Are there any particular skills or traits that you looked for in your startup co-founders?
I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
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Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#32Why do you think that 'the establishment' is so hard to innovate within?
It's actually very simple: most established organizations adopt processes designed to eradicate innovation. If you study management history it's pretty easy to see why they did this, since there were huge gains in the 20th century to be had by eliminating variability in both manufacturing and human resources. Consistency, standardization, and commodification all paid huge dividends. Unfortunately, not all sources of…
Is it the same as the 'Agile' approach that is so prevalent in software industry these days that aims to deliver software reliably on time?
How do you differentiate good variability from bad ones in software development?
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#33I'd be curious what the equivalent idea of what you are doing (by posting here as AMA) would be if you weren't Eric Ries posting on HN. So for Eric Ries this is "lean" (or what used to be known as "gorilla marketing") but for someone who doesn't have name recognition what is the equivalent? [1] [1] Simply recognizing that someone without name recognition doing something similar on HN is not assured of getting any att…
Let's be honest: I almost didn't make the front page. My post got to about #25 on /newest with only like 9 upvotes. If it had rolled over to page two, I doubt I would still be answering questions right now. So no, I don't think this kind of technique is useful for marketing if you don't have name recognition.
However, there are many other ways to build rep in a community like HN without being famous. I bet if any of the highest-karma posters did an AMA they would get a lot of attention. Personally, I'd be fascinated to learn more about who they are.
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#34Are there any particular skills or traits that you looked for in your startup co-founders?
Well, because I hadn't read the excellent book Founder's Dilemmas, I didn't have a clue about what to look for. Honestly, the biggest criteria was that they were willing to work with me!
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#35What does your book writing process look like now? What did you learn writing The Lean Startup and how much of the teachings of the lean concept itself are applicable to book writing?
Cheers! /Martin
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#36In THE LEADER'S GUIDE, will you also make available business tools you suggest for lean-startup project? A bit comparable to what Alex Osterwalder & strategyzer is offering it (Canvas, Test&Learning Cards, Progress Board, etc.)?
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#37Are there any particular skills or traits that you looked for in your startup co-founders?
Well, because I hadn't read the excellent book Founder's Dilemmas, I didn't have a clue about what to look for. Honestly, the biggest criteria was that they were willing to work with me!
Ok, I'll check it out.
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually very simple: most established organizations adopt processes designed to eradicate innovation. If you study management history it's pretty easy to see why they did this, since there were huge gains in the 20th century to be had by eliminating variability in both manufacturing and human resources. Consistency, standardization, and commodification all paid huge dividends. Unfortunately, not all sources of…
Is it the same as the 'Agile' approach that is so prevalent in software industry these days that aims to deliver software reliably on time? How do you differentiate good variability from bad ones in software development?
Now _that_ is a good question. Most agile systems are designed to insulate management from the volatility inherent in software development (and to tamp it down a little bit). They aren't really designed to exploit the positive variability.
Here's a classic example: let's say I have a story card that says "build a feature that lets 10000 customers buy a widget from our store." In most classic agile systems, the engineering team will do their best to understand the customer requirement and see that it's built appropriately.
Now let's say that 0 customers show and buy the widget. Who's fault is this? In traditional agile, it's the Product Owner's fault, not the engineering team.
But exploiting positive variability would say: the effort required to build this feature requires knowing in advance how many customers want to buy the widget. The engineering effort is totally different if the answer is 0, 10, 100, 10000, or 1000000 customers. So rather than build the feature as specified, let's do an experiment to try and assess customer demand first, then build in response to that demand.
That means that sometimes a story will take 10X longer than you originally planned and sometimes it will take 1/10th as long. But in the end, you'll get a better business result. That's positive variability.
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#39Eric--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…
Re: I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA
#40What do you think has changed the most for startups today since when you wrote "The Lean Startup"?