Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

From my side, i network with many startups all the time, and i am constantly trying to persuade them to adopt the new age mindset, but its often no easy task. Im also in this for the long term and realise they may need to fail a few times before the message really hits home. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And they expose the startups to a vast network of mentors, none of whom get paid for their involvement. They dont invest a lot of money; just enough to keep them going through the summer. They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. Some of the mentors are based in Boulder, but many are not.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Im going to be speaking on June 3rd at an event sponsored by the Technology Entrepreneurs Exchange (TeXchange), "the premier networking organization in Texas for business executives and entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas and share experiences." Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When we became a standalone network, it didnt matter how easy it was to add new networks, since we never did. Worse of all, the plaintext codes we were used to sending were considered non-authoritative, since they could be pulled off a third-party network. It had a pretty good technical design.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

For example, I’ve talked often about our belief that an instant messaging add-on product would allow IMVU to take advantage of a network effects strategy. When we became a standalone network, it didn't matter how easy it was to add new networks, since we never did. This happened quite often in the early days of IMVU.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

As a consumer internet company with millions of customers, it may seem to have little relevancy for an enterprise software company with only a handful of potential customers, or a computer security company whose customers demand a rigorous audit before accepting a new release. results rather than specific scripted outcomes.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Pick a similar product that they do use, and ask them "who was the first person you know who started using [social networking, mobile phones, plasma TV, instant messaging.]? For companies in the early-adopter phase, you can play "the earlyvangelist game" whenever a customer turns out to be too mainstream for your product.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

And thanks to the radical transparency enabled by the internet, the quality of these proposals is actually constantly rising, to the point that it’s almost impossible to judge the quality of the final product – because all the proposals look polished and professional, even the terrible ones. Though technology tools and Web 2.0

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand. High-profile startup Friendster had first-mover advantage in the social networking space, but created openings for competitors when it could not scale to meet demand.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

I also have to include this caveat: we werent purely a software company - we built telecom network devices, hw and sw. Software Eng. here who spent a couple years in Eng. then five years in Product Mgt. Keeping in mind that caveat, in our world the biggest factor in total project ROI was time to market.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

This model has not translated well to the world of social networking, because customers of social networks engage sites in a different way than customers of search engines. Social network page views are much more likely to be internally focused; ads are more of a distraction. As a result, CPI advertising is incredibly cheap.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 23, 2009

fbFund REV featuring Eric Ries The Lean Startup Host: fbFund Type: Education - Lecture Network: Global Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009 Time: 1:30pm - 3:30pm Location: fbFund REV Garage Street: 164 Hamilton City/Town: Palo Alto, CA RSVP Here So, if you are in the Bay Area and want to swing by Palo Alto on Thursday afternoon, come join the conversation.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For network-effects businesses, like Skype , just being on the network is enough to create value. What differentiates this model from "free serves paid" is that the free users dont need to consciously do anything special to be valuable. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Recently, hes been engaged in a customer validation exercise around a new concept for a political action-oriented social network. Recently, hes been engaged in a customer validation exercise around a new concept for a political action-oriented social network. When that concept didnt pan out, he decided to pivot.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. For example, if any of the mobile ad networks gets major traction, they may become a dominant way that people discover new apps. The observation sounds strange.

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YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

It is also to promote the book for sure, but the idea is that while there is quite a lot of material around this topic, it is scattered all over the Internet. I say this because Finland, where I come from, is really bad at this. I see it as the single biggest issue for Finland’s competitiveness moving forward.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 2, 2010

I had two goals in mind: I wanted to be even more technical than I already was as a developer (I wanted to work on cutting edge stuff, which back then was the Internet – pre World Wide Web browsers) and I wanted to live & work in Europe. At Andersen Consulting I had built computer networks and programmed in COBOL.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

Who wants that stuff posted on the internet? I hope people will use this to recruit and share jobs/candidates in their own networks, letting retweets etc. Using it to recruit takes less than a minute. Instead, each joblink has a form that allows anyone whos interested to contact the poster. The same process works for job candidates.

