Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Whether they’re using a formal process to search for a business model like Customer Development or just trial and error, startup founders are intuitively goal-seeking to optimize their business model. The Customer Development model that I write and teach about is the entrepreneur’s version of Boyds’ OODA loop.).

Business Model 332

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 332

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Now that you’ve gotten to know your potential channel and customers, regardless of how much money you’re going to make, will you enjoy working with these customers for the next 3 or 4 years? It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. It never goes well.

Cofounder 325

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 325

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Back then, an entrepreneur used a serial product development process that proceeded step-by-step with little if any customer feedback. The goal of Build-Measure-Learn is not to build a final product to ship or even to build a prototype of a product, but to maximize learning through incremental and iterative engineering.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? The COGS (costs of goods sold) tells me about how big your customer acquisition costs will be. portfolios.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Doing so meant they would have to take risks for IP acquisition and customer/market risks outside their experience or comfort zone. I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) Lessons Learned.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2013

Software Engineer Steven VanRoekel CIO Dan Greenberg Co-Founder & CEO CHECK OUT THE AGENDA. > Seth Sternberg Co-Founder & CEO Scott Chacon CIO Kevin Hale Senior Product Manager NEW! Juan Diego Calle CEO Dharmesh Shah Co-founder & CTO Ross Snyder Sr.

Lean 165

Lean Cofounder Startup Software Engineering 165

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max entered Stanford in the fall of 2010 as a freshman, took as many of the engineering entrepreneurship classes as he could and independent study with me. (He We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team. Congratulations.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

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. It’s lazy thinking (and expensive engineering) to try to build for both at the same time. It has a growth engine.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

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.). Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 25, 2021

Inspired by her own work problem, she talked to her peers and other stakeholders, built multiple minimum viable products, and figured out how to get engineering, policy, legal, security and everyone else in the enterprise to actually approve it.

Non-Compete 436

Non-Compete Government Incubator Design 436

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. In these markets it’s all about customer/market risk.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

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. How we prepare for and fight future wars must reflect these new realities of modern war.

Technology 397

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 397

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. the Customer Life Time (CLT)).

Customer 323

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 323

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. Most often the first acquisitions in a hype cycle are for the “shiny objects” – the technology, the team and the tools.

Artificial Inteligence 318

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 318

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) But who do you think makes those acquisition decisions? Far too many of these acquisitions go nowhere. I also frequently see the reverse.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I think everybody heard about this acquisition. They bought distribution and engineering talent. On the founder’s side it’s about taking money off of the table and / or having strategic reserves for big acquisitions. Atebits dba Tweetie (acquired by Twitter). Twitter bough their most used iPhone client.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s engineered financial transactions, working with entrepreneurs to brand, hype and take public un profitable companies with grand promises of the future. Tech IPOs were a receding memory, and mergers and acquisitions became the only path to liquidity for startups. Thus began the 5-year dot-com bubble. The New Exits.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2010

The engineering co-founder had created a consumer electronics security product that created an entirely new category. As the revenues grew, engineering continued to pursue sustaining innovations - incremental improvements on its core technologies. There’s nothing harder than making radical changes when the numbers look great.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Cofounder Acquisition Kansas 267

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

They should understand the different states of the user (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue) and focus on moving users from one state to the next. In a nutshell: Acquisition - Get people to hear about your product from press, blogs and social channels. accessible to search engines, sitemap.xml), fresh (i.e.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

Silicon Valley 255

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 255

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

For the first 75 years of the 20 th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs. Capital is returned to these investors through liquidity events (originally public offerings, but today mostly acquisitions). Filed under: Corporate Innovation , Customer Development.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

JANUARY 8, 2019

This time-based definition made sense in the 20 th century when new disruptive ideas took years to research, engineer and deliver. To existing competitors or to existing requirements and acquisition systems they look like minimum viable products – barely finished, iterative and incremental prototypes.

China 295

China Government Russia Acquisition 295

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Hacking for Defense is a new course at Stanford’s Engineering School in the Spring of 2016. All while we’re still writing a Request for a Proposal from within the US Government procurement and acquisition channels. These acquisition and procurement “silos” of excellence are virtually impenetrable by new ideas and requirements.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2017

That if we could get teams to rapidly discover the real problems in the field using Lean methods, and only then articulate the requirements to solve them, could defense acquisition programs operate at speed and urgency and deliver timely and needed solutions. Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey.

Silicon Valley 182

Silicon Valley Southern California Lean San Diego 182

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2016

That if we could get teams to rapidly discover the real problems in the field using Lean methods, and only then articulating the requirements to solve them, could defense acquisition programs operate at speed and urgency and deliver timely and needed solutions. Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey.

Agile 120

Agile Security Audio Video 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

We never seek any rights to give Amex preferential treatment at the time of a potential acquisition. There is a possibility that Amex may explore acquisitions within the Amex Ventures portfolio, but those discussions will be on market terms similar to those with other potential acquirers.”. Can the founders communicate well?

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 29, 2014

Another useful report is Channels (Acquisition > Channels) with the “Mobile Traffic” segment applied. This functionality requires custom development to set up, which you can read more about here. Google Mobile Search Engines Small Business Mark Hansen' Channels Report.

Analytics 65

Analytics Mobile Channel Conversion 65

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

In a major break from the past, where the military designed all its own weapons, 10,000 scientists and engineers from academia worked in civilian-run weapons labs (most headquartered in universities) in an organization called the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). In World War II the U.S. The Gulf Wars.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

After years of engineering effort, changing these assumptions was incredibly hard. Without conscious process design, product development teams turn lines of code written into momentum in a certain direction. We can capitalize on new customers. We can accurately predict the future.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. ——————– Engineering 245.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 151

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Consequently, I either needed a tech co-founder or to pay someone to develop the product. Given those criteria, where are the watering holes to find these engineers?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47