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Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

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Culture Isn’t Everything: 3 (Other) Traits Vital To Your Business’s Success

YoungUpstarts

The best way to get your company laser-focused on the bottom line, though, is to have a clear, actionable metric for your entire company and ensure everyone and everything works in alignment with it. Set aside time to review metrics, evaluate clientele, or whittle down precise goals for the future. Want to double your sales?

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Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

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. Lets start with what the product manager does.

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Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management

Startup Lessons Learned

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.

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Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? (for Harvard Business.

Startup Lessons Learned

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.

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Lessons Learned: The engineering manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

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.

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Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

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.