San Francisco 68

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Ive spoken in some detail about a specific pivot that we went through at IMVU , when we decided to abandon the instant messaging add-on concept, and switch to a standalone instant messaging network. We went through another pivot when we switched again from instant messaging to social networking.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Id been on the internet since I was playing MUDs as a kid, but by 1999 I felt Id already missed the boat. Could we have built the first college-based social network five years before Facebook ? I pretty much missed all the trends. All the good domain names were taken, all the good ideas were being implemented.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I was constantly coming up with arguments to save it: that we couldnt be sure that the feature wouldnt be useful later, that maybe some customers liked it even though most didnt, that it wasnt consistent with our company values to become a proprietary IM network. But code written that doesnt help the company succeed is a sunk cost.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

And in some markets its decisive, because of well-known network effects (as happened with Microsoft, eBay, and many others). But if your product category doesnt have strong network effects, word of mouth alone is not usually enough to fend off a competitor who also has a quality product. So what model will prevail on the iPhone?

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

You make me think of something I've been pondering for a while but haven't been able to articulate: the realignment of company and "customer" in the age of pervasive social networks and innovation. Facebook Fans Recent & Upcoming Events 2010 I am experimenting with using Plancast to track my 2010 event schedule.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Of course, the real thanks should go to a startup - Gogo Inflight Internet - that I was lucky enough to meet at a recent workshop. The IT and networking "big boys" rule and any start up apps are summarily squashed on the premise that they may upset the status quo re: IT infrastructure. Thanks guys!) Amen to this topic!

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Here was our experience at IMVU, which I have seen replicated at many other consumer internet startups. Launching is about creating circles within circles (groups of people that connect) and social networking, word of mouth, and real-world advertising are all contributing factors. In most situations, this fear is misplaced.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Spray files across cheap disks on your network. For tips on how to integrate it into your database and application layers, you can see the tail-end of my JIT Scalability talk. MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. Pay less for storage. No proprietary on-disk file formats." Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Open Source San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 107

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

All the usual ideas are good ones: I support inviting more women to speak at conferences , the creation of women-centric networking events like Women 2.0 All the usual ideas are good ones: I support inviting more women to speak at conferences , the creation of women-centric networking events like Women 2.0

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

The site is now a sad footnote in the history of Social Networking Services. The site hung on to its design philosophy of being an island cut off from the rest of the Web, and paid the price. How did they do it? By listening to their users. Take a look and let me know what you think. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

My responsibility at the time I joined the company was to develop a product that is to be deployed on a social network (hint hint, FB). When I entered the company, I realized that there were no process and I quickly applied what I know about agile software development. I am basically a one-man shop. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

I’ve previously documented that early-on in IMVU’s life, we made the mistake of building an IM add-on product instead of a standalone network. I’ve previously documented that early-on in IMVU’s life, we made the mistake of building an IM add-on product instead of a standalone network. Let me illustrate.

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San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

This is true of most web application servers, caches like memcached, and all of the network infrastructure that connects them. Most components in a modern data center are completely stateless, meaning they just do batches of work that is handed to them, but dont store any data long-term. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

From a startup perspective, the network and level of engagement you will receive from seasoned executives from top corporations, is unparalleled. Internet technology start ups in Israel should apply *for free* on this link: Apply to Seedcamp Tel Aviv. It doesn’t hurt that he’s Jewish and a 15 mins away drive from you.

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VC Cafe

JULY 2, 2012

The two companies have collaborated for a long time, with Facebook using Face.com’s technology to help users tag the faces of friends in pictures they upload on the social network with Face.com’s Photo Tagger service. Facebook’s acquisition of Face.com will enable the social network to embed face recognition software into its photo app.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Facebook , LinkedIn , and other successful social networks have elevated this technique to a high art. A lot of engagement problems are caused by the customer completely forgetting about the provider of the service. Direct notifications can help ameliorate that problem. Organic notifications. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

I recently went to a networking event for one of the seed funds that invested in PandoDaily, and I’ve never seen such worry on the faces of the entrepreneurs. Pandora begs Congress to lower Internet music licensing rates. HealthTab acquires Avvo Health to double its doctor network. November 29, 2012. Source Indigogo ]. -

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Eric Ries : I had to do the math, and it's dangerous to do the math live, but I had to look up on Wikipedia the number of English-speaking internet users, which is about 1.1 Eric Ries : So if I'm getting it right, 60 million people is something like 5% of the possible audience of people who are on the internet and speak English.

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