The Curious Engineer

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Lessons Learned

startuplessonslearned.com

by Eric Ries

Engineering management / careersSoftware / engineering practiceEssays / personal

’10’15’20’25
Posts
392 from 2 Aug 2008 to 17 May 2026
Posting
now and then (1 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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2026 1

  1. Incorruptible: My new book comes out May 26!

2024 1

  1. Strong Governance Actually Makes Weak Companies

2021 5

  1. Honesty and Optimism in the New York Times
  2. A letter to our future
  3. Out of the Crisis #27: Eren Bali of Carbon Health on public health, COVID vaccinations, and working as a unified society to solve problems
  4. Out of the Crisis #26: Brian Armstrong of Coinbase on cryptocurrency, being mission-oriented, and institution building
  5. Investing in the post-modern economic era

2020 31

  1. Out of the Crisis #22: Ron Klain on pandemic response and preparedness, entrepreneurship, and rebuilding trust in institutions
  2. Out of the Crisis #21: Tomas Pueyo on the hammer and the dance, political polarization, and how the pandemic will affect the way we live and work
  3. Out of the Crisis #20: the founders of Bitwise on the role of technology in empowering people, spreading benefits to underserved communities, and the creation of OnwardUS
  4. It's time for lean philanthropy: a case study
  5. Out of the Crisis #19: Revolution Foods co-founders on feeding kids and families, being parent-entrepreneurs, and scaling food security innovations
  6. Out of the Crisis #18: Sal Khan on institution building, solving the digital divide, and education as the lever for all decisions
  7. Out of the Crisis #17: Max Henderson on Covid Act Now, exponential growth, and how to help
  8. Out of the Crisis #16: Robert Schooley on why we weren't prepared, long-term thinking, and how to make decisions for the greater good.
  9. Out of the Crisis #15: Lenore Estrada on her SF New Deal, serving the hungry, and civic engagement
  10. Out of the Crisis #14: Robert Rhinehart on the Corona Initiative, accelerating basic research, and finding a cure faster
  11. Out of the Crisis #13: Alpha Lee on remembering the 2003 SARS epidemic and his opensource COVID-19 Moonshot
  12. Out of the Crisis #12: Curative founder Fred Turner and Celine Halioua on diagnostic supply chains, scaling up testing, and partnering with government
  13. Out of the Crisis #11: Jeremy Howard on the power of masks, health policy, and data science in medicine
  14. Out of the Crisis #10: HelixNano founder Hannu Rajaniemi on vaccines, suspending disbelief, and the power of stories
  15. The Economic Antidote to COVID-19
  16. Out of the Crisis #9, the founders of Frontline Foods on the moral imperative to support frontline workers at scale
  17. Out of the Crisis #8, Brian Chesky Part 2: building a company for continuous evolution, how travel will change, trust and love
  18. Out of the Crisis #7, Brian Chesky Part 1: running Airbnb in crisis mode, being multi-stakeholder, and re-founding the company
  19. Turning the microphone over
  20. Out of the Crisis #6, HelpWithCovid.com
  21. Out of the Crisis #5, ANA Therapeutics: a possible COVID-19 treatment and prophylactic
  22. Out of the Crisis #4: Carl Liebert, crisis veteran and radical optimist
  23. Out of the Crisis #3, Jen Pahlka and Raylene Yung on creating the U.S. Digital Response
  24. Brian Chesky goes behind the scenes of Airbnb's crisis management and his vision for the company's second founding
  25. Out of the Crisis #2: Mark Cuban on putting people first, the Dallas Mavericks, and what we'll want on the other side
  26. Out of the Crisis #1: Sam Altman on resetting the clock cycle of biotech, investing in a cure and more
  27. Out of the Crisis
  28. Ten More Things Leaders Can Do During A Crisis
  29. Act Now to Stop Corona Virus from Spreading
  30. Please visit schoolclosures.org on Product Hunt
  31. Get The Startup Way ebook for $2.99 for a limited time

