Semoga kita sama-sama diberikan hidayah yang benar daripadaNya, dan semoga diri kita sentiasa berada dalam jalan Islam, dakwah, tarbiyah dan jihad.

Dalam mengharungi hidup ini, memang kita perlu hidup beramai-ramai bersama mereka yang bersama-sama ingin menjaga keimanan dan ketaqwaan kepada Allah. Lagi-lagi dalam keadaan zaman sekarang yang sangat-sangat tidak membantu kita untuk berislam dan beriman dengan sempurna.

Kita memang dituntut untuk bersungguh-sungguh dalam berislam. Firman Allah:

Apakah kamu mengira bahwa kamu akan masuk surga, padahal belum nyata bagi Allah orang-orang yang berjihad di antaramu, dan belum nyata orang-orang yang sabar.
[3:142]

Bagaimana kita hendak mengatakan kita sudah boleh menginjak syurga, andai kita dalam berislam sahaja kita belum bersungguh-sungguh? Dan untk berislam ini, pastinya kita memerlukan bimbingan. Tak usah malu hendak menyertai halaqoh ataupun usrah, sebab kita memang memerlukannya. Kerana halaqoh adalah tempat kita belajar dan melatih diri untuk berislam dengan sempurna dan bersungguh-sungguh. Kerana tidak tahu dan tidak mampulah kita belajar. Sebab tu kita ke sekolah. Sebab kita bodoh, tak tahu, sebab tu kena belajar. Orang pergi sekolah bukan sebab dah pandai. Sebab tu kita ke halaqoh, untuk MENUNTUT ilmu, bukan MENUNJUK ilmu.

Adapun ketika kita cuba mengamalkan Islam dan cuba untuk berkomitmen dengan Islam, ada yang menentang, tidak suka dan mengkritik, itu adalah sunnatulah. Tiada rasul yang berdakwah melainkan semuanya ditentang oleh umatnya. Hampir semua mereka mendapat cemuhan, siksaan dan ada yang dibunuh, hanya kerana ingin berislam dan menyebarkan Islam. Begtu juga dengan kita. Ketika hendak berislam, akan ada ayg mengatakan kita sesat. Nak pakai pakaian yang menutup aurat dengan sempurna, tapi dikatakan pelik. Dikata ekstrim. Nak baca terjemahan quran, dikatakan sesat. Nak pergi masjid, dikatakan nak menunjuk-nunjuk. Dan halangan ini boleh sahaja datang daripada keluarga kita sendiri. Namun apakah kita akan berhenti daripada jalan ini? Tidak sama sekali. Sebab itu Allah mengingatkan kita:

Katakanlah: "Jika bapak-bapak, anak-anak, saudara-saudara, istri-istri, kaum keluargamu, harta kekayaan yang kamu usahakan, perniagaan yang kamu khawatiri kerugiannya, dan rumah-rumah tempat tinggal yang kamu sukai, adalah lebih kamu cintai daripada Allah dan Rasul-Nya dan (dari) berjihad di jalan-Nya, maka tunggulah sampai Allah mendatangkan keputusan-Nya." Dan Allah tidak memberi petunjuk kepada orang-orang fasik.
[9:24]

Tentangan yang paling hebat ketika hendak berislam, berdakwah dan berjihad, sebenarnya adalah daripada keluarga kita sendiri. Oleh itu berjaga-jagalah.

Kesimpulannya, kita memang akan sentiasa diperli, dikutuk, dihina dan dicaci untuk membawa Islam. Akan difitnah yang pelbagai. Namun tetaplah bersabar, kerana yang kita cari sebenarnya bukan redha manusia, tapi redha Allah. Biar apapun yang orang kata asalkan dalam pandangan Allah, kita mulia.

Apa sikap kita kepada mereka yang menentang ini?

1. Sentiasa ingat, bila peribadi kita dikutuk atau diperli, ingat, inilah ujian daripada Allah, tanda cintanya pada kita. Orang yang dicintai Allah akan diberi pelbagai ujian kepayahan dan penderitaan, agar kita lebih dekat kepadaNya.
   
   
2. Biasakan tersenyum ketika berhadapan dengan mereka-mereka yang bermasalah ini, sambil mengingatkan diri sendir bahawa ini adalah ujian daripada Allah untuk kita. Senyum akan membantu meredakan tekanan.
   
   
   
3. Teruskan berhubungan baik dengan mereka. Jangan dijadikan musuh. Biarkan mereka melayan kita seburuk-buruk layanan. Tapi kita membalasnya dengan sebaik-baik akhlaq. Jangan biasakan pendekatan memarahi mereka. Sentiasa memberi salam kepada mereka. Senyum ketika bertemu dan sebagainya. Mereka ini golongan yang tidak tahu dan tidak sedar hakikat kehidupan. Maka bersabarlah dengan mereka.
   
   
   
4. Untuk ahli keluarga pula, teruskan menunjukkan akhlaq yang terbaik kepada mereka. Biarkan ibubapa melarang kita menyertai halaqoh, kita jangan melawan. Tapi jangan sekali-kali meninggalkan halaqoh. Di depan mereka tidak perlu ceritakan tentang halaqoh, cuma tunjukan apa yang kita belajar dlm halaqoh: menghormati ibu bapa, memuliakan orang tua, menyenangkan hati orang lain, sentiasa membantu mereka, tidak pernah menyakiti hati mereka, dan sebagainya. Jika mereka menyinggung tentang halqoh, tukarlah topik dengan segera. Yang penting pendirian kita tak akan pernah berubah, insya-Allah.
   
   
5. Akhir sekali, perbanyakkan berdoa dan bermunajat kepada Allah agar diberikan kekuatan, ketabahan dan keimanan serta ketaqwaan kepadaNya. Mohonkan juga agar ibubapa, saudara-saudara kita, adik beradik, kawan-kawan dan masyarakat kita diberikan kefahaman terhadap agama. Semoga mereka juga diberi hidayah, sepertimana kita menginginkan hidayah.

semoga membantu...

wallahua'lam...

