Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But at times it’s why entrepreneurs can sink their own companies. Other times it’s just plain dumb.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

And I remind them that they should be bringing some type of domain expertise (technical or business) to the table. Other Roles in a Startup Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. The Adventure of a Lifetime. This is the minimum feature set for founders.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

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.

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Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 249

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on?

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Reply Bill Allred , on May 1, 2009 at 10:46 am Said: This is a really common pitfall. If you look at the top 3 online retailers by conversion rate, none of these are award-winning designs : [link] [link] [link] However, they convert ~25% of visitors to customers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

January 18, 2009 8:22 AM Dan Khan said. Cheers, -Dan January 18, 2009 9:04 PM Ivo said. January 20, 2009 1:12 PM Anonymoussaid. April 12, 2009 12:28 AM kenshin said. April 21, 2009 4:51 PM Geethan said. April 26, 2009 8:40 PM RubyFocus Groups said. September 27, 2009 3:31 PM codercofounder said.

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. In many of them I get asked similar questions, including the inevitable “what makes a great entrepreneur?” You could just outspend.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 284

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. April 14, 2009 3:09 PM Eric Santos said.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. The reality is that the United States is still a nation of small businesses. million) of the 15 million net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009.

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Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 311

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Embrace technical debt Financial debt plays an important and positive role in our economy under normal conditions. For example, IMVU’s early business model was made possible by Paypal’s easy self-serve and open access payment system. Remember Hamlet?

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, June 5, 2009 It’s a startup, not a spreadsheet Some people, when they start to realize the power of using data to inform their decisions, become obsessed with optimization. Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We have two great teaching assistants , plus we’ve rounded up a team of 25 mentors (VC’s and entrepreneurs) to help coach the teams. Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.).

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. There is also a special discounted rate available for entrepreneurs and bootstrappers, about which you can learn more here. Thanks, Alexandre Gomes May 28, 2009 8:59 AM Eric Overton said.

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Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process.

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Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 234

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Entrepreneur -“Well no but my product is much better than their product and I have this great idea….”

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Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Filed under: Ardent , Family/Career , Technology « Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development Customer Development: Past, Present, Future » 17 Responses Mark Essel , on November 19, 2009 at 6:55 am Said: Haha, closure is well worth the effort when an entertaining tale can be shared!

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. I feel like “conversion rate optimization” is in 2013 what “social media marketing” was in 2009. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? Website Analysis.

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Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Hewlett’s partner Dave Packard wanted to get into the computer business.) It was priced at $22,000 – equivalent to about $140,000 in 2009 dollars. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Elephant Graveyard Reinvention of large companies, while making for great case studies are rare.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Truth: The Lean Startup methodology applies to all companies that face uncertainty about what customers will want. Those general managers are entrepreneurs , too. Myth: Lean Startups replace vision with data or customer feedback. Those general managers are entrepreneurs , too.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

In this admittedly very unscientific survey I’ve found that between a quarter and half of the students I consider “hard-core&# entrepreneurs/founders (working passionately to found a company,) self-identified as coming from a less than benign upbringing. I’ve been surprised at the data.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Witness, for example, this terrific Fast Company article on Bill Nguyen , serial entrepreneur who’s seventh startup “Color” famously raised $41m for a new mobile app before it even launched. The launch, by the way, was a failure. And it’s now bankrupt.) But really, are all those acquirers so stupid? Surely not.

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IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. I offered to introduce him to the firm whose Entrepreneur-in-Residence offer I had just accepted.

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www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

For example, most entrepreneurs know that the most successful entrepreneurs - from Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos - kept tight control over their companies. Having seen these dilemmas derail countless startups, I wish every entrepreneur and prospective founder would read this book." - Eric. But such a best-case approach is hazardous.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 9, 2009 10 years of entrepreneurship I recently passed my ten-year anniversary of becoming an entrepreneur. No business model, either. BusinessWeek named me one of the top young entrepreneurs in tech , based on my work at IMVU. July 9, 2009 7:32 AM Peter Kane said.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 8, 2009 Introducing the Lean Startup Cohort subscription program Over the past few months, I have been engaged in another customer discovery exercise with passionate early adopters of the lean startup methodology. I am now ready to move into the customer validation phase. Great idea.

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Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. That is customer development. “But it never happened.&# [Alas, customers dont know what they want!

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San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

We have to continually invent new categories of products, new platforms, and new business models – all extremely risky bets. In other words, the old “manager vs. entrepreneur&# dichotomy is breaking down. In other words, the old “manager vs. entrepreneur&# dichotomy is breaking down.

IPO 166

IPO San Francisco Lean Silicon Valley 166

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I hate business plan competitions. I Love Business Plan Competitions I had a breakfast with a friend who has founded a few companies in Thailand and started the New Ventures Program at one of their universities. Martin , on May 7, 2009 at 9:36 am Said: The caveat would be for undergrads at a school like Stanford or Berkeley.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

But this cinematic view of entrepreneurs is flawed in many ways. Most businesses – large and small alike – are typically excluded by this context. But it is not a startup, because its success depends only on decent execution – so much so that this success can be modeled with high accuracy.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Believing Your Own BS is Toxic Lots of noise and smoke before a product ships seems to be a toxic byproduct of enthusiastic entrepreneurs. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes.

Silicon Valley 122

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? Do some Customer Development instead. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan. You have to know your business model.

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