Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

In the meantime, I think we have a good explanation for what all those PR dollars are being spent trying to obscure. Labels: product development 2comments: Anonymoussaid. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Dont fall for it - its a trap. Great post!

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It helps companies with PR. It makes successful founders famous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Do some Customer Development instead. Founders push for it. Help you raise money.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Others are new voices in putting Lean Startup techniques to use and have great case studies to share. And Red Room founder/CEO Ivory Madison on popular metrics that everyone should stop using. And Sincerely’s Matt Brezina on the secrets of developing mobile apps quickly.

Lean 159

Lean San Francisco Houston Engineer 159

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

As the channel gets more and more crowded, just launching an app in the store is getting worse and worse as a strategy for each new entrant. This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. My advice: dont launch big.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I liked the flattering Venture Hacks commentary so much Ill just quote it: Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. The customer is known, the product is known, and all we have to do is act. What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Good, in-depth look at the economics of food trucks – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

When you read stories of successful startups in the popular and business press, you usually hear about how the founders anticipated several of these challenges in their initial vision. What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. (For and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. News publications print vanity metrics because they want to give their readers information about the companies they cover. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.)

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2011

Product management and customer development, KISSmetrics. Co-founder, Backblaze. Founder, House of Mikko. Co-founder and CTO, Sharethrough. rfan622 How Listening to Customers Helped Us Raise $700K in Seed Funding Mariya Genzel. Co-founder and CTO, Saygent. Founder, BlueSpark. Founder, Tout.

Czech Republic 114

Czech Republic Costa Rica Brazil Romania 114

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So you decide to try to reposition around a different value proposition, one that more closely matches what your product is best at.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. We can capitalize on new customers. As with many Silicon Valley failures, a flawless PR launch turned into a flawed customer acquisition strategy. I know of at least five former employees that went on to become startup founders.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

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. Is a market a set of paying customers?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

As a founder of a company, there is nothing more painful than to see your most loyal and devoted customers suffering. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much. Have you personally visited the Content Creator forums and read through the PR thread?

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158