Berjuang menempah susah
Menanggung derita menungkah fitnah
Itulah gelombang hidup samudera duka
Seorang mujahid membela tauhid

Dipisah dia berkelkana
Dibelenggu dia uzlah menagih bina
Namun jiwa tetap mara memburu cinta
Membara demi Allah dan rasulnya

Berjuang tak pernah senang
Ombak derita tiada henti
Tenang resah silih berganti
Inilah sunnah orang berjuang

Malamnya bagai rahib merintih sayu
Dihiris dosa airmata
Siangnya bagaikan sinar dirimba
Memerah keringat mencurah tenaga

Sudah sunnah
Berjuang ke jalan Allah

Berjuang memang pahit
Kerana syurga itu manis
Bukan sedikit mahar yang perlu dibayar
Bukan sedikit pedih yang ditagih

Berjuang ertinya terkorban
Rela terhina kerna kebenaran
Antara dua jadi pilihan
Dunia yang fana atau syurga

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Islam adalah agama yang syumul. Sebuah agama yang lengkap. Islam tidak mungkin menyekat fitrah manusia yang sememangnya ingin menyayangi dan ingin disayangi. Untuk apa Allah menciptakan manusia berfitrah seperti ini jika manusia akan diperintahkan untuk memebunuh fitrahnya itu? Ajaran Islam telah diturunkan oleh Allah untuk memasang bingkai agar kemahuan manusia itu dapat disalurkan dengan cara yang terbaik. Selain itu, Islam menutup rapat jalan kemaksiatan dan membuka seluas-luasnya jalan menuju ketaatan serta memberi dorongan kuat ke arah perlaksanaanya.Rasulullah pernah mengecam salah seorang sahabat yang bertekad untuk tidak bernikah. Ini merupakan salah satu bukti bahawa Islam mengakui fitrah manusia yang ingin cinta-menyintai ini.

Percintaan dalam Islam hanyalah selepas termetrainya sebuah ikatan pernikahan antara dua insan, iaitu setelah bergelar suami isteri. Islam telah menggariskan panduan dalam menuju ke arah gerbang perkahwinan ini. Ustaz Hassan Din telah memberikan pendapatnya mengenai hal ini dalam Al-Kulliyah di TV3 pada 28 Julai 2006, iaitu pada hari Jumaat. Tajuk perbincangan Al-Kulliyah kali itu agak menarik ; Jodoh.

Apabila diminta memberikan pendapat beliau, beliau telah mengatakan yang cara masyarakat sekarang telah lari daripada syariat yang sepatutnya. “Sebenarnya dalam Islam, apabila seseorang lelaki itu telah berkenan dengan seorang wanita dan ingin menjadikan teman hidupnya, sepatutnya lelaki itu berjumpa dengan wali si perempuan tadi untuk menyatakan niatnya untuk masuk meminang. Tetapi masyarakat sekarang silap. Mereka terus berjumpa dengan yang empunya diri dan terus menyatakan niat hatinya. Kemudian mereka bercinta, berjanji sumpah setia dan segala-galanya. Sedangkan ibubapa mereka langsung tidak tahu akan perhubungan mereka ini. Setelah sekian lama bercinta, apabila ingin melangsungkan perkahwinan, emak dan ayah tak bersetuju dengan mengeluarkan pelbagai alasan,” terang beliau.

Beliau juga menerangkan konsep peminangan ini. Kata beliau, “Ibu bapa mungkin sudah ada pilihan mereka sendiri. Oleh itu, dengan menyatakan niat kepada ibubapa, mereka akan berjumpa sendiri dengan wali perempuan tadi untuk mengenali mereka dan calon menantu mereka dengan lebih jelas. Setelah kedua-dua pihak bersetuju, barulah dijalankan upacara peminangan, iaitu kedua-dua insan tadi telah menjadi tunang. Apabila sudah menjadi tunangan orang, adalah Haram perempuan itu dipinang oleh lelaki lain, seperti yang telah dijelaskan oleh Rasulullah dalam hadis baginda. Dalam masa pertunangan inilah kedua-dua pihak lelaki dan perempuan tadi akan saling mengenali antara satu-sama lain, bagi memastikan adakah ini merupakan pasangan hidupnya yang sebenar. Jika kedua-duanya sudah bersetuju, barulah pernikahan dilangsungkan,” jelas beliau lagi.

Namun begitu, Ustaz Hassan Din menegaskan bahawa bertunang bukan merupakan lesen yang membenarkan kedua-dua pasangan bermesra-mesra seperti suami isteri. Bertunang hanyalah untuk saling mengenali antara satu sama lain dan bukannya untuk bercinta. Pasangan yang telah bertunang tetap tidak boleh keluar berdua-duaan tanpa ditemani oleh ahli keluarga. Selagi belum bernikah, mereka tetap dua insan yang bukan mahram dan masih perlu manjaga batasan-batasan Islam seperti yang telah dibincangkan sebelum ini. Dan jika dalam tempoh pertunangan itu didapati kedua-dua pasangan ini tidak secocok atau tidak serasi, maka pertunangan bolehlah diputuskan secara baik melalui persetujuan kedua-dua belah pihak.

Ada pula yang berkata, “Cara ini untuk lelaki bolehlah. Untuk perempuan, tak sesuai. Nanti orang kata, ‘macam perigi mencari timba’, ‘wanita tidak bermaruah’ dan macam-macam lagi.” Sabar dahulu saudari. Sebenarnya ini merupakan pemikiran songsang yang telah diterapkan dalam masyarakat Melayu kita. Sebetulnya kita berbalik kepada Islam itu sendiri. Bagaimana Islam mengajarkan wanita yang berkeinginan bernikah, menyuarakan keinginanya? Mari kita kaji sirah. Bukankah perkahwinan teragung antara junjungan kita, Nabi Muhammad SAW dan Khadijah dimulakan dengan Khadijah menzahirkan keinginannya? Ketika mengetahui sifat-sifat mulia yang dimiliki oleh Nabi Muhammad, beliau merasakan yang dia tidak akan menjumpai sesiapa yang lebih layak untuk dijadikan suaminya melainkan Nabi Muhammad. Oleh itu Khadijah menyuarakan keinginannya melalui perantaraan Nafisah binti Manbah agar merisik Nabi Muhammad untuk dirinya. Tawaran itu disambut aik oleh Muhammad dan dengan tidak membuang masa, baginda terus menyatakan hasrat hatinya yang mulia itu kepada bapa-bapa saudaranya dan mereka pun terus melamar Khadijah melalui bapa saudaranya, ‘Amru bin Asad. Perkahwinanpun dilaksanakan dengan selamatnya.* Begitulah yang diajarkan dalam sirah. Jadi, tiada salahnya wanita yang memulakan dahulu. Bukankan itu lebih mulia, menyuarakan keinginan dan kebersediaan untuk menjalankan sunnah baginda Rasulullah SAW? Cuma caranya biarlah sesuai dengan masyarakat kita. Jika kita seseorang perempuan itu sudah mempunyai calon suami yang baik dan soleh, suarakan sahaja kepada ibu bapa, agar dapat menghubungi pihak keluarga si lelaki itu. Biar orang tua yang menguruskan, kita cuma mencadangkan. Kalau kedua-dua pihak setuju, maka pihak lelaki boleh masuk meminang.

