Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

And we need to do all of this with a finite defense budget, most of which is being spent on legacy systems in 88 major defense acquisition programs. Our current requirements and acquisition system ( Planning-Programming-Budgeting System ) is built on assuming certainty. Slides 10-13). Institutional inertia is a social problem.

Technology 335

Technology North Korea Silicon Valley Artificial Inteligence 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

While our teams have mentors, socialize a lot and give great demos, the goal of our class final presentations is “ Lessons Learned ” – about product/market fit, pricing, acquisition/activation costs, pricing, partners, etc.

Lean 315

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

We described the theory versus current practice of defense requirements, acquisition and budgeting in Slides 28-32. is still using a McNamara-era requirements and acquisition system designed by financial managers from Ford and imposed on the DOD in the early 1960s. And they’re even making an end-around to a broken acquisition system.

Technology 228

Technology China Russia Silicon Valley 228

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 11, 2020

I’m not going to talk about reforming the acquisition process, which many of your class speakers have mentioned and does need to get done. Which of these actions would impose the greatest cost on China if implemented? And you’ll see that 10 th iteration when it’s too late, when it’s a bullet coming at your head. Three Solutions.

Taiwan 322

Taiwan Technical Review Technology Design 322

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

Instead, their solutions must still compete for funding in a formal budgeting and acquisition process before being eligible for widespread adoption. During this period, startups will need to sustain business development activities and may incur additional regulatory and compliance costs to ensure their product is usable by the military.

Artificial Inteligence 326

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

Sloan put in place GM’s management accounting system (also 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. Modern Corporation Marketing.

Cofounder 268

Cofounder Michigan Stock Forecast 268

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 6, 2020

Two Acquisition Paradigm Shifts Raj Shah, former head of the Defense Innovation Unit, pointed out that men and women in uniform have signed up to support national security with the equipment that they are given and must make do with what you give them. On the bottom left, a Wright brothers plane in 1910 cost ~$5,000 in today’s dollars.

Technology 133

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 133

Steve Blank

APRIL 25, 2016

Sentinel initially started by trying to use low-cost sensors to monitor surface ships in a A2/AD environment. The team made progress understanding the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) acquisitions process in slides 3-5 and mocked-up an MVP. so they can get a great product that solves real problems and can be widely deployed quickly.

Afghanistan 120

Afghanistan Iraq Technical Review Social Media 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 25, 2016

Sentinel initially started by trying to use low-cost sensors to monitor surface ships in a A2/AD environment. The team made progress understanding the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) acquisitions process in slides 3-5 and mocked-up an MVP. so they can get a great product that solves real problems and can be widely deployed quickly.

Afghanistan 120

Afghanistan Iraq Technical Review Social Media 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

The end result is often that change can happen but it is going to come at the cost of disruption and difficulty.”. Putting lean principles into NGA’s acquisition practices. And as any startup will tell you, the traditional government acquisition processes create disincentives for startups to participate in the DOD Market.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

The end result is often that change can happen but it is going to come at the cost of disruption and difficulty.”. Putting lean principles into NGA’s acquisition practices. And as any startup will tell you, the traditional government acquisition processes create disincentives for startups to participate in the DOD Market.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

JANUARY 18, 2022

The system-to-system interactions to create these complex integrations drive up cost and manufacturing lead times. The Navy has world-class engineering and acquisition processes to deal with hardware. They are all multi-mission and therefore complex. Long manufacturing lead times mean they have no surge capacity.

Agile 369

Agile China Artificial Inteligence Taiwan 369

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

channel partners and Chinese manufacturers and customer acquisition and activation programs outside their home country. Trip 1 to China to understand manufacturing landscape, potential partners and rough cost of goods. to understand distribution channel landscape, potential partners and rough cost of customer acquisition.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

And we need to do all of this with a finite defense budget, most of which is being spent on legacy systems in 88 major defense acquisition programs. Our current requirements and acquisition system ( Planning-Programming-Budgeting System ) is built on assuming certainty. Slides 10-13). Institutional inertia is a social problem.

Technology 122

Technology North Korea Silicon Valley Iran 122

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

An early indication that you’ve found the right business model is when you believe the cost of getting customers will be less than the revenues the customers will generate. For web startups, this is when the cost of customer acquisition is less than the lifetime value of that customer. Customer Acquisition. Financials.

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

All of Intel’s resources – fabs, manufacturing strategies, and most importantly executive mindset — were geared towards large, expensive x86 processors, not low-cost mobile cores of someone else’s design. Capital is returned to these investors through liquidity events (originally public offerings, but today mostly acquisitions).

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

APRIL 8, 2010

They collected information that justified their assumptions about the problem, opportunity, market size, their solution and competitors and the their team, They rolled up a 5-year sales forecast with assumptions about their revenue model, pricing, sales, marketing, customer acquisition cost, etc. It was an exquisitely crafted plan.

