understand you when you are talking about your product. In our first year at IMVU, we thought we were building a 3D avatar chat product. As product people, we thought of competition in terms of features. that we learned different.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. These tests are written by the engineers themselves, and they must all pass every time.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

firstround.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Today, he’s the co-founder and CTO of Artillery , bringing console-quality gaming to the web browser. First Round Capital. The Review. The Review.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. You cant do science and be defensive at the same time. So dont just kill the feature - iterate.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

So one of the first things we did was to hire an Oracle expert and get to work. You can turn your entire application infrastructure investment into a pay-as-you-go variable cost, and bring new products to market at speeds an order of magnitude faster than just 10 years ago. 1 comments: flixsterwidgettest said. yeah, its awesome.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

SVPG

MARCH 5, 2011

If you take a look at the list of open product positions at the end of my recent newsletter, you’ll notice a record number of VP/Director of Product positions. In part this reflects the growth we are experiencing in our industry. Great product leaders are highly valued and often go on to found their own companies.

Product 82

Product CTO Hire Hiring Leadership 82

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

A growing startup with a well-run product team will have a history of steady progress. For readers concerned about the chasm, I recommend reading Seth Godin's thoughts on "Being remarkable" and finding a unique edge/twist for your products and marketing (edgecraft). How do you plan for it?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Usability testing is great for coming up with ideas about what to change in your product, but dont forget to split-test those ideas to make sure they work, too. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I see startups struggle with this all the time. You have customers, they are using your product, and you are trying to help them. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Life is so easy in the days before the "launch" - you just focus on building and polishing those new features.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

You can find out what it would take for them to adopt your product, and then follow up a week later and see if they did. Same with finding out what it would take to get them to recommend your product to a friend. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? You can even meet the friend.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. If we believe in founders enough, we should believe in their potential more than what they could be paying us to build the product.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

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. And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Just change it.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Noah has been a key figure in the making of LivePlan, our own SaaS product. A description of the problem you’re solving for your customers, and your solution to the problem, which is usually your product or service. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

They were deploying to production with every commit before they had an automated build server or extensive automated test coverage in place. Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model.

Continuous Deployment 131

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 131

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. But six months in, you’re gonna cry when you see someone else put out that same product you’re pitching me right now. Like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

As Steve writes in the Four Steps to the Epiphany , we always seek to find a market for the product as currently specified , not conduct a focus group to tell us what the spec should be. It gave the whole company license to go heads-down building product as fast as possible during the development cycle, acting as a solution team should.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? In a mature company with a mature product, the goal is to pay for lots of people to come to your website. chatted five times?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Many of them have really cool products shipping or about to be released, and I wholeheartedly agree with my friends at the iFund that the next generation of applications is going to be amazing. The store determines which products sit on which shelves, and which yours sits next to. Ive also been playing around with the App Store.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Most engineers are terrible visual designers, but if the designer on their team is struggling, maybe they can help out with an icon or two. And wait until you see a "non-technical" designer writing simple code to try and speed up a release. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco SCRUM Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Q&A with an actual reader The lean startup comes to Stanford You don't need as many tools as you think The three drivers of growth for your business mode. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Open Source 107

Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? But making decisions on the basis of myths is dangerous territory. How did we combat this tendency? I dont pretend that we did it well. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 68