(I was an early employee at IMVU, #5 or so. I left IMVU in January).
It's easy to discount Eric's influence, saying "he was only there for the first few years", but it's wrong.
Will Harvey, the original CEO, had the "vision" for what the product would be.
But Eric (and Steve Blank) provided the vision for how the business should operate. This has turned out to be much more important, for basically all the reasons that Lean Startup people advocate (pivoting, testing assumptions rather than "executing one guy's vision", etc).
You know how people stress how important it is to establish company culture, especially when the company is small? "The original Lean Startup" is Eric's legacy at IMVU. Split testing, continuous deployment, 5 whys, etc... These all still define IMVU's company culture.
The current executive team are good, competent people. And it's true that the company crossed the line into profitability (a watershed moment for any startup) under their watch. But, despite this, IMVU has been impacted far more by Eric than by any other individual.
(I was at IMVU for almost four years, just left last week, and was originally on-boarded there during the last six months of Eric's stay.)
The tone of testing everything, revalidating assumptions, and relentlessly refining process after mistakes stayed with the company well after Eric left, and is going strong to this day.
Just because he self-promotes doesn't invalidate the fact that he has keen insights worth learning. After practicing these "lean startup" habits for the past four years, I can't imagine working without them.
(Was going to respond to the grandparent message before I saw Dusty's response, figured I'd chime in anyway after seeing it.)
It's easy to discount Eric's influence, saying "he was only there for the first few years", but it's wrong.
Will Harvey, the original CEO, had the "vision" for what the product would be.
But Eric (and Steve Blank) provided the vision for how the business should operate. This has turned out to be much more important, for basically all the reasons that Lean Startup people advocate (pivoting, testing assumptions rather than "executing one guy's vision", etc).
You know how people stress how important it is to establish company culture, especially when the company is small? "The original Lean Startup" is Eric's legacy at IMVU. Split testing, continuous deployment, 5 whys, etc... These all still define IMVU's company culture.
The current executive team are good, competent people. And it's true that the company crossed the line into profitability (a watershed moment for any startup) under their watch. But, despite this, IMVU has been impacted far more by Eric than by any other individual.