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Eric Ries's channel

Assessing wisdom of crowds

by Eric Ries, January 6, 2009 | Comments (0)

	Why fit is a quality that requires special treatment When I wrote earlier about how to conduct a good technical interview, I had only a few things to say about how to assess if the candidate fits in with the team, including this:This responsibility falls squarely to the hiring manager. You need to have a point of view about how to put together a coherent team, and how a ...
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Engagement loops: Beyond viral

by Eric Ries, December 23, 2008 | Comments (0)

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In pursuit of understanding metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement

There's a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. Today, I was comparing notes with Ed Baker (one of the gurus of viral growth). We were trying to broaden the conversation beyond just viral customer acquisition. Many ...

The hacker's lament

by Eric Ries, December 11, 2008 | Comments (0)

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At their root, all technology problems are human problems

One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people I've had the chance to meet. Sometimes, I meet someone that I feel a visceral connection with, because they are struggling with challenges that I've experienced myself. In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and I've ...

Four kinds of work, and how to get them done

by Eric Ries, November 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

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Identify work; create the right team; allocate resources behind them

I've written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Another advantage of the early stages is that most don't have to juggle too many competing priorities. If you don't have customers, a product, investors, or a board of directors, you can pretty much ...

How to use AdWords to gauge demand

by Eric Ries, November 12, 2008 | Comments (0)

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Using fake AdWords campaigns is a must-do if you want to build an online service

If you want to build an online service, and you don't test it with a fake AdWords campaign ahead of time, you're crazy. That's the conclusion I've come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. So I thought I would walk you through exactly how to run a "fake landing page" test using ...

John Doerr: Everyone should be selling

by Eric Ries, November 3, 2008 | Comments (1)

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From engineers to receptionists - take up the 'honorable' profession of selling

I just saw video of John Doerr's talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” roundtable event. The tips are based on advice JD solicited from great KPCB entrepreneurs. I was impressed enough to transcribe (and paraphrase) the list. You can see the whole video at the end of this post. Act now, act with speed. ...

A hierarchy of pitches

by Eric Ries, October 30, 2008 | Comments (0)

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Pitches fail because they don't answer the right question

Every company will need to pitch itself from time to time. Usually we think of pitches in the context of raising money, but that is only one of many pitch situations. We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. It's different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is ...

The product manager's lament

by Eric Ries, October 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

	Pushing out work in large batches, makes me 'cringe' Life is not easy when you're working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. But I have a special sympathy for the "product manager" in a startup that is bringing a new product to a new market, and doing their work in large batches. I met one recently that is working on a really innovative ...
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How to build a virtual goods product

by Eric Ries, October 15, 2008 | Comments (0)

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The incredible power of necessity and how it led to smart decisions

I was invited to the Virtual Goods Summit yesterday, and got to see quite a few interesting speakers and panels. It got me thinking about what decisions are essential when building a virtual goods product.I'm really proud of the virtual goods system we built at IMVU, and a whole day of presentations left me feeling very confident in IMVU's durable ...

Eric Ries

Eric Ries
CTO and co-founder
IMVU (Owner)

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