Ethan Beardsley

As a first time digital startup CEO, I spend a lot of time reading blogs which share experiences and best practices

One of the blogs that I’ve found most interesting is Eric Ries’s Lessons Learned blog.  While a lot of the stuff is pretty technical (Eric’s a former CTO), I’ve found that he’s established a very clear, pragmatic framework for thinking about the best way to build a lean startup.

I also find a lot of Eric’s examples quite relevant because he often refers back to his experience at IMVU, a teen virtual world with a strong UGC component. This means that he has applied a rigorous  development process to a content-driven B2C product which addresses a pretty fickle demographic.

The foundation of Eric’s model is built on the agile software development model whereby you build quickly, release and iterate rapidly in order to incrementally improve the product based on customer feedback. The strength of this model is that it harnesses the essential power of the Internet. You can ship an imperfect product and improve it in real-time based on customer feedback. You’re spared the educated guess on what your consumers will adopt (no costly focus groups and market surveys…) and you don’t start marketing the product until you’re sure you’ve got your addressable market nailed down and you know how to make consumers pay for your product.

As we work on getting ready for the Nooja launch, I refer back to this model which is full of promise for the content and videogame industry. The entertainment industry is notoriously hit-driven and success is very difficult to predict. If you can combine creative excellence and innovation in the pre-launch phase with a humble, agile and community-driven post-launch improvement phase, you significantly reduce the level of risk associated with investments in digital content.