(*Fiqih Sirah, Jilid 1. Muhammad Sa’id Ramadhan Al-Buti. Bab Perniagaan Dengan Harta Siti Khadijah Dan Perkahwinan Baginda)

Lihat, betapa indahnya Islam mengaturkan perjalanan hidup penganutnya. Cukup teratur dan sitematik. Cara ini dapat mengelakkan daripada berlakunya maksiat dan perkara-perkara lain yang tidak diingini. Dalam masa yang sama, ia menuju kepada pembentukan keluarga bahagia yang diidamkan oleh manusia serta diredhai oleh Allah. Inilah percintaan dalam Islam, iaitu selepas perkahwinan. Insya-Allah kalau segalanya dilakukan dengan niat ikhlas kerana Allah dan bukan atas dasar nafsu dan keduniaan semata-mata, Allah akan mempermudah urusan kita itu.

Untuk kita yang masih menimba ilmu, tidak perlulah bersusah-susah mencari jodoh sekarang. Jodoh di tangan Allah, pasti bertemu jua dengan taqdirnya. Sekarang kita mempunyai matlamat yang lebih penting iaitu mendapatkan kecemerlangan dalam pelajaran dan menunaikan tanggungjawab kita sebagai muslim. Banyak lagi tanggungjawab yang perlu kita pikul dan bercinta bukanlah sesuatu yang perlu buat masa sekarang. Berusahalah menjadi muslim dan muslimah sejati serta mengamalkan Islam dalam kehidupan kita. Akan tetapi, bagi mereka yang merasakan diri sudah mampu untuk memikul tanggungjawab berumah tangga, mampu memberi nafkah zahir dan batin, maka bernikahlah. Tiada salahnya bernikah ketika belajar. Itu adalah lebih mulia daripada mereka yang ber’couple’, dan memuaskan nafsu mengikut telunjuk syaitan. Ikutilah cara-cara menuju pernikahan yang telah diterangkan di atas.

~End Of Post~

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Jemari kembali menari
Setelah hampir 10 bulan menyepi
Meninggalkan blog bersarang sendiri...

Assalamua'alaikum WBT..

Insya-Allah selepas ni umairzulkefli.blogspot.com akan kembali bernafas
Lama sungguh tak menaip
Harapnya dapat menyumbangkan idea-idea untuk perbaikan semua

Final exam dah nak abih...
Tinggal 1 paper je lagi
Semoga dapat menjawab dengan cemerlang semua..

Salam Perjuangan...

Dan orang-orang yang berjihad untuk (mencari keridaan) Kami, benar-benar akan Kami tunjukkan Kepada mereka jalan-jalan Kami. Dan sesungguhnya Allah benar-benar beserta orang-orang yang berbuat baik.
[29:69]

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I had wonderful time presenting at SIPA last night, and was completely exhausted by the incredible post-speech response. To all those who couldn't get your questions answered in person, please feel free to post them as comments and I will do my best to answer. As usual, here are the slides from the event followed by some post-game commentary.

2009 05 21 The Lean Startup At SIPA

View more OpenOffice presentations from Eric Ries.

I'm starting to let all this positive feedback go to my head. Here's a taste:

pkgulati: @ericries Attended your #leanstartup event at SIPA today. Great event and a lot in common with what we do at Dubai. We need to stay in touch

GregOsuri: Amazing talk by @ericries at SIPA, changed my thought process significantly, a must education for aspiring start-ups #leanstartup

coupld: @ericries hey Eric this is Kunal. great talk at SIPA today Re: #leanstartup We'll be hitting you up with questions - would love some advice.

ms5: Talking to friends re @ericries talk #leanstartup - IMO most of his points can ONLY be understood by ppl who did a startup & failed before

This last point became kind of a theme for the evening: the importance of failing and taking risks in order to learn. I certainly think that having a failed startup can be an important motivator to do the soul-searching required to really learn, but I haven't given up on being able to affect the odds of success for future entrepreneurs on their first time out. If we can change just a few of the "best practices" that are considered common sense throughout the industry, I think we can do much better - even the first time. At a minimum, we ought to be able to help future entrepreneurs learn more per failure (on average) than we do today.

Naturally, not everyone agreed with everything

atseitlin: Listened to @ericries talk. Loved it and great speaker, but disagree with portrayal of agile only dealing with known problems #leanstartup

I'm really interested in perspectives on this point. Some of you will remember my intense anxiety presenting this idea on a webcast with Kent Beck himself tuned in, but he seemed to understand what I was getting at, which was a relief. Still, that doesn't prove that this is right. So if you have thoughts, please post them in the comments.

Of course, people do use agile in situations of high uncertainty (aka the "unknown problem") - but my claim is just that agile methodologies don't explicitly address the question of how to decide which problem to solve. For example, the agile practice of an in-house customer or product owner that can make authoritative prioritization decisions seems like it doesn't translate very well to startups. Of course, by collapsing the feedback time for the person in that role, agile is certainly helpful (and much more helpful than waterfall) - it's not just not designed for this context. Thoughts?

ms5: @ericries in tonight's talk on #leanstartup "To get to Minimum Viable Prod (MVP), cut features until it is really, really painful" #prodmgmt

Lost of questions last night on the minimum viable product, including one that elicited this response. It occurred to me that this is simultaneously a really hard problem and a really easy problem. Hard, because finding a clear rationale for any specific MVP is challenging. It's mostly a matter of judgment. But once you take the question out of the abstract, it gets much easier. In almost every case, people who ask me about the MVP already have a product in development - and it is plenty good enough to start getting feedback.

marymin: The later you fail, the bigger the audience that sees you fail - and the more you have at risk. #leanstartup

This is another fun one that I don't get to talk about often enough. Our natural impulse is to wait and prevent problems. The more time we take, the fewer problems we should have, because we use that extra time to think things through. That's true as far as it goes, but it's actually faulty reasoning in a lot of startup situations.

If your startup is growing (or aspires to grow), then the costs of a mistake are always going up. If your site goes down when you have 100 customers, that's painful. But with 100 million customers, it could be catastrophic. Since the cost of failure is monotonically increasing, it actually makes sense to fail sooner, not later. In other words, make your mistakes as soon as possible and learn from them - before you get too big to be able to take those kinds of risks. This is the thinking that allowed us to overcome our fear of continuous deployment at IMVU.

