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Customer Development in Japan: a History Lesson

Steve Blank

I asked Tsutsumi-san to write a guest post for my blog to describe his experience with Customer Development in Japan. In 2004, Googling terms like “high tech marketing” and “startup” I discovered “ The Four Steps to The Epiphany ” at Cafépress.com. Evangelizing Customer Development in Japan. ————-.

Japan 292
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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

These bubble startups were actually guessing at their business model and did premature and aggressive hype and early company launches and had extremely high burn rates – all predicated on an IPO to raise more cash. They needed to be sure that what they were building was what customers wanted and needed. The result?

Lean 335
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The Search For the Fountain of Youth – Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Enterprise

Steve Blank

They start with an innovation, search for a repeatable business model, build the infrastructure for a company, then grow by efficiently executing the model. outpace an existing company’s business model. You want to start executing the business model. Companies have a fairly predictable life cycle.

Search 242
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Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

Venture Capitalists on your board developed the expertise to get your firm public as soon as possible using whatever it took including hype, spin, expand, and grab market share because the sooner you got your billion dollar market cap, the sooner the VC firm could sell their shares and distribute their profits.

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Teaching Customer Development and the Lean Startup – Topological Homeomorphism

Steve Blank

I’ve been teaching Customer Development at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Business School since the fall of 2004 and in a joint MBA with Columbia since 2005. Back in 2004, Jerry Engel the head of the Entreprenuership program at Haas Business School at U.C. A lot has happened since I first authored and taught the class.

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The Lean LaunchPad Educators Class

Steve Blank

It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. So what would a search process for a business model look like? Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development at Haas business school.

Lean 286
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Master of Customer Acquisition, Matt Coffin, On Startups …

Both Sides of the Table

Business model: o They bought a lot of ad inventory (banner ads/advertising) driving people to signup forms, converting (fill out form) and sold leads, o Initial strategy was first comparison shopping and then monitoring and upselling on more savings. He typed lowermybills.com was not registered and available so he bought it.