Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” We will accomplish this through demand-creation activities (advertising, PR, tradeshows, seminars, web sites, etc.), The same was true for PR.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

You’ve built a sales organization and company that’s burning cash before you know if you have demand for your product or a repeatable and scalable sales model. To create this demand at first customer ship, marketing activities start early in the product development process. Build and they will come” is not a strategy, it’s a prayer.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Marketing develops a complete marketing communications plan, provides Sales with a full complement of support material, and starts the public relations bandwagon rolling. The company has a large press event, and Marketing launches a series of programs to create end-user demand (trade shows, seminars, advertising, email, and so on).

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Since this was the marketing department, I was going to be planning to spend some advertising and public relations dollars. I wanted to know if marketing was getting any bang-for-the-buck in spending its demand creation dollars. What did they think the leaders most important attributes were? What magazines did they read?

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 210

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

The only difference between us and the Internet bubble that would follow was that we did branding on the cheap by creating our image with public relations, whilethe dot-bomb era was to do it by spending enormous sums on advertising (those large venture rounds had to get spent somewhere.) Hindsight is wonderful.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Hearpreneur

AUGUST 19, 2015

So we opened the goFlow platform from surfing-only to 10 new verticals: Paddle-boarding, Diving, Fishing, Skateboarding, Cycling, Golfing, Snow sports, Boating, Kitesurfing and more to come. — in a class so high in demand that I had to wait several quarters to take it? It’s a problem that all weather driven sports have.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Australia Technical Review Community 48