2019 8

  1. How We Designed Lean Startup Conference 2019
  2. Lean Startup Conference 2019, Oct. 23-25: Announcing Program and Speakers
  3. Lean Startup Conference Speaker Ann Miura-Ko on being a founder, representation, and the future.
  4. Lean Startup Conference Speaker Andy Rachleff on his 35 years in Silicon Valley, Wealthfront and telling stories
  5. A conversation with Scott Kupor of Andreessen Horowitz, author and speaker at Lean Startup Conference 2019
  6. The Leaders Guide audio book from Audible is available today
  7. The Leaders Guide audio book is now available for pre-order from Audible
  8. Lean Startup Conference 2019

2018 15

  1. Lean Startup in New Places: The Lean Startup Conference 2018
  2. An interview with founder, author, and Lean Startup Conference 2018 speaker Aaron Dignan
  3. A conversation about diversity, inclusion, and design with Lean Startup Conference 2018 speaker Liz Jackson
  4. An Interview with Author and Lean Startup Conference 2018 Speaker Giff Constable
  5. A closer look at Lean Startup Conference 2018
  6. Join me in Downtown Las Vegas on November 14th
  7. Lessons Learned: Hugh Molotsi
  8. Lessons Learned: Ann Mei Chang
  9. Lean Startup Conference 2018 is Coming to Las Vegas
  10. A Non-Profit Lean Startup: The Story of Adopt-a-Pet
  11. The Energy for Transformation
  12. An Interview with Steve Liguori, Serial Innovator
  13. New Power: An Interview with Henry Timms
  14. Lean Impact : Innovating for Social Good
  15. What Top Performers at Startups and Large Organizations Have in Common…More Than You Would Think

2017 12

  1. 7 Highlights from Lean Startup Week
  2. "The Startup Way" is Headed to London
  3. What's Next for "The Startup Way"
  4. Publication Day for "The Startup Way"
  5. We’re Programming Around Your Needs: Highlights of Lean Startup Week 2017
  6. Two Weeks until "The Startup Way"
  7. 7 Tips for Building Your Lean Team
  8. Using The Startup Way to Turn Big Orgs into Lean Startups
  9. Lean Startup Week Call for Proposals is Open Until July 31
  10. The Evolution of THE STARTUP WAY Cover
  11. Lean Startup Conference Comes to New York & London
  12. Announcing my next book, The Startup Way

2016 9

  1. Please Vote
  2. The Future of Corporate Agility
  3. The Future of Government: Hayward & the Lean Startup
  4. Announcing the 2016 Lean Startup Week Program
  5. Spark Inspiration with Ignite Talks at Lean Startup Week
  6. Introducing The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE)
  7. Read This Excerpt From Steve Case (AOL)’s New Book
  8. Lean Startup Week 2016: Call for Speakers
  9. Lean Startup Week: Seven Days of Focused Innovation Training

2015 16

  1. How Lean Startup Helped Serve Communities in Kenya
  2. The 2015 Lean Startup Conference is the Biggest Yet
  3. Five case studies you'll see at the Lean Startup Conference 2015
  4. The dog ate my homework
  5. Intuit Labs Takeover
  6. Speak at The Lean Startup Conference 2015
  7. The Lean Startup Conference 2015
  8. Getting feedback from customers when security is an issue
  9. Excerpt from the Introduction to The Leader's Guide
  10. Last week to get The Leader's Guide
  11. Kickstarter news -- and a Reddit AMA
  12. My Kickstarter campaign is live -- I hope you'll be a part of it.
  13. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs - from Guy Kawasaki
  14. SXSW 2015
  15. I'm launching a Kickstarter campaign
  16. MVPs and Excellence

