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

101–110 of 115 posts

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

#101

Post by thewhitetulip »

tptacek wrote: post #64
larrys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal feeling is that the high karma that you are speaking of is not a good use of time (for that reason). I know it has helped tptacek and some others but it takes considerable time (and is a distraction) to comment on HN and essentially if you do it, you do it for fun and to learn. And if something comes from it then that's icing on the cake. I actually picked up a considerable amount of side consulting by be…

Being an active participant on HN has been very helpful to me professionally. HN karma, on the other hand, has not. The only thing that ever came from karma for me was a TechCrunch interview about HN. There are great commenters who are very well-known who don't rank anywhere on the leaderboard. 'pbsd is a well-known cryptographer. 'tzs is the best commenter on HN. 'carbocation is a doctor/medical researcher. Being en…

True that, HN wasn't designed to be a forum, and there is virtually no point in having a karma system since this is as far as I know not a for profit site, and the quality of this site itself draws people so there is little point for providing karmas to keep people interested

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

#102

Post by apu »

pen2l wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure HN has already asked me anything worth knowing about me. Except maybe "how much does NSA pay you to shill for them on HN". ($39.54/wk)

Matasano Security, the company you founded, was acquired by NCC Group for $13 million in cash. You probably saw a good chunk of that money, and one would assume you'd be well off enough to not work for $39.54/wk. Why do it anyway?

I can't tell if you're continuing the joke or genuinely missed it...

(although given your prior comment history, I'm guessing the latter)

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

#103

Post by wellboy »

Great that you're doing an AMA!

I'm a big fan if the concept of the MVP, however, having build 30+ apps and spoken with hundreds of founders how to buils their product, I have seen a lot of people struggling with the terminology of the MvP.

From the top of my head, 40% of founders are confused by the viable in the MVP. Furthermore, every time I explain the MVP, I catch myself having to explain that the MVP doesn't mean a crappy product, viable means having very few features, but having those few few features work really well.

Now that the term MVP has been out for 8 years, and so many people still build crappy products, despite all the knowledge around it, is it maybe not the right terminology?

I've thought a lot about this, and from what I've seen, building an MVP means building a product that is very, very basic, but that users would love, because this product can test a hypothesis. What do you think of the term Minimum Lovable Product, because from my point of view, this terminology encompasses everything that the MVP tries to define, without the bad stuff or the confusion.

Hope that all made sense, thanks a lot.

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

#104

Post by tptacek »

pen2l wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure HN has already asked me anything worth knowing about me. Except maybe "how much does NSA pay you to shill for them on HN". ($39.54/wk)

Matasano Security, the company you founded, was acquired by NCC Group for $13 million in cash. You probably saw a good chunk of that money, and one would assume you'd be well off enough to not work for $39.54/wk. Why do it anyway?

I guess I just love my country.

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

#107

Post by eries »

wellboy wrote: post #103

Great that you're doing an AMA! I'm a big fan if the concept of the MVP, however, having build 30+ apps and spoken with hundreds of founders how to buils their product, I have seen a lot of people struggling with the terminology of the MvP. From the top of my head, 40% of founders are confused by the viable in the MVP. Furthermore, every time I explain the MVP, I catch myself having to explain that the MVP doesn't me…

People have the ability to willfully misunderstand any concept, no matter what it's called. That said, if MLP is a better term, I'd gladly adopt it. Go prove it.

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

#109

Post by eries »

solve wrote: post #90
eries wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm conflicted. Personally, I think SV is a magical place and that's why I live here. OTOH, it's also a very fad-driven place and some people get distracted by the noise. Plus, there are clearly many other startup hubs where founders can thrive these days. So, as a citizen of the USA: come here, help make us great As a citizen of the world: transform your city into a startup hub I guess what I'm saying is there is so…

Is it investors that attracts startups to a city, or startups that attract investors to a city, or something else? Everyone I've heard talking about transforming cities into startup hubs, always frames it as "make some good startups and everything else will come."

It's a classic two-sided market problem. If you just make great startups, won't they migrate to a better startup hub when they have enough traction to do so? I think it's about creating a true startup community where people want to stay and reinvest in the next generation. Brad Feld wrote a whole book about it, btw.

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

#110

Post by Avalaxy »

Eric is most probably no longer reading this, but I'm really curious what he thinks about landing pages. A lot of startups use them as their MVP nowadays, but I think they are doomed to fail because you have nothing to present to your potential customers.

I'm also wondering what his thoughts are on what the best ways to drive good traffic to a MVP are, without getting biased stats (by inviting all your friends and family for example).

Post reply on HN