Thanks so much to everyone who made the trip to SIPA and participated in the conversation, as well as to SIPA and HP for hosting me. I certainly learned a lot from the experience. Your support means the world to me. Thanks!

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This coming Thursday, May 21, is the last time I'm currently scheduled to give the full Lean Startup presentation in the Bay Area. The event is being sponsored by SIPA but will be open to the public. Last I heard from the venue, there are still some seats available; the ticket cost is only $25 if you register online.

Here's their write-up of the event:

We have heard that recessions are the best time to start your own startup. For entrepreneurs who have been on the path, it may be straight forward to get started. What about the rest of us? There are so many engineers with bright ideas, but don't know how to start.

The current macroeconomic climate presents unparalleled opportunities for those that can thrive with constrained resources. Many startups are now following the Lean Startup process. The Lean process was created by Toyota in the 50s. The Lean Startup embodies similar principles as applied to the startup process. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

Eric Ries, a co-founder of IMVU, is a strong proponent of this process and very successfully used it at IMVU. He will share the key principles of making sure you get your startup idea off the ground and stay on course.

If you are an engineer with bright ideas, consider Lean Startup to build confidence while building your startup.

1. Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

2. Continuously discover what customers want to buy before building or making follow-on investments in new features.

3. Ship new software at a dizzying pace: multiple times a day while improving quality and lowering costs.

4. Build a company-wide culture of decision-making based on real facts, not opinions.

You can register online here.

The event itself will be held on the HP campus in Cupertino, from 6-8:30pm. As always, if you're a reader and happen to be there, please do come say hello. If you have any questions, please post them as comments to this entry. I'll do my best to see that they are addressed.

As a reminder, slides and audio from the Web 2.0 Expo debut of this talk are available online, too. Hope to see you there.

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My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front.

First of all, I'm excited to announce that the workshop is now an O'Reilly Master Class, and we have added a second date on June 18. Most importantly, thanks to O'Reilly, we now have more capacity, including a few additional seats to the previously-sold-out May 29 date. You can register for both dates on the new official signup page.

What will be covered in the full-day program? Take a look:

This full-day Master Class focuses on how to build a startup from the ground up to focus on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. Using examples drawn from his own experiences in the startup hub of Silicon Valley, Eric Ries unravels the myths and misconceptions that guide most startups, and paints a picture of a new way forward for the industry. Unlike other incubator-led programs, this workshop is open to anyone who wants to learn, and it does not require companies take investment or give out equity.

Through case studies, exercises, and discussions, Eric Ries will guide entrepreneurs of all stripes through the key areas that determine success for startups: product, engineering, QA, marketing, and business strategy. This workshop presents a new methodology that will allow you to bring new products -- and companies -- to life.

At the end of the workshop, you will have new insight into how to evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of your company, as well as a clear plan of action to bring lean-startup thinking back home. Rather than abstract principles, you'll learn to directly problem-solve.

You can click here to learn more.

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. I'm working on a future post where I'll share the details of how I used customer development to shape both the content and packaging of this event, so look for that soon.

For now, I'd like to ask a favor. Given that this is my first effort in a joint partnership, I'd like to ask you to help spread the word about the Master Class. Would you be willing to link to the Master Class info page from your blog? Twitter about it or post it to a social media site? Most importantly, if you know a high-quality entrepreneur who you think would add to the conversation, would you be willing to try and convince them to attend? I'd also welcome nominations over email, if you have someone you think is a good fit for the event. Please feel free to send along your comments or questions about the workshop itself.

Lastly, some people have asked about discounted rates for those that can't afford the tuition fee. Others have asked about sponsorship opportunities at the workshop. We're not going to have any form of advertising, but I am considering trying to offer a scholarship program to worthy entrepreneurs, just as we did for the Web 2.0 Expo. If you'd be interested in sponsoring a scholarship, or applying for one, would you get in touch or leave a comment on this post? If there's enough interest, I'll do my best to screen the applicants and recognize the donors.

Thank you all for your continued support, and hope to see you at an event soon.
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Fear is an emotion that slows teams down. It makes us more cautious. It makes us over-invest in prevention. It makes us less willing to trust, to communicate openly, and - most painfully - to take risks. It is the dominant reason I see teams fall back on "best practices" which may not be effective, but are at least reassuring. Unfortunately, these actions generally work to increase the batch size of our work, which magnifies the consequences of failure and therefore leads to more fear. Reducing fear is a heuristic we can use to judge process improvements. Anything that reduces fear is likely to speed up the fundamental feedback loop.

The interesting thing about fear is that to reduce it requires two contradictory impulses. First, we can reduce fear by mitigating the consequences of failure. If we construct areas where experimentation is less costly, we can feel safer and therefore try new things. On the other hand, the second main way to reduce fear is to engage in the feared activity more often. By pushing the envelope, we can challenge our assumptions about consequences and get better at what we fear at the same time. Thus, it is sometimes a good idea to reduce fear by slowing down, and sometimes a good idea to reduce fear by speeding up.

To illustrate this point, I want to excerpt a large part of a recent blog post by Owen Rogers, who organized my recent trip to Vancouver. I spent some time with his company before the conference and discussed ways to get started with continuous deployment, including my experience introducing it at IMVU. He summarized that conversation well, so rather than re-tread that material, I'll quote it here:

One thing that I was surprised to learn was that IMVU started out with continuous deployment. They were deploying to production with every commit before they had an automated build server or extensive automated test coverage in place. Intuitively this seemed completely backwards to me - surely it would be better to start with CI, build up the test coverage until it reached an acceptable level and then work on deploying continuously. In retrospect and with a better understanding of their context, their approach makes perfect sense. Moreover, approaching the problem from the direction that I had intuitively is a recipe for never reaching a point where continuous deployment is feasible.

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. Their initial users were super early adopters who were willing to trade quality for access to new features. Getting features and fixes into hands of users was the greatest priority - a test environment would just get in the way and slow down the validation coming from having code running in production. As the product matured, they were able to ratchet up the quality to prevent regression on features that had been truly embraced by their customers.

Second, leveraging a dynamic scripting language (like PHP) for building web applications made it easy to quickly set up a simple, non-disruptive deployment process. There’s no compilation or packaging steps which would generally be performed by an automated build server - just copy and change the symlink.

