Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. While there was an occasional bad apple, the public markets rewarded companies with revenue growth and sustainable profits.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

When a startup finds a repeatable sales process and steadily increasing revenue, its investors wants to harvest the rewards and build a culture of “execution.” While this sounds inexplicable to an outside observer, sometimes it makes sense.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. If marketing can’t deliver the 40,000 leads what else can we do for sales to still achieve our revenue and profitability?”) T he mission was our goal , but based on circumstances it may change, but the Intent was immovable.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I have been working on getting a startup to revenue for a while, and while this is my 4th iteration and I have not yet succeeded, I’ve been learning new things every time. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO.

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Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Reply Wyatt ODay , on July 2, 2009 at 8:18 am Said: Great post, Steve. Reply Mark Essel , on July 2, 2009 at 9:14 am Said: Reality distortion field isn’t the basic technique covered in startups 101? You mention above being on both sides of a reality distortion field. I love all these war stories.

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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. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. End result?

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

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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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Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Reply Michael Alan Miller » Crash , on August 24, 2009 at 8:47 am Said: [.] | Posted by Chill on 24 Aug 2009 at 11:47 am | Shattered. [.] If you’re a startup raising money or just want to see your name online, there’s not a better blog on the web. I’m not buying it… literally. Reply Michael F.

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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

AUGUST 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 24, 2009 Marching through quicksand I have been spending a lot of time lately talking to people in various media companies: editors and agents, executives, journalists, producers and directors. What is the right revenue model? Doug August 24, 2009 8:21 AM Hugh said. Very smart stuff.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 266

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Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Achieving consensus about every corner case from each stakeholder in the room is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do. Customer Development.) Unlike large corporations, startup meetings are not about achieving consensus for every objection raised.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

It’s a process that doesn’t exist in large companies with existing customers and markets. I call this process “Customer Development,” a sibling to “Product Development,” and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not. But it is life and death for a new venture.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan put in place GM’s management accounting system (borrowed from DuPont) that for the first time allowed the company to: 1) produce an annual operating forecast that compared each division’s forecast (revenue, costs, capital requirements and return on investment) with the company’s financial goals.

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. Martin , on April 23, 2009 at 11:28 am Said: Have you read Carol Dweck’s Mindset. But a series of Zen-like moments helped me move to a different level that changed how I operated. Reply Michael F.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. It was priced at $22,000 – equivalent to about $140,000 in 2009 dollars. Thx for sharing (and researching)!

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Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

We did that when we surveyed our customers. And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. Marketings job is to take engineering products and use them to maximize revenue and profit. This requires deep customer and competitive knowledge.

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www.rocketwatcher.com

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

A good set of metrics will allow me to predict that if I spend $1 on a certain marketing tactic, I’m likely to get $X of revenue in Y days. Closed revenue – the actual value of the deal after it has closed. Opportunity Pipeline – the dollar value of the opportunity. If you enjoyed that, you should subscribe!

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