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Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Startup Lessons Learned

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. Do you fix bugs before writing code? Please leave feedback!)

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Should You Co-Found Your Company With a Software Development Shop (2 of 2)?

David Teten

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? 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. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. Our model at Casual Corp.

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Startup Tools

steveblank.com

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

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Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

Each specialist takes up his part of the spec (UI, middleware, backend) and cranks out code. So the product manager winds up actually having to use the software, by hand, updating the spec and helping create a new test plan. In exchange, the team agrees to show each piece of working code to the product manager for his approval.

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Startup Resources

www.vccafe.com

VC Cafe highlights everything you need to know from hosting your code in hackathons to open source legal docs. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. s the new way to code, and quite easy to learn. You can write back end code in javascript, one language conquers all! Code Igniter. code spaces (svn).

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Embrace technical debt

Startup Lessons Learned

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.

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Episode 3: Smart Bear Live!

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

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