Third, they evolved ways to selectively expose functionality to sets of users. As Eric said, “at IMVU, ‘release’ is a marketing term”. New functionality could be living in production for days or weeks before being released to the majority of users. They could test, get feedback and refine a new feature with a subset of users until it was ready for wider consumption. Users were not just an extension of the testing team - they were an extension of the product design team.

Understanding these three factors makes it clear as to why continuous deployment was a starting point for IMVU. In contrast, at most organizations - especially those with mature products - high quality is the starting point. It is assumed that users will not tolerate any decrease in quality. Users should only see new functionality once it is ready, fully implemented and thoroughly tested, lest they get a bad impression of the product that could adversely affect the company’s brand. They would rather build the wrong product well than risk this kind of exposure. In this context, the automated test coverage would need to be so good as to render continuous deployment infeasible for most systems. Starting instead from a position where feedback cycle time is the priority and allowing quality to ratchet up as the product matures provides a more natural lead in to continuous deployment.

The rest of the post, which you can read here, discusses the application of these principles to other contexts. I recommend you take a look.

Returning to the topic at hand, I think this example illustrates the tension required to reduce fear. In order to do continuous deployment at IMVU, we had to handle fear two ways:

1. Reduce consequences - by emphasizing the small number of customers we had, we were able to convince ourselves that exposing them to a half-baked product was not very risky. Although it was painful, we focused our attention on the even bigger risks we were mitigating: the risk that nobody would use our product, the risk that customers wouldn't pay for virtual goods, and the risk that we'd spend years of our lives building something that didn't matter - again.
   
   
2. Fear early, fear often - by actually doing continuous deployment before we were really "ready" for it, we got used to the real benefits and consequences of acting at that pace. On the negative side, we got a visceral feel for the kinds of changes that could really harm customers, like commits that take the whole site down. But on the plus side, we got to see just how powerful it is to be able to ship changes to the product at any hour of the day, to get rapid feedback on new ideas, and to not have to wait for the next "release train" to put your ideas in action. On the whole, it made it easier for us to decide to invest in preventive maintenance (ie the Cluster Immune System) rather than just slow down and accept a larger batch size.

Making this fear-reduction strategy work required more than just the core team getting used to continuous deployment. We eventually discovered (via five whys) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. For people we hired from larger companies especially, this was challenging. To get them over that hurdle, we once again turned to the "reduce consequences" and "face your fears" duality.

When a new engineer started at IMVU, I had a simple rule: they had to ship code to production on their first day. It wasn't an absolute rule; if it had to be the second day, that was OK. But if it slipped to the third day, I started to worry. Generally, we'd let them pick their own bug to fix, or, if necessary, assign them something small. As we got better at this, we realized the smaller the better. Either way, it had to be a real bug and it had to be fixed live, in production. For some, this was an absolutely terrifying experience. "What if I take the site down?!" was a common refrain. I tried to make sure we always gave the same answer: "if you manage to take the site down, that's our fault for making it too easy. Either way, we'll learn something interesting."

Because this was such a big cultural change for most new employees, we didn't leave them to sink or swim on their own. We always assigned them a "code mentor" from the ranks of the more established engineers. The idea was that these two people would operate as a unit, with the mentor's job performance during this period evaluated by the performance of the new person. As we continued to find bugs in production caused by new engineers who weren't properly trained, we'd do root cause analysis, and keep making proportional investments in improving the process. As a result, we had a pretty decent curriculum for each mentor to follow to ensure the new employee got up to speed on the most important topics quickly.

These two practices worked together well. For one, it required us to keep our developer sandbox setup procedure simple and automated. Anyone who had served as a code mentor would instinctively be bothered if someone else made a change to the sandbox environment that required special manual setup. Such changes inevitably waste a lot of time, since we generally build a lot more developer sandboxes than we realize. Most importantly, we immediately thrust our new employees into a mindset of reduced fear. We had them imagine the most risky thing they could possibly do - pushing code to production too soon - and then do it.

Here's the key point. I won't pretend that this worked smoothly every time. Some engineers, especially in the early days, did indeed take the site down on their first day. And that was not a lot of fun. But it still turned out OK. We didn't have that many customers, after all. And continuous deployment meant we could react fast and fix the problem quickly. Most importantly, new employees realized that they weren't going to be fired for making a mistake. We'd immediately involve them in the postmortem analysis, and in a lot of cases it was the newcomer themselves (with the help of their mentor) who would would build the prophylactic systems required to prevent the next new person from tripping over that same issue.

Fear slows teams of all sizes down. Even if you have a large team, could you create a sandboxed environment where anyone can make changes that affect a small number of customers? Even as we grew the team at IMVU, we always maintained a rule that anyone could run a split-test without excess approvals as long as the total number of customers affected was below a critical threshold. Could you create a separate release process for small or low-risk commits, so that work that happens in small batches is released faster? My prediction in such a situation is that, over time, an increasing proportion of your commits will become eligible for the fast-track procedure.

Whatever fear-reducing tactics you try, share your results in the comments. Or, if fear's got you paralyzed, share that too. We'll do our best to help.

(with apologies to Frank Herbert)

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• Work in small batches (startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com)
• Continuous deployment in 5 easy steps (radar.oreilly.com)
• 2009 05 01 How To Build A Lean Startup Step By Step (slideshare.net)
• Continuous integration step-by-step (startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com)

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Hello From Long Laney Honey Bee Farms! We are David & Sheri Burns helping you to learn and enjoy keeping honey bees. If you have not listened to our Studio Bee Live broadcast, please do. We answer beekeeping questions and give out good advice. Click here to listen now or go to: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html

This is where we just sit around and talk about beekeeping with you. Tune in and enjoy the fun.


Your bees should all be doing well now that there is plenty of nectar sources for the bees to forage on. Keep an eye on your mite populations and if you see more than you should, then consider using the GREEN DRONE COMB. These combs are plastic and have the drone cell size embossed on them already. The strategy behind the green comb is to have the queen lay these full of drone eggs, because the mites like the longer brood cycle of the drones (24 days until they emerge). Once the green drone comb is sealed, remove it, freeze it for 24 hours, scrap out the dead mites (and drones), then put it back in. Use 1 or 2 green comb against the wall of a deep hive body.

We've been busy trying to get our queen operation up to full speed. I want to try and wet your appetite about raising your own queens. It is very simple to do. There are many methods and one that we use is a combination of the Doolittle method and the Smith method. Jay Smith was a beekeeper in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Indiana. I like his method the most. He grafted larva into queen cells, and then placed them in a starter hive, then after a day or two he placed them into a finishing hive. We have found this to be very effective. Some people do not even use a starter hive, they just place the grafts into a large hive above a queen excluder.

