Steve Blank
AUGUST 31, 2009
So what’s wrong the product development model? The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.)
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 16, 2009
I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” It’s an impressive portfolio.
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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. The next customer segment we tried was startup founders. Technology in search of a market.
Steve Blank
APRIL 12, 2010
Finally, when everyone else had their turn, the grey-haired VC turned to the founder and said, “If you do what we tell you to do and fail, we’ll fire you. The Customer Development model that I write and teach about is the entrepreneur’s version of Boyds’ OODA loop.). But at least you’d be executing your plan not ours.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 21, 2012
Either way, the “hurdle” for successful, scalable startups is high, and it gets higher every day as customer acquisition challenges continue to increase. Filed under: Customer Development. The “it” is a physical or web product they’ve often been locked-down, pounding away at, for many weeks.
Startup Lessons Learned
DECEMBER 1, 2014
For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. And the whole site was developed in just 9 weeks. Now he’s a leader in social impact investing and equality in education.
Steve Blank
DECEMBER 9, 2013
It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. You don’t want to do Customer Development with them. So you and your team need to feel comfortable being in this business with these customers. It never goes well. You don’t want to talk to them.
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