Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on. Kent is a significant figure in the field of software development. To his credit are Extreme Programming , jUnit, patterns, TDD , the list goes on.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 19, 2017

Among many other strategies employed by e-retailers, improving the customer experience seems to carry a significant weight in increasing revenues. Here are some of the practical and creative ways to improve your customer’s online experience: 1. Engage your customers. This can be useful in email marketing. Reward loyalty.

Software Review 133

Software Review Technical Review Retention Channel 133

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

They failed due to: the dearth of deals in the region that have IPO potential and. Today it’s dominated by capital efficient software, web and mobile startups whereas 10 years ago it was dominated by semiconductor and hardware startups that consumed huge amounts of capital before their first dollar in revenue. Lessons Learned.

Early Stage 290

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 290

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

Lastly, sending a thank-you note via email or making an occasional follow-up phone call can go a long way in showing gratitude, which is essential in the business world. Reach out to your loyal customers and offer incentives for them to write reviews and rank services. Introduce New Merchandise As It Becomes Available.

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

If engineers want more time to spend making their old code more pretty, they are invited to do so on the weekends. The idea is that once we move to the new system (or coding standard, or API, or.) The current code is spaghetti, but the new code will be elegant. Its become "legacy code" and part of the problem.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? I dont think so.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

When I went through their financials as part of my due diligence I realized that if they ditched their low margin disk drive products, it wouldn’t take much to make them a profitable company. They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 161

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. My Dad uses email – he still doesn’t understand the ‘forward’ button.&#.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Even more so than pricing, reviews and location proximity. These don’t require coding skills—they’re usually visual templates that are easy to use but don’t allow for great customization (that would require technical skills). Custom development. Branding was the biggest driver of clicks on given search results.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Each specialist takes up his part of the spec (UI, middleware, backend) and cranks out code. They exchange countless emails, and hes being constantly interrupted and being asked to clarify exactly what the spec means. The fourth spec exists only in these emails, which are changing the design in an ad-hoc fashion.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

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. The same might be said of good software. Here we have the beginnings of a theory of design for software.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

For both origination and due diligence, a host of companies aspire to be the “Bloomberg of private companies”, including CB Insights , Crunchbase , DataFox , FuelUp , fundsUP , Mattermark , Qodeo , Quid , Tracxn , Unomy.com , and Zirra. 5) Due diligence. 4) Manage deal flow. She is a model for us all! .

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. For software, the easiest batch to see is code.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

His most recent company, Filtrbox, participated in the inaugural Techstars class (Techstars Boulder 2007) and was a win for all parties involved; Filtrbox was acquired in 2010 by Jive Software (NASDAQ: JIVE). For the first the months, the team meets often and strategizes on what they want to build while some code gets written.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. When a developer wants to check-in code, this is a very scary moment.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective. They take things like unit testing, design documents and code reviews more seriously than any other company Ive even heard about. What is customer development? Dates are irrelevant.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 29, 2012

Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas and building a minimal viable product. Several of them came from other cities that don't have their own weekend code-a-thons. Several teams also sent around surveys to the group email list to start doing some basic market research.

St. Louis 135

St. Louis Kansas City Norway Kansas 135

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

The importance of the customer feedback cycle & the role it plays for AWeber. How to get your software business to the point where you can hire a business development director. Hunter shares some extremely valuable insights that will prove useful in building beneficial relationships and getting highly qualified customers.

Developer 104

Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

But there is more to technical debt than just the interest payments that come due. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. In particular, try these three things: Invest in technical debts that may never come due.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Are These Your Slides?

Silicon Valley 248

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 248

www.ashmaurya.com

AUGUST 29, 2012

Robert has been working in software since 2005. You can learn more about his approach to developing customer relationships in his new book Cold Calling Early Customers. There are many channels that can produce your first early customers and contacts, but the one I see most often is cold email. He is a Ph.D.

Email 52

Email Customer Tennessee Software Review 52

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Your natural tendency when an investor says yes will be to relax and go back to writing code. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Alas, you cant; you have to keep looking for more investors, if only to get this one to act. Want to learn more about me? Try About the author.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

ConversionXL

JULY 1, 2014

You send out email launch campaign to highly targeted list of 30 000 people and only 30 people sign up? From our experience, the best way to get your customers to take action and fill out the survey is to offer some kind of an reward. It can be a gift card, coupon code, free shipping etc. The Email Template We Use.

Customer 76

Customer Design Software Review Lead Generation 76

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Since no benchmarks existed, we enlisted our engineering department in a serious software development effort and wrote our own. And we made sure that instead of some artificial numbers, the benchmarks truly measured performance on these four key applications our customers told us were important.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 126

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

And a special thanks is due to all of our presenters, panelists, and mentors. When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Kent Beck is deservedly famous for his many contributions in the software industry. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 233

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 233

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

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. And like feedback on a simple microphone sound system, this would occasionally boil over into screeching.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. If you use software like LivePlan, you can create this initial “lean plan” in under an hour and then spend your time where it really matters—on validating your idea.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

When I first met the team in San Diego they had only been working on their software for 5 months. Assistly is a customer support product designed to meet the needs of the current era of multi-channel touch points (think Twitter, email, chat, forum in addition to phone calls). version of their product was.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

And the odds in your favor are even higher, as most of your peers wouldn’t even get into the game due to some unspoken belief that in a meritocracy, good things will come to those who wait. OK, done.) “Steve, I would really appreciate it if you could review my business plan and forward it to Mike Maples at Maples Investments.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Message Match] Project Management Software. Do This: Use customer development techniques found in this post to build a profile of your ideal buyer personas. image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

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. Id also welcome nominations over email , if you have someone you think is a good fit for the event.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

See Paul Grahams Why Nerds are Unpopular to learn more) Take a look at this article on a programming Q&A site: How old are you, and how old were you when you started coding? We also learned that law is code , and that leadership was needed to build thriving communities in a digital age. Can I send you a review copy?

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

ConvertKit’s strategy is geared around building email marketing tools for independent creators, allowing their customers to build and nurture their own audience. Advocates are more likely to agree to an interview due to positive sentiment. What about churned customers? Many email experts might say this email is too long.

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. The product or website (be it software, e-commerce, or a service) might be awesome , but if it puts itself in front of the wrong market, or packages itself so the right market can’t figure out why it’s awesome, the startup will fail.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60