LESSON: 53: THE DETAILS OF QUEEN REARING

In our last lesson, I gave you an overview and some simple approaches to raising your own queen. Today, I want to go into a bit more depth on this subject. Before I do, let me remind you that on May 16th, I will be offering a one day hands-on course here on our honey bee farm just on queen rearing. This is on Saturday from 9am - 3pm with lunch provided. I'll teach you the fundamentals on queen rearing as well as take you out into the apiary to see first hand how to build a starter hive and what to look for in a finishing colony. If you'd like to take this class, please call us as registration is limited to 12. Call 217-427-2678.

Several people have asked me to explain about making my own queen cell cups from our own wax. Because some wax has been found to be contaminated with chemicals used to treat mites, we prefer either to use plastic cell cups or to make our own cups from our wax.

My father-n-law made me my cell cup maker. He started with a 1/4 inch dowel rod. The harder the wood the better, but anything will work well. He then used his grinder to shape the ends down to about 3/8 of an inch that tapers down as seen in the picture, which you can click on for a larger image. He then drilled holes slightly smaller than 1/4 inch and inserted the rods into a piece of wood. To dip these rod, you must first dip the tips into cold water. The more wet the tips are the easier it is to remove the queen cups.

Now, heat up your wax. We use a skillet we bought for $50 at Wal-mart. It works great for us.It has a thermostat so controlling the wax is very easy.

Now, the trick is to not make your cups larger than they need to be. Otherwise, it makes grafting more difficult. Dip them so that the wax goes up onto the rods between 3/8-5/16 of an inch. Now, I dip once, pull it out for about 20 seconds and re-dip. And I do it again. I usually dip around 3 or 4 times. Then, I have a large pan of icy water near by and I dip my cells down into the cold icy water for a minute or so. Now, I can gently twist off my cells. The first time or two on new wood can make it hard to remove the cells. But always dip the wood tips in cold water prior to dipping into wax. The more you use it the easier it is to get the cups off because the tips are not as porous. You can see my hot skillet in the picture, and I leave it just like this all the time. When I'm finished, I turn it off and put a lid on it. Then, the next time I want to use it, I crank it up and it's ready. Never anything to clean up and my wife has more pots and pans since I bought my own.

Now you need to prepare to graft. It takes proper planning to graft successfully. I use a cutter's board for easy clean up and keeps my graft area clean and tidy. When grafting larvae, it is important to keep them moist. Temperature is not a factor but moisture is. You do not want them to dry out. I use wet paper towels. As you can see, I place several wet paper towels flat on the cutter's block so that when I set my frame of larvae on it, the underside will remain moist. By the way, larva is one and larvae is more than one.

So set up your area, whether it is the kitchen table or the dash of your pickup truck, make sure you have everything you need. Grafting tool, flash light, magnifying glass or reader glasses, wet paper towels (a box of wet wipes works fine too and can be stored easily), cell cups on bar and cell cup frame.

Here's one of my experimental cell bars. As you can see, I'm trying to see if any of these cups make better queens. The first cup on the left is a plastic cup which I dipped into wax. The second and third cups are plastic and not dipped. The forth cup is a homemade wax cup and the rest are plastic. Most have found very little difference between the above cup configuration and therefore most grafters use the plastic cups. We use a combination now, but we do enjoy making our own cell cups. One reason is we do not reuse our plastic cups. So we always feel bad just throwing away hundreds of these cups. They can be cleaned but the effort is too hard and not worth the time.

Now, go out to the hive of your choice, a gentle hive that produces great honey and is not prone to have pest and disease issues. You now want to find a good frame to take back to graft from. Obviously you do not want a frame of honey, sealed brood or pollen. Some sealed brood is fine, like in the picture, because around the edge of this frame are some perfect aged larvae. An egg stands up in the base of a cell. But it lays down around day 3 or 4 and becomes a larva. We want to find the perfect age larva which by the naked eye will look like a comma on this page , and is about the same size only without the little dot at the top of the comma. Slightly curved laying flat on the bottom of the cell in royal jelly...that's what you are looking for. If it is too old, it will be more shaped like the letter c. In which case, they will not be able to feed it the "queen's food" as early as needed and the quality of the queen will suffer.

Once you find the perfect frame with the larvae you want to graft take it into your grafting room. Some people transport their frames in a cooler with some moist towels or rags and this is needed if there is considerable distance between your hive and where you will graft. I have actually grafted out in the apiary if the weather is not too bad. Try not to mishandle the frame. Just don't toss it in the back of your pickup truck.

Now, we are in the grafting room. Hope fills the air. You feel like a scientist or a surgeon about to perform the unbelievable... the unimaginable. Okay...stop thinking that way. It's not a big deal. Calm down.

Place your frame on the board with the top of the frame closest to you. The cells are angled toward the top slightly so this will help you see down into the cells. Find your comma shaped larva and use your grafting tool to scoop under it, taking the royal jelly and all. Now, place it into your new cell cup. You MUST keep the larva on the same side. In other words, whatever side was facing up before you grafted, make sure she lands in the new cup with that same side facing up. Bees breathe through spiracles on each side, and if you flip the larva over they will suffocate.

I love the Chinese grafting tool. I'm fast with it. It has a nice feel for me, and even has a little click when I release the larva into the new cup. But you can experiment to see which cup you like best. As you can see in the image, the Chinese grafting tool has a red button at the top and a small tip on the end. The tip is flexible and made of some sort of animal horn. The tip is flexible enough to go down into a cell, bend underneath the larva and royal jelly and then you just lift it out, being careful not to scrap the wall of the cell on the way back up.

Now you press the tip down into the base of the cell, centering well and slowly push the red bottom which pushes a piece of wood forcing the larva and royal jelly off the tip and into the base of the new cell.

You can see the wood in this close up picture and the top of the flexible horn can be seen in this picture as well. These grafting tools are easy to clean and reuse again and again. However, many people make their own grafting tools out of used dentist tools, tooth picks and other items. There are even expensive, more professional type grafting tools as well, so you'll have to test and see which one works best for you.

Your grafting technique will improve with practice. If you are unsuccessful at first, try grafting older, larger larvae just to test with. They are too old to work as queens, but it might be a starting point for you to try and then keep grafting smaller and smaller until you are comfortable with a 4 day old larva the size of a ",".

When I first started I would watch my grafting, looking into each cell and watching the whole time. Now, once I see the right aged larva, I do not look but just scoop and drop.

