Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. Cases and plans are useful for teaching managers of process, not founders. Founders of startups (and new ventures inside existing companies) are searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model. experiential.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2011

As time went on, I was a co-founder or member of the starting team for six high-tech startups…. Now…a decade later… that course called Customer Development … is the basis of an entirely new way to start companies. To be honest, I would have gladly done so. With every startup came increasing responsibility.

Philadelphia 336

Philadelphia Miami Thailand Silicon Valley 336

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

announced this evening at its annual Pitch Night , that it has received sponsorship by the Kauffman Foundation to support its "Founder Labs," a pre-incubator program whose mission is to increase the number of female founders of technology startups. Diverse Founding Teams, Agile Development Techniques. and that creates jobs."

Founder 146

Founder Incubator Cofounder Lean 146

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Our keynote speaker was Palmer Luckey , founder of Oculus and the designer of the Oculus Rift. He’s now the CEO/founder of the AI-focussed defense contractor Anduril Industries. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. Presentation Format. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 271

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 271

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Hershey just bought Krave Jerky, a team in our 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class, for >$200 million. —– Jon Sebastiani and his team came into the 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class with several key observations: Snack foods were a large ~$35 billion but the moribund food category was starving for innovation and modernization.

North America 120

North America Lean Customer Development Distribution 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model. Lean Launchpad.

Agile 251

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 251

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

—– In August 2011 I received an email from someone at NYU I never heard of. The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) Make it Better.

Lean 271

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 271

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade. Marcos Polanco, founder of Clearshore and himself a serial entrepreneur, “never found time to read the blog, no matter how much I loved it.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley California Vertical Customer Development 201

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The New Bubble : (2011 – 2014): Here we go again…. (If VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. The New Exits.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

For example, according to CBInsights nearly 140 machine intelligence have been acquired since 2011, with over 40 being bought so far in 2016. Get of the building and test those hypotheses using customer development. Validate learning by building minimal viable products and getting them in front of customers.

Artificial Inteligence 320

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 320

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

Here are the details of both of those customer development experiences. Capital Factory 2011 alum GroupCharger talked to 50 before building and another 50 after that. Recently at WP Engine I did some brand new customer development for a new project that we think will revolutionize WordPress blog management.

Customer 252

Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

Steve Blank

MAY 12, 2015

Since most of the founders come from strong technical roots, companies in Phase I tend to focus on the technology – and spend very little time understanding what it takes to turn the company’s technology into a scalable and repeatable commercial business. Phase I funding is for teams to prove feasibility, both technical and commercial.

SBIR 120

SBIR Maryland Lean Seed Stage 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 29, 2016

Realizing you need help and learning how to ask for help are crucial skills for a founder. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Steve Sims , founder of Bluefish executive concierge service.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Monaco San Francisco Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The life sciences community is still warming-up to the value of customer development in the early stages of building new ventures”, says David Schonthal , MATTER Co-founder and Clinical Assistant Professor of entrepreneurship & innovation at the Kellogg School of Management. It Takes a Village. It has density,” he said.

San Diego 262

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2016

It follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Brandon Bruce , co-founder of Cirrus Insight software company. Jack Sundell , co-founder of The Root Café farm-to-table restaurant. Jack Sundell.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Morocco Arkansas 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

For example, according to CBInsights nearly 140 machine intelligence have been acquired since 2011, with over 40 being bought so far in 2016. Get of the building and test those hypotheses using customer development. Validate learning by building minimal viable products and getting them in front of customers.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 120

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

If you’re waiting for a technical co-founder to put up a landing page with signup form, you’re lazy. If you’re waiting for a marketing guy to talk to customers, you’ll never understand the target market. I just need a co-founder to web enable it!" Do you have a website up?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder NDA Founder Sweat Equity 47

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Scoring Founder “Dates” On My Own.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Because of the traditional publishing industrys commitment to rapid iteration, the book wont come out until Fall, 2011. Also included is the incredible Venture Hacks Bible, which is worth the price of admission on its own, and The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development (which I previously reviewed here).