Business Model 328

Business Model Business Plan Customer Cap Table 328

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

These hypotheses span the gamut from who’s the customer(s), to what’s the value proposition (product/service features), pricing, distribution channel, and demand creation (customer acquisition, activation, retention, etc.). cost structure resulting from the business model. customer segments, such as users and payers or moms or teens.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Today these potential adversaries are able to harness the power of social networks, encryption, GPS, low-cost drones, 3D printers, simpler design and manufacturing processes, agile and lean methodologies, ubiquitous Internet and smartphones. North Korea. DF-21 and Islands in the South China Sea. We’re Our Own Worst Enemy.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? Therefore, no, we weren’t really equipped to be the low cost provider. Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? No, not really. And we lost money when we did so.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Cost-based Pricing versus Value-based Pricing. And they discovered that: device makers were spending $500-$800 in Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) to acquire a customer. The Tidepool team went from cost-based pricing to value-based pricing. Most startups begin by pricing their product based on cost or competition.

Customer 323

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 323

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Personally, I think that customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc., In contrast, customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc. I’ve heard investors ask about sustainable technical differentiation for companies that you put on the customer/market risk end of the scale. are much more differentiating than technology.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2014

A pivot may mean you changed your customer segment, your channel, revenue model/pricing, resources, activities, costs, partners, customer acquisition – lots of other things than just the product. A pivot can change any of nine different things in your business model. Business Model.

Business Model 330

Business Model Lean Customer Development Channel 330

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

It ultimately failed because she was focused on engineering the product, but didn’t validate the rest of her business model (product/market fit, distribution channel, customer acquisition, etc.). Instead, I went the Software as a Service route and tried to charge for what was a commodity product. I always tell people … “99.9%

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2011

Many of the students had heard phrases that fall under Customer Relationships before; “customer acquisition, SEO/SEM, public relations, Social Network, Advertising, Loyalty programs, cross-sell and up-sell” etc., Veritas , the team building a low cost, residential wind turbine. Worse yet, each of these clicks cost about a $1.00.

Customer 247

Customer Cloud EC2 Channel 247

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Tech IPOs were a receding memory, and mergers and acquisitions became the only path to liquidity for startups. Startup exits in the next three years will include IPO’s as well as acquisitions. The payoff: in this bubble, a startup can actively “engineer for an acquisition.” The New Exits. Here’s how: Order of Battle.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

You’ll realize you’re ready to exit the Search step when you have customer validation: You’ve found a sales channel that matches how the customer wants to buy and the costs of using that channel are understood.

Lean 120

Lean Startup Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. For most companies it feels like innovation can only happen by exception and heroic efforts, not by design.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

What are your hypotheses around customer acquisition costs? Actually engage in “search engine marketing” (SEM)spend $20 as a team to test customer acquisition cost. change messaging on site during the week to get costs lower, team that gets lowest delta costs wins. Get real costs from suppliers.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Any place with a fixed cost that relies on foot traffic will come under pressure. Cut costs to stay alive for 24 months. Payroll costs/other variable costs. How can you shift focus to customer retention versus acquisition? Huge segments of the economy have shut down: travel, hospitality, restaurants.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Cost Structure is changed to Mission Cost/Budget. Requirement writers and acquisition folks look at systems integration across the battlefield system, while contracting officers, yet another segment, will count beans , measure the degree of competition and assess the quality of market research involved.

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

And it shows your company’s cost structures, how each department interacts with the others and where your company can work with other companies or partners to implement your business. for product companies, this should include manufacturing and cost of goods). Did they describe demand creation and assign acquisition costs?

Intellectual Property 226

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 226

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And when we do make bets, they’re small bets on incremental products or acquisitions that simply add to the bottom line.”. The strategy and structure for 21st corporate innovation will come from emulating the speed, urgency, agility and low-cost, rapid experimentation of startups. and how to price the product. That’s now changed.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

This might include new products, markets or acquisitions. To develop this new portfolio, companies need to provide a stable innovation funding mechanism for new business creation, one that is simply thought of as a cost of doing business. A New Strategy for Entrepreneurship in the 21 st Corporation.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Portfolio 333

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Finally the amount of capital needed to take a drug to FDA trials could be enormously expensive, at least 10x more than startup costs at an electron-based company. The advantage of commodity software stacks drops initial startup costs for Internet Commerce companies. Their capital needs are low at the front end.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

With audit costs approaching a billion dollars a year the Pentagon had an opportunity to lead in modernizing auditing. In 2019, the audit cost $428 million in auditing costs ($186 million to the auditors along with $242 million to audit support) and another $472 million to fix the issues the audit discovered.

Advisory Board 328

Advisory Board Artificial Inteligence SBIR Government 328

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Dave McClure’s AARRR metrics and Andrew Chen ‘s specifics on freemium models, viral marketing, user acquisition and engagement both offer examples of exit criteria for Customer Discovery and Validation for startups on the web. Eric and I will be working on others. End of theory.&# “What is the “Business Model” of your startup?&#

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219