You do need good lighting and you might need visual assistance if you can't see up close. I go to Wal-mart and purchase reader glasses that are around 2.75 or 3+ magnification. Then I can graft with the eyesight of a 10 year old.

The more you graft the more you'll set up your operation to your needs.

Once I find the right larva to graft then I allow my tool to go into the cell until the tip hits the bottom. Then I let it curve under the larva. Now, I tilt it slightly backward so that the sticky larva is lifted from the base of the cell. The smaller the larvae the better, but more difficult it is to see and transfer. You do not want to move eggs. Eggs are too attached to the bottom and can be easily damaged. Once you've placed the larvae into the cups, do not be afraid when you are finished to turn them over. They will not fall out as they are stuck!

I usually graft about 60 cells at a time. I have a second set of paper towels handy so that I can cover the cells that I graft to keep them moist. Remember temperature is not so much of an issue when larvae are this young, but they can dry out.

So when I finish each bar, I cover it with a wet paper towel and keep covering each one I complete until I am ready to place the frames of cells into my starter hive.

Last week I mentioned how to prepare your starter hive, but let me mention it again. You want young nurse bees packed into the starter nuc or hive. They need to be extremely over crowded! Your grafts will be much more successfully the more over crowded your starter hive is. It should be difficult to get the lid on! And, of course, it needs to be queenless and have some honey and pollen.

Now transfer your grafts into your starter hive for 24-36 hours. Then, move them over to a larger queenright hive above a queen excluder. Just remember, the cups are going to be capped around day 8 so you can remove the queen cells and place them in your nucs between day 8-10. In case you grafted older larva, you might have your timing of emergence off, so to avoid a queen killing the rest by emerging early, I like to gather my sealed cells on day 10, not day 11!

The reason we like the finishing hive is because of it's size, it can better tend to a larger number of grafts whereas the smaller nuc or starter hive may not raise all grafts due to limit resources.

Remember when handling queen cups after day 10 that you must be careful and they must stay around 92 degrees. Handle them gently and keep them in their vertical position. The wings are the last to develop and rough treatment could cause the wings to be underdeveloped and then they may not be able to fly and mate.

Once your queens emerge and you are ready to sell them, and you want to mark them. This makes it easier for the customer to find them in the future. The International queen color code is determined by the year. All years ending in their respective number determines the color as seen in this image.

The best way to mark your queen is to purchase a queen marking pen. These work really well. Some claimed a marked queen may not be as accepted, but we have never had hives act negatively toward a marked queen. I feel that marking a queen is a helpful way for you not only to find her, but to know if you still have the same queen.

In lesson 34 we demonstrated how to use a marking tube. But watch the video below as I show you how to mark a queen by holding her. First you pick her off the comb by her wings. Hold the tip of your index finger near her legs and she will hold on with her legs. Then, bring your thumb up and hold her by a couple of legs. We exclusively use this field approach to marking our queens. My video is a bit out of focus, but you can get the idea. Click on the image below to watch the video. If you are viewing this lesson within your Email program, you may not be able to view the video. If that's the case, then you'll need to read this lesson from our website at: http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com

For those of you who will sell your queens and ship them to your customers, you will want to make up your own cage candy. I just made a batch here. It is tricky, and you need to experiment. You use powdered sugar and a special syrup that you buy at most beekeeping places. Your mix cannot be too hard or the bees cannot eat through it to release the queen. But, if it is too runny, it can warm up and drip onto the queen and cause her to perish. So practice with the right mixture. When you think it is right, ship and queen to a friend or your brother to be sure it stays the right consistency when mailed.

Well, we've had a hard day grafting queens, but the day is over and you did a great job. You grafted, raised your queens, marked them, made candy for their cages and shipped them out. Now we can sit back in our lawn chair and sip on a nice glass of iced tea, sweet tea of course with lemon and look at our bee yard of mating nucs and ponder great philosophical questions like why does a smoker always work better when you don't need it any more?

Until the next lesson, BEE-have yourself!

David & Sheri Burns

Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

217-427-2678

www. honeybeesonline.com

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First up is an interview with Mixergy, about lean startups and what to do if customers don't like your (initial) product. You can watch the whole hour-long discussion here. Here's a little taste from a story I've mentioned on this blog a few times, but haven't discussed in detail, about the decision at IMVU to abandon our IM add-on concept; you can also watch an excerpt on YouTube.

I mean, it requires a lot of explanation. instant messaging add-on - it’s not a category that exists in her mind. But, since she’s in the room with us we can talk her into doing it. So she downloads the product, we have her install it on the computer, and we’re like “okay, it’s time to check it out, you know, invite one of your friends to chat.”

She says, “no way.”

We say, “Why not?”

She says, “I don’t know if this thing is cool yet. You want me to risk inviting my friends to a thing that I don’t think is cool? What are they going to think of me? If it sucks, they’re going to think I suck, right?”

And we say “No, no, it’s going to be so fun. It’s a social product…”

And the look of dubiousness, I mean, you can just see, this is a dealbreaker. And of course the first time you have that experience you say, “All right, it’s just that person, let em out, you know, send them away. Get me a new one.”

So then the second customer comes in. Same thing. Third customer comes in, same thing. You start to see these patterns and you’re like, okay. No matter how stubborn you are there’s got to be something wrong here.

Watch the rest here...

Here's an excerpt from YouTube:






Second, the complete audio (with slides) from my webcast last week is up on YouTube now too:



I hope you'll indulge me as I share some of the testimonials we heard from the participants who opted to answer the post-event survey. I'm trying to get better about taking advantage of the many testimonials you all have written for me. Thank you all so much.

His thinking about the relationship between business and technology is refreshing. His understanding of development problems impressive. I can't think of anyone who would not benefit from the presentation. No wonder Kent B. was there!

-Blaine Wishart

I was pleasantly surprised at how concise, useful and poignant the content was...well worth the time!

-Brian Moelk

Great presentation, as always!

-Sachin Rekhi

Eric is one of the smartest guys in the business.

-Ryan Kuder

Probably the best thing was knowing that Eric has done this and seen it work. It's not just a hypothesis but he has real working knowledge

- Trevor Gerzen

I absolutely loved the closing. "Stop typing, take your hands off the keyboard. Think of one concrete thing you can do in the next 24 hours to move you closer to this." Long pause. "Thanks for listening."

-Kyle Maxwell

Inspiring presentation, makes the daunting process of putting together a startup seem just a bit less daunting.

