Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

When you look through the list , you’ll see big names that we’re very pleased we landed, epic companies we really want to hear from, and people we’re particularly excited to present because they have incredible stories to share--and you won’t hear them anyplace else.

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Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

Personalised Messaging: Utilise customer data stored in Salesforce to personalize SMS messages, addressing recipients by name and tailoring content to their preferences and behaviors for a more engaging experience. Track and Analyse Performance: Gain valuable insights into SMS campaign performance by tracking metrics such as delivery rates, open (..)

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SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 120

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Your name has come up a lot in that regard. Founders that learn are more successful : Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. It was signed Max Marmer.

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Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Don’t choose metrics that are similar but not the same. Otherwise, it’s easy to turn a small discrepancy into a massive issue—one that torches year-over-year data comparisons and just about all of your quarterly (even annual) metrics. Every tool has its own methods for various metrics. Why does it happen? Image source ).

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Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Perhaps you can determine whether a product is new by asking customers to name the competition.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The importance of a domain name. For Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin, finding a good domain name was a key part of his branding strategy. If you find the domain name you want is taken, Gabriel suggests turning to a domain marketplace that sells premium domains. Pick a name for your business.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. Some caveats right off the bat. August 3, 2009 8:08 PM William Mitchell said.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. If she is, return the name of the hypothesis she was exposed to before.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

So, if youre interested in helping avoid mistakes like that, here are the steps: Get a domain name. It doesnt have to be the worlds catchiest name, just pick something reasonably descriptive. If youre concerned about sullying your eventual brand name, dont use your "really good" name, pick a code name.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

In this case the basis of competition on the X/Y axes are metrics defined by the users in the existing market. Then they filled in the market spaces with the names of the companies that are representative players in each of the adjacent markets. The competitive diagram is how develop your first hypotheses about who your customers are.

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Venture Capital Customer Development Business Model Lean 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Leading up to a pivot, each cycle, despite our best efforts, the metrics werent good enough. In a customer problem pivot, we try to solve a different problem for the same customer segment. It was painful.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

For instance, tracking ‘months-of-runway’ combined with the month-over-month change to that metric allows us to rapidly identify companies that may be distressed. Customer Development. A well-developed model is Andreessen Horowitz’s Executive Briefing Center. In-house, brand-name guru. Advantages. Disadvantages.

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Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Instead, we try to accelerate with respect to validated learning about customers. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? No one feature is to blame.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

As Im pontificating about agile, I see the name Kent Beck in my peripheral vision. Eric Names matter. By pulling in a web of associations, names help people quickly assess ideas. There is a dark side to naming. The naming question has been raised about the "lean" in Lean Startups. Eric Names matter.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

competitive analyses, channel and customer collateral (white papers, data sheets, product reviews), customer surveys, and market requirements documents. And the results weren’t the traditional PR metrics of number of articles or inches of ink. It wasn’t measured by how busy you were, it was measured by results.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

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 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. 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. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

My name is Crystal Williams, and I maintain a small business blog called Babeofbusiness.com. Reply steveblank , on September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm said: Greg, The Google Group “Lean Startup Circle&# at [link] is a wonderful repository of Customer Development/Lean Startup success and failure. Thus, these pages.

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

Ironically, meetings like this had given data and experimentation a bad name inside this company. No experiment can affect more than a specified number of customers (usually expressed as a % of total). Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. What a waste.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

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Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? It strokes your ego. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Accept that many successful companies are going to want to be backed by big-name firms in other cities. And do your customer development. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. And then we would use that simple analytics system I mentioned to monitor the conversion rates of customers from each campaign. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. Not their own name, or any other identifying information. If you can’t see the presentation click here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. Not their own name, or any other identifying information. If you can’t see the presentation click here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

” The visitor/view metric is one you should only be competing against yourself on. The ratio of viewers/visitors watching the video are dependent on a number of factors – namely: Quality of traffic coming to the page. ” metric for featured products & +28.0 This is an example of “averages lie.”

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Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In fact, we know so much that we already know what they will care enough about (namely, the product’s quality – as opposed to, say, missing features). The second misunderstanding is a concern for what will happen if things turn out exactly as we originally predicted (namely, badly). No vanity metrics should be looked at.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. Many of these companies are started by entrepreneurs, and are now household names: Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

Customer development - along with acquisition and retention – is one of the primary firm activities that drive customer value. It describes the tactics that a firm employs to create the maximum value for its existing customers over the lifetime of their relationship. But this pattern is far from universal.

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Customer Customer Development Acquisition Pennsylvania 162

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue? These two components of the business model are so important we give them their own name, Product/Market Fit. In the defense and intelligence community the metrics of success are not revenue but mission achievement.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them.

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. What did you discover from customers?

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 312

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. Your Name *.

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Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I want to thank Techstars for putting this event together and giving me a chance to experience the scene, even if it lacks a name. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Traveling to new startup hubs is one of my favorite things about being able to do this full-time.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. Luckily, we also discovered that certain other metrics, like LTV and CPA were much better than we initially projected. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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