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

JANUARY 2, 2019

Most of you aspiring entrepreneurs have no idea how dramatically your own role has to evolve as you develop a solution, start a business, and expect it to scale into a successful self-managed company. Thus my job as a small business advisor really is really more about getting you developed than perfecting the business.

Leadership 248

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Social Media 248

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?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

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

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Two conditions that do matter to your startup’s out-year viability are the cost and length of its product development cycle. Startup founders counting the days until break-even or actively seeking outside capital must focus on streamlining their development cycles. Implement Standardized Development Processes.

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Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Of course, we all realize that this approach will take longer, and could jeopardize both roles if not managed effectively.

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Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Today, lean is the de facto method for building new start-ups.

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Board meeting gets scheduled Nobody thinks too much about it until a week or two before Management team has a last-minute scramble to pull materials together Management is super focused on its daily work of … winning customers, signing biz dev, shipping product … so this prep is a last minute “fire drill” and is seen as a slight distraction.

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Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

This philosophy comes from The Lean Startup methodology , which relies on testing hypotheses to better understand your customers’ pain points and goals. It outlines four major growth strategies: market penetration , market development , product development , and diversification. Product development.

Marketing 115

Marketing Framework Metrics Channel 115

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Larry didn’t practice any kind of textbook management, but he was an intense communicator and inspiring leader. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was way more right than wrong, It informed our product development to a great degree and kept us working on more or less the right stuff. Pragmatic and Lean. What a gift!

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Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333

Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

This post originally appeared in TechCrunch back in 2015, written by our co-founder and managing partner Erik Rannala. Like a teenager with a million-dollar allowance and an identity crisis, a startup with too much capital and no product-market fit will become capable of making larger mistakes. How do you know you have it?

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 11, 2009 The cardinal sin of community management Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. This probably sounds illogical. We were totally unprepared for the magnitude of what happened.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158

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

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. To shed some light, I talked with kaChing , a destination that enables individual investors to find outstanding money managers to manage their money.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g. and product management worked with me to decide what to build & when. The Outside In organization had a one-way flow.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Last May, I shared the news that long-time Lean Startup advocates Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits were working on a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur featuring illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. That new book is about to hit bookstores everywhere.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

And if you worked just 20 hours/week (on average) at that rate you’d clear $150,000 annually without the hassle of hiring and managing an employee. Most consulting companies I know have a few internal projects which they hope to someday turn into money-making products. Isn’t that better? What to do? Lack of focus kills.

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America Employee Hiring HTML 330

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

Lean Analytics is the latest addition to the Lean Series. For intrapreneurs, this means applying Lean methods to new product development, rather than starting an entirely new company. ClearFit launched its new price point at $350 for a single job (for 30 days) and almost immediately saw three times the sales.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Steve Blank has devoted many years now to trying to answer that question, with a theory he calls Customer Development. This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. Expo SF (May. for Harvard Business Revie.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Finally the board would fire the VP of sales.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, February 28, 2009 Throwing away working code Lean startups work by systematically eradicating waste. This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

The Lean Startup Book is done. If you've been waiting for a comprehensive account of the Lean Startup and how it can help you achieve dramatically better business results, this is it. And others are from unusual folks we don't normally think of as entrepreneurs, from corporate managers to government agencies.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2018

While doing research for his extraordinary new book, Great at Work , Morten Hansen studied more than 5,000 managers and employees in corporate America to identify the key practices that explain why some perform better than others. And does that value provide societal benefits beyond sales and profits?

Metrics 349

Metrics Startup Lean Detroit 349

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

You don't have an "edge" just because you're passionate, hard-working, or "lean.". During a lull in her practice she got a serendipitous opportunity to shift gears completely and ended up leading software product development teams. P.S. For more, here are detailed examples of how this mindset also sets up your sales pitch.

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 14, 2014

Not too long ago, German software giant SAP blew up the management framework for its 20,000-person development department and replaced it with “mini-teams” of roughly 10 people. As a result, product development time was cut nearly in half in a three-year period.

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Agile Leadership Architecture Product Development 196

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. Let’s take sales and business development. Ready to start simplifying?

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

MAY 22, 2019

Companies are investing in innovation training, mostly learning frameworks like Lean, Agile, or Design Thinking. Nearly all that training is for dedicated innovation teams , or employees who are focused on new product development. And management of operations is all about control. And that’s a good thing.

Operations 54

Operations Employee Technical Review Agile 54

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

In an enterprise sales context, this is called a "repeatable and scalable sales process" - once you know how to do this, your company can graduate from early adopters and make an attempt at the mainstream. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Id like to talk about a technique Ive used to help manage this growth without slowing down. Managers in this area have to take a portfolio approach, promoting ideas that work and might make good candidates for further investment. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

I got a powerful taste of datablindness recently, as I’ve started to work with various large companies as partners in setting up events, speeches, and other products to sell around the Lean Startup concept. For example, I quickly learned that when I twittered about the event, more often than not I would make a sale.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110