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2010

I have: Im going to mark the occasion at SXSW Interactive in March, 2011. Id love to know what you think: The Lean Startup: innovation through experimentation 2011 will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of Frederick Winslow Taylor s " Principles of Scientific Management." We owe that movement an incalculable debt of gratitude.

San Francisco 127

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 127

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Founders should understand what the customer hopes to accomplish , or what their job to be done is. Final Thoughts.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? What went wrong?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

blog.startupsquare.com

APRIL 13, 2010

2 Comments Tags: Customer Development , lean startup , pivot , Strategy. Having gone through 51 iterations of my mockups and gathered as much as feedback as I could with our primitive alpha, I feel confident about our basic customer problem hypothesis. I think every entrepreneur should be actively generating ideas constantly.

Lean 40

Lean Startup Cofounder Architecture 40

Gust

AUGUST 8, 2012

Entrepreneurship is often born of founders’ sheer frustration with the status quo. One class of clear business opportunity, which wouldn’t exist in an ideal world, is created by the service that seemingly makes it as difficult as possible for potential paying customers to make it take their money.

Customer 143

Customer Southern California San Jose Marketing 143

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

That’s because they require you to have a deep understanding of your customers. In the Lean Startup world, this is called customer development. By 2011, the company had 20 full-time photographers on staff. In the end, the founders made a huge bet — the kind of bet that only startups with nothing to lose can make.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup? However, one of my co-founders doesn’t seem to be as motivated as the rest of us. As founders invest massive amounts of time into their start-up, how critical is it for them to come out of their “hermit caves” and network? Non of this academic stuff.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

www.aaronkharris.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

I was told that finding a CTO/technical co-founder in NYC was about as easy as climbing Everest with one leg, no O2, and carrying a dead elephant. Skipping ahead a bit Suffice it to say that we spent much of the last few months on customer development, a topic which merits its own post, and at which I think we’ve done a decent job.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire New York City .Net Cofounder 40

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

by Tristan on January 20, 2011. « Thanks but No Thanks – Things to Avoid When Recruiting Co-founders Why is Cyber Squatter a Bad Word? Some have been as co-founder, most have been as a consultant with the possibility of becoming an paid employee, “as soon as we close our funding round.” A Simple Example.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

Frank Rimalovski , executive director of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute joined me in the studio to discuss how the Entrepreneurial Institute is transforming the culture at NYU; and Frank Sculli , co-founder of BioDigital Inc shares what he wishes he’d known before he started his company. Frank Sculli.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Cofounder Investment Bankers 120

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016

Whether you’re a startup business building an audience or an existing brand struggling to establish a solid base of loyal customers, developing a marketing strategy that heavily emphasizes user-generated content will benefit your product one way or another. March 16, 2011. Understanding UGC: Its Essence and Its Capabilities.

Software Review 28

Software Review Campaign Advertising Social Media 28

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2011

There are only a few tickets left to Startup Lessons Learned 2011 on Monday (May 23). Product management and customer development, KISSmetrics. Co-founder, Backblaze. Founder, House of Mikko. Co-founder and CTO, Sharethrough. Co-founder and CTO, Saygent. Founder, BlueSpark. Founder, Tout.

Czech Republic 114

Czech Republic Costa Rica Brazil Romania 114

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

500 Hats , January 10, 2010 Developing new startup ideas - Chris Dixon , March 14, 2010 Batch Processing Millions and Millions of Images - Code as Craft , July 9, 2010 jQuery Plugin: Give Your Characters a NobleCount - The Product Guy , March 23, 2010 How do the sample Series Seed financing documents differ from typical Series A financing documents?

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

I had 2 conversations with startup founders this week that are trying to decide on a name for their company and I felt their pain. How to Choose a Meaningful Name for Your Startup « Zeus River says: October 31, 2011 at 10:53 am. [.] customer development. customer retention. customer service.

Naming 41

Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41