A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

On the other hand, while the small company loses 9 months to the loss of a key employee, or even implodes, the big company is the steady turtle that adds thousands of customer per month like clockwork and wins the race. “The future is inherently unpredictable,” insists the small company, spurred on by Lean and Agile mindsets.

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

The Equity Kicker

MAY 7, 2013

It’s companies are different to traditional economy companies because they are focused on delighting customers and rapid innovation. Creative economy companies have, in effect, adopted agile methodologies across all their business areas and it isn’t surprising that most traditional companies find it impossible to copy them.

Development Team Review 94

Development Team Review Business Plan Agile Operations 94

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. Startups needed millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product out the door to customers.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer. Cell phone handsets were the size of a lunch box and cost thousand of dollars. Their mistakes?

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

As a veteran of many disasters in which improvising in the moment to meet an immediate need led to innovative solutions, Carl has been impressed by how many businesses, small and large, have reinvented the way they serve their customers during the pandemic. Then they've gotten to work. It's member-owned.

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

I’m honored to be at a university noted for knowledge, and in a city with 2000 years of history – home of Gaudí one of the 20 th century’s greatest innovators. These Key Performance Indicators and processes are what make a company efficient —but they are also the root cause of its inability to be agile and innovative.

Private Equity 328

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 328

ReadWriteStart

MAY 28, 2013

Blank first started piecing together the concept in 2000 and created The Four Steps to the Epiphany in 2003. A few years later Blank was teaching agile engineering, which is the idea that “instead of building a product in one lump sum, people build it in increments.” The Evolution Of The Lean Startup. The lean startup model is not new.

Lean 60

Lean Startup Technical Review Business Model 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 6, 2014

Here’s an example of how they made performance-based compensation work: If someone sold 100 cases in April 2000, and 100 cases in April 2001 (these numbers are unrealistically small for simplicity), their commission would be the same in both years. But the most innovative, agile companies embrace mistakes.

Employee 208

Employee Leadership Technical Review Hiring 208

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it. I know plenty of people who prefer more advanced source control system, but my belief is that many agile practices diminish the importance of advanced features like branching. You can keep the team focused on customer-centric results, rather than conformance to spec.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. During the decade between 1991 and 2000, nearly 2000 venture backed companies went public. Here’s why. Take a look at the chart below. (It

Venture Capital 302

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 302

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. This was possible because in 2000, Donna and Handspring were in an Existing Market.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 212

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 13, 2017

As I wrote previously, A brand is the sum total of the experience your prospects and customers have with your company. A strong brand communicates what your company does, how it does it, and at the same time, establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers. Your company’s brand is, in many ways, its personality.

Small Business 53

Small Business Startup Global Design 53

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. 2006 - broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. Mostly smartphones + restaurateurs attitude towards viewing the internet as a customer acquisition tool. Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). is the leading consumer internet company with Terry Semel as CEO.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I started my last company with 100% off-shore resources because I could never have completed Customer Development at a reasonable cost of money or regulatory burden had I employed US Citizens. Since 2000 we have passed a number of laws and regulations that are killing innovation in the US. September 10, 2009 4:37 AM Dale B.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 15, 2010

For example, let's say you designed a banner ad for a certain website (cost: $1000) and paid to run the ad for three months (cost: $2000). Here's where you expect me to say how stupid big-business is and how little startups are smart and agile and never make mistakes like that, but that's crap. You've created an awesome feature.

Cost 273

Cost Reputation Agile Sales 273

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.

Silicon Valley 177

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 177

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

They all went away; they got rolled up in 1999 and 2000 into these too-big-to-fail banking operations," Davidson tells us. Then the risk of that product succeeding is lessened by network effects made feasible by app stores and digital distribution, driving up customer adoption. Brown & Sons, Montgomery Securities.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

The kinds of places where you have to sign an NDA when you walk in the lobby… When I lived and worked in the bay area (2000-2005) virtually all the startups were down on the peninsula somewhere. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

The challenge I want to take on is to be specific in the recommendations make, and to share how we can be very nimble and agile. The goal is for each company’s Google Data Studio to not look like a CDP (customized data puke), but to be a focused strategic dashboard with an emphasis on IABI. If you want to play along.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141