-Lawrence Green

Thanks for reading, listening, and watching. Your feedback, positive or negative, is always welcome.

Read More »

Two new videos are online from recent speeches. The first is my talk on engagement loops and the levers of engagement from the Kontagent/Facebook Developer Garage. Slides from this talk are available here. For more on the subject of engagement loops, you can read my original essay here.

5. Eric Ries - Engagement Loops 3. Justin Smith - Social Gaming Trends - @ Kontagent / Facebook Dev Garage from albert lai on Vimeo.

(This also gives me a chance to clarify that I am no relation to the author of the classic book on positioning, Al Ries)


Next up, here's the video from my talk with Steve Blank at startup2startup. I've embedded the slides below the video feed.

Customer Development at Startup2Startup

Thanks for watching!

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Wow, what an incredible turnout for webcast this morning, right on the heels of a phenomenal crowd at startup2startup last night. It's been a great twelve hours for the lean startup!

We'll have a full audio recording posted soon, but I did want to share the slides with everyone. Much of the content is shared with the Web 2.0 Expo talk, but there are a few new slides and in the discussion/Q&A we were able to go into much more implementation detail. One big idea that I haven't had a chance to write about on the blog yet is answering the question "What is a startup?" Here's the working definition I've started using:

A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

In a future post, I'll attempt to unpack this definition in detail. For now, I just want to call attention to the idea that it has nothing to do with size of company, sector of the economy, or industry.

2009 05 01 How To Build A Lean Startup Step By Step

View more presentations from Eric Ries.

And now for some instant twitter reactions:

KentBeck: @ericries thank you for the insights. "unknown problem" was an eye opener for me. i'm running junit max according to lean startup principles

OK, so I'm showing off. One of my personal heroes, Kent Beck, the creator of Extreme Programming and a truly wonderful writer was logged in and twittering, too. What a thrill.

OReillyUG: For more info on The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, register for our upcoming courses in SF May 29 and June 18 http://training.oreilly.com/theleanstartup/ #leanstartup

Very excited to announce that I've teamed up with O'Reilly to produce the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop as part of their Master Class series. As a result, we should be able to accommodate more people and more venues, maybe even more cities, if there is interest.

Now for some real feedback:

@rotkapchen #leanstartup Love this: Need both problem team & solution team working simultan, exchanging hypotheses, findings & solutions.

I'm continuing to push this idea, that departments can incentivize sub-optimal behavior. What makes a department (or individual) "more efficient" doesn't necessarily advance the company's goals.

farazq: Awesome session @ericries. LIKED: Y startups fail, cont deployment vs waterfall vs agile, small batches & learn fr biz metrics #leanstartup

As concise a summary as I've ever seen.

hwijaya: #leanstartup It's not the release fast dat matter. It's getting the evident dat u're on the right track (wat u learn frm making the release)

katrynharris: @ericries: "go as fast as we can work reliably to make progress & no faster" - absolutely & thanks for a super webcast! #leanstartup

Really trying to emphasize the importance of speed - but speed with regard to actual progress. That's what gives startups their disruptive innovation edge. Going "too fast" is not actually helpful. Learning to tell the difference is the hard part, and creating processes that act as speed regulators is the payoff.

clynetic: #leanstartup - All are ready to do this: Whether starting new company, have startup but need to iterate faster, or established company.

kylemaxwell: Behind every technical problem lies a human problem. #leanstartup

Always glad to see people pick up on these themes. It's never too late, you can always get started, and since all problems are human problems, there's no hiding behind a technical excuse.

Of course, not everybody had a great time.

wogsland: Still not understanding the "lean" aspect. Techniques sound fairly expensive to do correctly. #leanstartup

This is an objection I hear regularly, so I'm grateful to have the chance to address it. Lean is not about cheap, it's about speed. All lean transformation techniques, including the ones I advocate, involve making some part of the organization "less efficient" in order to speed up the whole. So they require investments to pay off. However, the level of waste in most organizations is so high that the investments pay off immediately, and therefore create new resources that can be reinvested in further improvements.

For example, it takes a few days of effort to build a simple split-testing system along the lines I advocate. Some companies tell me they "cannot afford" to do it. But if that split-testing system allows you avoid building just one major feature that would have been a waste of time, it's paid for itself many times over. If you don't have the confidence or ability to make trade-offs like that, you can't get lean.

kylemaxwell: you have known knowns, and known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. #leanstartup #rumsfeld

There's no way to avoid this Rumsfeld quote. Then again, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." What can I say? He had a point.

jimmurphy: @ericries bug is your waterfall slide: Problem: Know Solution: *Known* #leanstartup

Thanks! This is fixed in the posted slides.

wogsland: uck, buzzword vomit #leanstartup

Well, I don't know what to say to this. I welcome suggestions for ways to get the same content across with fewer buzzwords. I don't think I can be very helpful without a discussion of the theory behind the lean startup, but I also don't know how else to teach that content. Please feel free to post your thoughts.

And then there's some questions that came up during the webcast that we didn't have time to discuss. I covered a few of them on twitter already:

• Q: "Do you reccomend removing features that you've launched but don't movethe needle on engagement or revenue?" A: yes, absolutely.
  
  
• Q: Does the Lean Startup framework work efficiently within a company of 2-3 people (think small)?" A: yes, yes, yes
  
  
• Q: Does the Lean Startup framework work efficiently within a company of 2-3 people (think small)?" A: yes, yes, yes
  
  
• Q: "Seems like the biggest issue is changing people's mentality. How did you deal with that on a new recruit (specificaly seasoned ones)?"
  
  A: have them deploy code to production on their first day as an employee. made a big impression.
  
  
• Q "In CD you spend a lot of time on phone with users. How does this map to the web? Surveys? Trial and Error + Analytics? What else?"
  
  A: honestly, all of the above. Phone/in-person is still critical, but have to remember that is for idea generation, not idea validation
  
  
• Good Q on webcast: "when measuring the results of your test, how do you avoid the post hocergo propter hoc fallacy?" A: you must split-test

If you had another questions you wanted to see answered (or do after you see the slides or audio), please post them here! I'll do my best to answer.

Lastly, I was really excited to announce on the webcast that we've opened up two dates for the Lean Startup Workshop - now that it's in O'Reilly's Master Class series, I have a lot more capacity to do these events. If you're interested, you can find out more here.

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• The Lean Startup workshop coming soon (startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com)
• The Lean Startup Talk From Web 2.0 Expo (4cloudcomputing.blogspot.com)
• How to build companies that matter (radar.oreilly.com)

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