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.

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Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

Founders seem to disproportionately come from engineering, product and sales/business unit career paths. And definitely once they’re on board fulltime, marketing and comms will be even more valuable. You’re trying to build a software product, do customer development and find PMF. Nor Do VCs.

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Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Back then, an entrepreneur used a serial product development process that proceeded step-by-step with little if any customer feedback. The goal of Build-Measure-Learn is not to build a final product to ship or even to build a prototype of a product, but to maximize learning through incremental and iterative engineering.

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Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

NYU Engineering Commencement Speech. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on your graduation from this esteemed engineering school. I saw something that they didn’t and to their credit…Berkeley’s Business School and then Stanford’s Engineering School let me write and teach a new course based on my ideas.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

By definition, before they had a chance to fully buy into the idea and the team). With hindsight we should have had “proof of concepts” tested in a corporate center (think ‘pop-up incubator’) where they would do extensive Customer Discovery. Lessons Learned.

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Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. most shared hosting companies), but they only make interesting money at large scale (by definition, because it takes over 8000 customers to make only $1m/yr in revenue), which takes a long time to grow. Think: GoDaddy).

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Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. The Lean Definition of the Three Horizons of Innovation. Lean is The Engine for the Ambidextrous Organization. Fast forward to today.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

So, definition: when I talk about a business plan I’m not talking about a 40-page Word document outlining your market approach. That died with waterfall software development. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small?

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Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

0:45: The definition of a startup. 1:46: The Differences: Accounting, Engineering & Sales. 6:07: Engineering: Waterfall Development in a Large Company vs. Minimum Viable Product in a Startup. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

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Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 327

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. They might do anything !

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I read a ton of existing literature and came up with a formal methodology for search I called Customer Development. Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development at Haas business school. For the last two decades there was no standard definition. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

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Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 286

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. I actually hoped that some students who were curious about entrepreneurship would discover that it is definitely not for them. ——————-.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

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Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. I used to always tell my development team, “you need to design a product that my dad could use.

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Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Tina is Professor of the Practice at Stanford University School of Engineering, and Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Below is a proposal for definitions and relationships for the process of bringing ideas to life, which I call the Inventure Cycle. Customer Development Teaching Technology'

Entrepreneur 335

Entrepreneur Framework Lean Customer Development 335

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

Then Ben [one of the mobile engineers on the team] suggested a concept around sticking pieces of media to friends and people in the real world. For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Objects in Our Mirror are Larger than they Appear Our first goal was to set up benchmarks to measure the performance of our own graphics boards on the real applications our customers used (Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator and PageMaker.) Then we were going to buy our competitors’ boards (think “secret shopper”) and compare them to ours.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

Silicon Valley 255

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 255

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2012

Lessons Learned: A five day Lean Launchpad Class is definitely worth doing. The Business Model Canvas + Customer Development works even in this short amount of time. However we were in NYC where customer density was high. As we’ve already found, this class needs to be taught as a joint engineering/mba class.

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Lean Business Model Customer Development New York 258

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. This reverses the standard intuition about what engineering activities add value, which usually concludes that test coverage is a form of necessary waste but a refactoring is value-added work. It definitely can be useful to judiciously take on small amounts of debt.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I read a ton of existing literature and came up with a formal methodology for search I called Customer Development. Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development at Haas business school. For the last two decades there was no standard definition. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

Lean 178

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 178

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Business Model Design meets Customer Development. Both Stanford and Berkeley have been extremely generous in letting me test these ideas in their engineering and business schools. Lean Launchpad.

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Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 250

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Our Lean LaunchPad class teaches scientists and engineers that starting a company is another research project that can be solved by an iterative process of hypotheses testing and experimentation built around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. And I am definitely enjoying it.”.

Silicon Valley 242

Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development Business Model 242

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Thank you pages” for lead forms are often generic—and, by default, set to be indexed by search engines. Before starting a comparison, make sure you understand how each tool works and the definitions for their terminology (session, visit, visitor, user, etc.). Ensure confirmation pages are set to “noindex.” get tracked the same way.

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Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Focusing on the launch date.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

That’s the definition of insanity. Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. and being continually surprised when it didn’t. Startups Are Not Small Versions of Large Companies.

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Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Continuous deployment is another such technique, one with a unique power to change development team dynamics for the better. First, continuous deployment separates out two different definitions of the terms “release.&# One is used by engineers to refer to the process of getting code fully integrated into production.

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Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. When they could hear the customers complaints in their own voice, it became clear when it was time to up the quality level. You can learn more about that by reading The engineering managers lament.) The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Continuous Deployment 113

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Raizlabs – Mobile Development. Intrepid – Mobile development. Extension Engine - Software engineering and design. Startup Institute – Practical training program to prepare you to join a startup.

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Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He argued that software engineers don’t finish what they start, and that you’re better off paying a technical person than partnering with one. He picked engineers who were technically-driven but not entrepreneurially-driven. He picked engineers who weren’t comfortable taking risks as great as he wanted to take.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. whos on the engineering team? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? how do you know anyone would want it?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128