Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

YoungUpstarts

JULY 16, 2019

Customers enjoy online shopping; their demands create enormous opportunities for eCommerce company’s growth. Have you developed any vision of a product development strategy? And keep in mind that the best option is to develop at least 5 domain names connected to your brand’s name to find an unoccupied domain.

eCommerce 113

eCommerce Software Developers Software Development Hosting 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Women Entrepreneurs Can

OCTOBER 19, 2021

While there is an element of innovation needed to be successful, you also need to keep in mind the customers that you are serving, and the experience they will endure with your software. You may also consider ensuring that you hire different people, for different parts of your software. Test, Test, Test.

Software 59

Software Software Developers Software Development Hiring 59

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Every board meeting, the metrics of success change.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Unfortunately, positioning our product as an "IM add-on" was a complete mistake.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? When we build products, we use a methodology. But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit."

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Ask every employee to focus on sales.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Customer service and support. Manage human resources.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the plus side, that means its a great deal. I think theyve succeeded.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

The evolution of the growth function changed this dynamic, mashing together product dev and marketing as integrated functions. About five years ago, we saw the early waves of growth – typically an individual or two (“growth hackers”) who were championing growth within product development.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods.

Forecast 60

Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

ConversionXL

APRIL 13, 2017

Call it whatever you like, but when businesses are hiring for any of those titles they simply want somebody who can generate lots of quality leads for as little cash as possible.”. The Growth Manager usually reports either to the CEO, the vice president of Product Management, or the vice president of Marketing. Product vs. Growth?

Analytics 99

Analytics Engineer SEO Channel 99

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They close on the $750k, hire a buddy or two, buy some Macs, and get to work. ASC starts building product, but as they get into the thick of it, the team realizes executing on their vision is going to be extremely hard. Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

ConversionXL

APRIL 17, 2019

Conversations with prospects or customers can improve practically every metric or user state model you’re aiming for. As Jen Havice noted here on the CXL blog , insights from customer interviews can: Accelerate the customer journey; Increase conversions; Drive more leads, sales, and revenue. Under “What’s Missing?,”

Customer 120

Customer Framework Conversion Search 120

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 10, 2010

Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. Internal resistance, non-standardized metrics, multiple (and confusing) platforms and lack of resources prove great obstacles to planning. Hiring The Right Candidate.

Social Media 134

Social Media Media Programming Viral 134

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. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Defective prototype code was as often thrown out (because customers didnt want it) as it was fixed (when customers did). Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 21, 2023

Hiring a corporate chauffeur is a luxury that may provide convenience, but it does not necessarily improve one’s ability to think like a CEO. Focus on the customer At the end of the day, it’s the customer that drives your business.

Leadership 137

Leadership Technology Audience Customer 137

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior. The report is set up to show you what happened to customers who registered in that period (a so-called cohort analysis ). This report is set up to tell you about new customers specifically. One last note on reporting.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Agile 99

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 99

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

The chicken-egg issue of getting customers to your platform while you don’t have any money to spare is a puzzle that many companies are unable to figure out at all. Selling a product is a tough process, full of “no’s,” whether they come on the phone with a prospect or as a low conversion rate on your landing page.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 141

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 141

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ▼ June (3) What is a startup?

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2013

But that’s not to say that every established company developing personal grooming products is operating risk-free. What if your company is concerned that emerging customer pressure and local laws will make disposable razors difficult, if not impossible, to sell in the U.S. Will you be able to think up alternative products?

Lean 165

Lean Technical Review Startup Software Review 165

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 3, 2013

Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. In addition to fresh products, you need people smarter than you for real help, with the right combination of skills, experience, and passion to foster and manage new growth.

Mezzanine 240

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 240

ConversionXL

AUGUST 24, 2021

Marketers can be involved in product development to ensure the product aligns with the customers’ needs, in communicating price points, in finding the best angles to keep customers coming back, and so on. But a marketing manager needs to go beyond knowing the demographics profile of the target customer.

Management 141

Management Marketing Campaign Social Media 141