2014 9

  1. See More than 120 Speakers and Mentors at The Lean Startup Conference
  2. Your Guide to the Complete Lean Startup Conference Program
  3. How to Get Your Coworkers to Care About User Research
  4. Learn Online This Fall
  5. Last Chance for Summer Sale Prices
  6. New Call for Speakers and Top Three Reasons to Bring Your Child to The Lean Startup Conference
  7. A Few Surprising Facts about the 2014 Lean Startup Call for Speakers
  8. A New Approach to The Lean Startup Conference
  9. Two New Experiments from The Lean Startup Conference Team

2013 34

  1. Join the Conversation at The Lean Startup Conference – Three Ways To Participate
  2. Nine Webcasts to Learn From
  3. Courting Content, Not Controversy
  4. Lean Startup Where You’d Least Expect It
  5. Hands-on Lessons for Advanced Topics in Entrepreneurship
  6. Eric Ries and Kent Beck Discuss Product Development
  7. Open to All: Scholarships for The Lean Startup Conference
  8. A Different Kind of Entrepreneurship Conference
  9. Lean Impact Webcast on Tuesday
  10. Wisdom from Hyper-growth Companies
  11. Lean Analytics: The Best Numbers for Non-Tech Companies
  12. Speaker Lineup for the 2013 Lean Startup Conference
  13. Rapid Iteration for Mobile App Design
  14. Lean Startup at Scale
  15. The Entrepreneurial Enterprise
  16. Key Questions for Bringing Lean Startup to Established Companies
  17. Fostering Innovation in Established Companies
  18. Applying Lean Startup Beyond Silicon Valley
  19. Introducing New Lean Startup Practitioners
  20. Highlights from Our Webcast on Lean Startup for Engineers
  21. Lean Startup Implementation Lessons
  22. Five Questions for Lean Content Creator Stephanie Hay
  23. Getting Engineers into the Lean Startup Cycle
  24. Lean Startup Beyond the Tech Sector
  25. Announcing the 2013 Lean Startup Conference
  26. How to Get Free Speaker Training with Kathy Sierra
  27. How to Get Picked as a Speaker for The Lean Startup Conference
  28. Speak at the 2013 Lean Startup Conference
  29. How to make better decisions
  30. Lean Analytics
  31. The Lean Startup SXSW 2013
  32. Sneak preview of the new Lean UX Book
  33. The Lean Entrepreneur is here
  34. Presidential Innovation Fellows, round two

2012 26

  1. Join a conference simulcast near you
  2. Solving the Pipeline Problem
  3. KQED Forum + conference update + a chance to win tickets
  4. Bringing Lean Startup to Life at GE
  5. The Platinum Pass Is About to Sell Out
  6. Host a Livestream of The Lean Startup Conference
  7. Workshop: Lean Startup in the Enterprise with Giff Constable, Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
  8. Workshop: The Lean Entrepreneur with Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits
  9. Workshop: Lean Analytics with Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz
  10. Workshop: Validate with Janice Fraser & Laura Klein
  11. A full day of Lean Startup Workshops on December 4, 2012
  12. Marc Andreessen will be at The Lean Startup Conference - will you?
  13. September in New York
  14. The Lean Startup Conference Registration is Open
  15. Seeking Speakers
  16. Save the Date: December 3, 2012
  17. I want to mentor you in the Shopify Build-A-Business Contest 2012
  18. Announcing the 2012 Lean Startup Conference in SF
  19. Lean Government
  20. A new field guide for entrepreneurs of all stripes
  21. Founder's Dilemmas: Equity Splits
  22. Doing > Talking
  23. SXSW Update
  24. The Lean Startup at SXSW 2012
  25. The Hacker Way
  26. London Calling

