Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 115 posts

Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

#51

Post by eries »

marnor28 wrote: post #47

In the Lean Startup you described Aardvark tested several different business concepts, before choosing one in the end. Do you know how they dealt with the possible need to pivot versus focusing the team's resources on one single product? Or have any other advice in terms of focus versus testing different products?

It was totally obvious that Aardvark was a better product than the previous ones they had tested. They could feel it in their bones once customers started using it. I do think it's possible to quantify that result, but it's almost always unnecessary if you are able to step out of your own reality distortion field.

Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

#54

Post by kmeves »

eries wrote: post #27
kmeves wrote: post #23

Eric--for the above-average engineer (lets call him a 3X-5X), but not a 10X or 100X engineer--what advice would you give if they were interested in beginning a tech venture? How much does personal will play a factor compared to personal ability? Do they stand a chance to compete? Can you think of founders that have achieved great success despite lacking supreme talent? And, finally, to expand a little-- can you think…

There are so many assumptions baked into these questions that it's a little hard to answer. First of all, I'm not a fan of the "10X engineer" framing. I'm much more interested in the systems that companies can build to create 10X teams. I am thinking of two conventional "10X engineers" right now that I've worked with in my career. One is extremely loud, brash, judgmental and basically scary. If you are brave enough t…

very insightful answer-- thank you so much for your reply, i look forward to your new book!

Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

#55

Post by larrys »

eries wrote: post #15
soneill24 wrote: post #11

I'm a huge fan, Eric! Thank you for doing this. My question is of a more personal nature. When you were in your mid-20s, what were your career goals? Have they changed (if so, how drastically)?

Drastically is an understatement! I was 25 when I co-founded IMVU. My goals at that time were to become an excellent technical founder, CTO, and maybe even a startup CEO someday. Looking back, I think if YC had existed, I almost certainly would have applied. But nothing like that existed back then and so I wound up making my own mistakes and then writing about them.

"so I wound up making my own mistakes "

I've always thought that it's not entirely good idea to not make your own mistakes. While painful it provides a better gut than simply being told or reading about things and getting quick answers.

You know in traditional businesses there is a reason that even in many cases family members (in family businesses) spend time at the bottom before they are put into higher level positions. It gives you a chance to see exactly why and how things are done and to experience them and fully understand nuance. Things that can't be learned in school or passed by anecdote.

Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

#57

Post by ianbicking »

I hear people talk about Lean Startup methods at many established companies (where I work included). But I feel like we're deluding ourselves a bit, playing pretend startup. How applicable do you think the Lean Startup ideas are to a corporate environment? (One that purportedly wants to adopt these ideas) What features don't work at all? Who is doing good work to adapt these ideas for larger corporations?

Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA

#60

Post by pbnjay »

Perfect timing. I'm bootstrapping my own startup (http://moonlighter.io) at the moment and had a couple questions about the MVP.

1) How can you quickly validate a business with very little immediately visible value to the user? Direct user interviews won't work here because the service is very data-driven (collecting filesystem events), so it'll require a decent amount of data collection from the user (I'll offer something like a 14-30 day trial to allow this). Since it has to be done over a longer period of time, and it includes collecting information that might be sensitive to some people, it's not very easy to fully validate the business. I've had a few friends using it, and I'll be sharing with a small beta user list soon, but otherwise I was wondering if you had any other ideas.

2) I've put off writing the payment processing code, focusing on the product itself. Especially considering the "trial" period necessary to see value, are there any downsides to releasing the MVP without allowing payments and then adding them in after release? (Other than no cashflow of course...)

Thanks! I'm actually reading through the lean startup now (after reading way too much of it's principles on the internet first). So it's neat to be able to communicate with the author directly like this.

Post reply on HN