Up and Running

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

If you don’t understand your key financial metrics, you have no way of monitoring your business’s health—and you risk mingling assets, incurring penalties for filing taxes late, overlooking expenses, and running into difficulties paying bills and employees, just to mention a few! Each article will give you: A brief definition of the metric.

Metrics 60

Metrics Burn Rate .Net Churn Rate 60

Women Entrepreneurs Can

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Among these, sales, marketing, customer service, and product development take center stage. However, the significance of often-overlooked tasks like managed accounts receivable cannot be underestimated. This accessibility and convenience strengthen customer relationships by offering a seamless payment experience.

Software Review 40

Software Review Metrics Analytics Software 40

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 11, 2015

by Jeff Sauro, author of “ Customer Analytics For Dummies “. In a global economy that’s becoming more competitive each year, every customer (and customer’s opinion) counts. Every customer interaction counts. Certainly, every dollar spent on keeping customers happy and coming back counts.

Analytics 100

Analytics Customer Acquisition Metrics 100

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. It has to be found and managed.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant.

San Jose 256

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

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. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

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

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. Such direct experiences allows one to test critical “leap-of-faith” assumptions about what customers like and dislike.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. This engineering manager is a smart guy, and very experienced.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, October 5, 2008 The product managers lament Life is not easy when youre working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. Frustration is mounting.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2021

Most business managers preach that the key to success is holding employees accountable for actions, but I have found that successful entrepreneurs are all about holding themselves accountable. Usually these people think they are doing a great job, and are totally oblivious to their unhappy customers or cash drain.

Leadership 410

Leadership Employee Metrics Restful 410

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 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

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

As part of a startup business, you’ll know that there is no greater desire to win your first customer or your tenth customer. You’ll do whatever it takes to call a customer your own. It’s a neat analogy: Like customers, pets get stolen, escape, or get lost. See Also: How Should You Handle Unhappy Customers?

Customer 60

Customer Retention Startup Metrics 60

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

ConversionXL

AUGUST 24, 2021

it’s no surprise that people are looking at how to become a marketing manager. In this article, you’ll learn what you can expect in the role, how you can demonstrate your worthiness to become a marketing manager (at your current place or in greener pastures), and how to present your case for a promotion. Others get creative.

Management 141

Management Marketing Campaign Social Media 141

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

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. Rob Bailey is the CEO of DataSift. You should read it. It is really working.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

by Lu Zhang, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund. On the other hand, if you arrive at a VC pitch without a comprehensive understanding of the industry you’re hoping to compete in, or without a clear path to profitability or a thoughtful product-development road map, you’ll likely leave empty-handed.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

Switch your focus from product development to sales. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Here are key maxims that I believe indicate a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset: A need to learn from customers, rather than educate them. Successful entrepreneurs start with a customer problem, and develop a solution, rather than the other way around. Develop market insights and a growth vision far beyond today.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Metrics Hosting Leadership 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. But I’m not convinced those labels are right at all. Are we solving the right problem?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely: Manage your financials and physical assets. Product development process. Manage human resources. Customer service and support.

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

JANUARY 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, January 7, 2010 Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? My explicit goal in working with HBR is to foster a dialog between entrepreneurs and more traditional general managers. Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? - Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Without further ado.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2016

Building a minimum viable product, with customer validation. Minimum viable products (MVPs) are recommended for validating the market, with iterative enhancement to quickly meet market feedback. Building your public image and presence should start even before product development, through your website, logo, and blogging.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 120

Version One Ventures

APRIL 11, 2019

When we interview managers, one of our standard questions is “How do you think about code quality?” Value to customers. Above all, the purpose of product development is to create value for customers. Therefore one of the most important ways to evaluate code is whether it provides value to customers.

Part-Time VPE 100

Part-Time VPE Software Review Engineer Technical Review 100

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

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

ConversionXL

APRIL 13, 2017

Jonathan Price wrote on the same Quora thread that he believes growth marketing to differ from regular marketing because it “is technology-centric and it blurs the boundary between marketing and product development.” Product vs. Growth? But what about between growth and product? What is NOT Growth Marketing?

Analytics 99

Analytics Engineer SEO Channel 99

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Once you have assembled the right core team, I recommend prioritizing as follows: First, meet with your portfolio company management. 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.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

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. Switch your attention from product development to sales. Managing business growth is more than metrics.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Yet, in recent years technology startups have embraced a new role, Growth Manager — alternatively Growth Hacker, Growth PM, or Head of Growth — that focuses on it exclusively. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

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