2011 29

  1. STARTUP IS VISION
  2. That old-time startup religion
  3. Case Study: The Nordstrom Innovation Lab
  4. Best. Birthday. Ever.
  5. Updates from the road
  6. The Lean Startup Book Tour
  7. The power of small batches
  8. The Last Lean Startup Bundle: claim $3,000,000 in prizes
  9. The ink is on the dead trees
  10. Winter is coming
  11. Venture Deals
  12. The Lean Startup Book is here
  13. Open Innovation in DC
  14. Appsumo Action Video
  15. Startup Lessons Learned 2011 streaming live
  16. This Weekend
  17. Case Study: Lean UX at work
  18. Get the very first copy of the Lean Startup Book
  19. New speakers + Ignite + streaming locations
  20. Beyond the garage
  21. The real entrepreneurs of New York City
  22. New York Lean Startup Week
  23. SXSW updates
  24. The Lean Startup SXSW + bundle + tournament
  25. A month is fifteen weekends
  26. Lean Startup junkies
  27. Case Study: UX, Design, and Food on the Table
  28. Why we need to teach MBA’s about modern entrepreneurship (and what Harvard Business School is doing about it)
  29. 2011

2010 49

  1. Why do we do this?
  2. Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware
  3. The Lean Startup Bundle
  4. Stop lying on stage
  5. Good enough never is (or is it?)
  6. The visionary’s lament
  7. The Superbowl ad test
  8. Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you?
  9. Sxsw
  10. Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium
  11. Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot
  12. Some IPO speculation
  13. Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management
  14. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development
  15. What is a startup?
  16. No departments
  17. The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)
  18. Thank you
  19. Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the Lean Startup)
  20. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0 Expo
  21. Video update on the Startup Visa Act
  22. Lean Enterprise Institute webinar, April 28
  23. Four myths about the Lean Startup
  24. Sneak preview, KISSmetrics (and more)
  25. Sneak preview, Grockit
  26. The Lean Startup Intensive at Web 2.0 Expo SF (May 3, 2010)
  27. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets
  28. Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)
  29. Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"
  30. Six streaming locations
  31. Interviews
  32. New conference website, speakers, agenda
  33. Two new scholarship programs for lean startups
  34. Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)
  35. The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)
  36. For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? (for Harvard Business Review)
  37. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23, 2010 in SF)
  38. Startup Visa update
  39. Kiwi lean startup + Australia next
  40. Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business)
  41. Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review)
  42. Tell your Startup Visa story
  43. Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, and more
  44. Lo, my 18891 subscribers, who are you?
  45. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases non-events
  46. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review)
  47. Amazing lean startup resources
  48. Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? (for Harvard Business Review)
  49. Towards a new entrepreneurship

