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

The Next Web

MAY 13, 2018

Whoever coined the mantra ‘The customer is always right’ has never tried to undertake development tasks for clients with grandiose ideas, but zero technical background. Nowadays, every company might be a software company, but not everyone knows how to effectively manage software development projects.

Product Development 167

Product Development Developer Software Developers Software Development 167

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2017

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Customer support chasm.

Customer 191

Customer Entrepreneur Technical Review Dilution 191

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2022

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Customer support chasm.

Technical Review 375

Technical Review Startup Dilution Early Stage 375

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Bringing Marketing and Product Development Together written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I visit with author and product and marketing executive Jill Soley. Why it’s important to start customer segmentation early on in your process.

Product Development 40

Product Development Developer Product Marketing 40

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

I asked Tsutsumi-san to write a guest post for my blog to describe his experience with Customer Development in Japan. But customers didn’t agree. This made me believe deeply in the extreme importance of talking to customers before investing time and money, something I took to my next startup. The first meeting with Steve.

Japan 292

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

YoungUpstarts

JULY 14, 2013

The challenge, however, is this: How can we design our products, advertisements and experiences such that they push the right sensory buttons in our consumers? Enter “ Customer Sense: How the 5 Senses Influence Buying Behavior “ by University of Michigan professor Aradhna Krishna.

Technical Review 159

Technical Review Customer Michigan Framework 159

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

Silicon Valley’s conventional model is to integrate local experienced engineering, product development, and marketing people for the big push. The distributed model draws on a diverse pool, helps manage costs, and captures regional insights and focus necessary to win local customers.

Global 345

Global Silicon Valley Marketing Indonesia 345

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ The old paradigm works like this: Your company produces goods and services that help customers get a job done. In return, the customers pay you money.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

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. Its a key lean startup concept.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Intellectual Property 341

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 341

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. Talented product developers. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. Are you ready to grow your company? That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

YoungUpstarts

MAY 21, 2020

It not only validates your idea, but it helps to identify features, options and adjustments to your idea received from advice from third parties, including potential customers, that you may not have initially considered. Some features may not be important to the user, so this is where feedback from beta customers is important.

Product 264

Product Cofounder Audience Product Development 264

Small Business Force

DECEMBER 12, 2013

That they could accurately predict or (in Jobs' case) dictate customer needs. But while they might not be able to predict needs or requirements, they do have a way to, at least, get a feeling for or anticipate customer needs. From the customer themselves! Just frank, open discussion about current and future products.

Development Team Review 36

Development Team Review Product Development Developer Customer 36

View from Seed

JUNE 13, 2016

The point isn’t “to organize a product team better.” ” The point is to focus on the customer better. All of the products and services that we create are ultimately connected with the customer. And the only way to figure out what’s right is to constantly talk to and involve customers.

Product 120

Product Customer Agile Cofounder 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2021

For entrepreneurs, effective networking is required to find investors, partners, and customers. Product development. For a great idea person, the product details keep changing for the better, but nothing ever gets finished. Customer retention. Here are a few: Business networking. Investor negotiations.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Startup Software Review Retention 333

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

But ops & customer support is another 17-20% of revenue and arguably you couldn’t run the business if you took that away. Sales and marketing has been 30%+ basically forever, though undoubtedly Airbnb has enough brand recognition and loyal customers that if you turned off marketing spend then revenue would drop but not to zero.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

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 261

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Angel Groups Social Media 261

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Offer free solutions to bring in more customers. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base. Social causes are great, but your ability to sustain your value contribution is directly linked to your ability to find paying customers.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

This is why I like to include customers in product development and testing. I also like to be close with customer service finding out how the product is working and what problems the customers have. This helps build a great product but it’s not the best product that wins. Try a lot of things.

Portugal 119

Portugal Entrepreneur Internet Advertising 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 Thoughts on scientific product development I enjoyed reading a post today from Laserlike (Mike Speiser), on Scientific product development. Keep split-testing, but keep this iron rule: if it doesnt change customer behavior, its not a feature. Now that is fun.

Product Development 68

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ Harnessing the power of references and referrals seems like an obvious win. What could make more sense than to leverage the enthusiasm of happy customers to convince buyers that they need your products and services?

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 6, 2024

From a diverse workforce to huge investments in training and development, these giants have evolved as favourites among customers only because of long-term decision-making and setting clear goals and objectives to be achieved within a specific period. Strategic operations management in the electronic industry is not easy.

Operations 135

Operations Management Software Review Technical Review 135

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social proof is defined as “looking for others to guide our decisions&# and is also one of the most important techniques in acquiring customers in your company. Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore.

Customer 294

Customer Marketing Technical Review Iowa 294

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

In the last decade, SaaS (Software as a Service) has become a very popular model for new software product development. The largest cost component of establishing a SaaS company is product development costs. This includes the design, development, launch, and enhancement of the SaaS application. .

Cost 158

Cost Developer Azure Cloud 158

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

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

The most common mistake startups make is assuming they can operate the same way big companies do, and expect success with little to no feedback from potential customers. A corporation like Starbucks could pick locations by throwing a dart at a map and know they’ll at least break even with a new location and mediocre customer service.

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 7, 2006

All that being said, I am mystified because I wonder what level of customer feedback the company solicited in rolling out its new service. Deitch said Facebook’s feedback from users comes in the form of emails to its customer-service email address, which the company’s product-development team reviews weekly.

Product Development 60

Product Development Developer Product Development Team Review 60

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

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 404

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Groups Social Media 404

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

Offer free solutions to bring in more customers. Don’t get caught in the myth that you shouldn’t worry about monetization until after you have a large customer base. Social causes are great, but your ability to sustain your value contribution is directly linked to your ability to find paying customers.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2019

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm. Customer support chasm.

Technical Review 255

Technical Review Dilution Early Stage Product Development 255

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Customer 420

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 420