2009 88

  1. Continuous deployment for mission-critical applications
  2. Why vanity metrics are dangerous
  3. What is Lean about the Lean Startup?
  4. Business ecology and the four customer currencies
  5. New York: three straight days of Lean Startup (two of which are free)
  6. A real Customer Advisory Board
  7. Case Study: Using an LOI to get customer feedback on a minimum viable product
  8. Myth: Entrepreneurship Will Make You Rich
  9. Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a response)
  10. Innovation inside the box
  11. A large batch of videos, slides, and audio
  12. The curse of prevention
  13. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (and a request for help)
  14. Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet
  15. Testing the new Disqus comment system
  16. Gov 2.0 Summit wrap-up
  17. International tour about to begin
  18. The cardinal sin of community management
  19. Happy blogiversary (my present: a brand new URL)
  20. What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups?
  21. Don't be the Ice Cream Glove
  22. Building a new startup hub
  23. Marching through quicksand
  24. The Promise of the Lean Startup
  25. Fall speaking tour starts tomorrow
  26. Introducing the Lean Startup Cohort subscription program
  27. Revisiting the Software Design Manifesto (and what's changed since then)
  28. Minimum Viable Product: a guide
  29. The Steve Jobs method
  30. A new way to recruit for (and find) startup jobs
  31. Techstars brings The Lean Startup to Boulder
  32. Embrace technical debt
  33. The Principles of Product Development Flow
  34. 10 years of entrepreneurship
  35. Lean Startup fbFund slides and video
  36. Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up
  37. How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis
  38. Join the lean startup discussion at Facebook on Thursday
  39. Pivot, don't jump to a new vision
  40. Why Continuous Deployment?
  41. Lean Startup Workshop scholarship program
  42. The Lean Startup Tokyo edition
  43. Datablindness
  44. It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet
  45. Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues
  46. The Lean Startup at SIPA follow-up
  47. Last chance to register for The Lean Startup at HP on May 21
  48. The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class
  49. Fear is the mind-killer
  50. More video "what to do if customers don't like your (initial) product" plus full webcast
  51. Videos galore
  52. Lean Startup webcast post-game
  53. Speaking with Steve Blank at startup2startup; webcast on May 1; other upcoming events
  54. Product development leverage
  55. Validated learning about customers
  56. Built to learn
  57. Web 2.0 Expo session followup
  58. The Lean Startup workshop coming soon
  59. Cash is not king
  60. The Lean Startup at Agile Vancouver April 21st
  61. The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF
  62. Venture Hacks interview: "What is the minimum viable product?"
  63. How to build companies that matter (the lean startup on O'Reilly Radar)
  64. Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free
  65. Combining agile development with customer development
  66. Don't launch
  67. Lo, my 2295 subscribers, who are you?
  68. Employees should be masters of their own time
  69. Throwing away working code
  70. The lean startup at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
  71. Please teach kids programming, Mr. President
  72. Work in small batches
  73. Continuous deployment with downloads
  74. What is a market? (a guide for hackers)
  75. You buy virtual goods
  76. The free software hiring advantage
  77. Continuous deployment and continuous learning
  78. The lean startup @ Web 2.0 Expo (and a call for help)
  79. Achieving a failure
  80. Refactoring yourself out of business
  81. Three freemium strategies
  82. Lean hiring tips
  83. Why PHP won
  84. CPI > CPC
  85. Lessons Learned office hours
  86. Sharding for startups
  87. Lessons Learned on Mashable today
  88. Happy new year

2008 59

  1. Assessing fit with the Wisdom of Crowds
  2. Engagement loops: beyond viral
  3. Continuous integration step-by-step
  4. The hacker's lament
  5. Getting started with split-testing
  6. The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part three
  7. The ABCDEF's of conducting a technical interview
  8. Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction
  9. Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?
  10. ScienceDaily: Corporate culture is most important factor in driving innovation
  11. The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part two
  12. The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one
  13. Five Whys
  14. Where did Silicon Valley come from?
  15. What is customer development?
  16. Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online service, step-by-step
  17. Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile
  18. Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campaign trail
  19. Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers
  20. Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments
  21. John Doerr's 10 lean startup tips
  22. A hierarchy of pitches
  23. Chuck's Code & Learning: Learning to write tests that matter
  24. Lean startups vs lean companies
  25. The engineering manager's lament
  26. Three decisions to make on virtual goods
  27. The App Store after the gold rush
  28. When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests
  29. The product manager's lament
  30. About the author
  31. What does a startup CTO actually do?
  32. Q&A with an actual reader
  33. The lean startup comes to Stanford
  34. You don't need as many tools as you think
  35. The three drivers of growth for your business model. Choose one.
  36. Thoughts on scientific product development
  37. Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?
  38. How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone
  39. How to Usability Test your Site for Free
  40. The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time
  41. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people
  42. SEM on five dollars a day
  43. Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences
  44. Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class
  45. A new version of the Joel Test (draft)
  46. Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now
  47. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?
  48. Waves of technology platforms
  49. The lean startup
  50. Customer Development Engineering
  51. Greasemonkey compiler
  52. Great open source scalability tools from Danga
  53. Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn
  54. Not crossing the chasm
  55. On deployment
  56. Just-In-Time Scalability
  57. Test-Driven Development as andon cord
  58. Refactoring for TDD and interaction design
  59. Paul Graham on fundraising