Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

He’ll be running a hands-on session on how to make a compelling business video. Cory Nelson will talk with Eric about how GE has applied the MVP method to its development of very large diesel engines. Max Ventilla took Aardvark from startup to Google acquisition, a case study Eric described in The Lean Startup.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

Now you can watch Part 2 “ The Lean Approach “ This group of six videos provides an overview of how to successfully do Customer Discovery. You’ll learn how to: get to know your customers. get, keep and grow customers. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 328

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. It did not mean building a startup into a company to flip or hype on the market with no earnings or revenue, but building a company that had paying customers. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2013

If you want to see what all the fuss was about, you can watch complete video of last year's track courtesy of my friends at Udemy.) Luckily, in a room full of entrepreneurs, plenty of new businesses popped up to bring people food and water. (If

Lean 165

Lean Cofounder Startup Software Engineering 165

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

It struck me as I watched the teams try to find how their technology would solve real customer problems, is that machine learning is following a similar pattern of previous technical infrastructure innovations. 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

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend?

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

The eight teams spoke to over 820 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security, customers, etc. If you can’t see the video of Palmer Luckey click here. Each of the eight teams presented a 2-minute video to provide context about their problem. Presentation Format.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. channel partners and Chinese manufacturers and customer acquisition and activation programs outside their home country. Trip 2 to the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

Department of Defense, delivers geospatial intelligence (satellite imagery video, and other sensor data) to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders. Putting lean principles into NGA’s acquisition practices. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a great example.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

Department of Defense, delivers geospatial intelligence (satellite imagery video, and other sensor data) to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders. Putting lean principles into NGA’s acquisition practices. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a great example.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

While we sometimes cut the price of graphics boards, it was only because we offered our customers no compelling reasons to buy one that was priced equivalently to the market share leaders. Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? And we lost money when we did so.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

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

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I think everybody heard about this acquisition. It kicked Google Video’s ass. On the founder’s side it’s about taking money off of the table and / or having strategic reserves for big acquisitions. Stitcher - San Francisco-based service that lets users customize talk radio programming on their mobile devices.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

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. If you can’t see the video click here.

Technology 397

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 397

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Disruptive innovations are coming from startups – Telsa for automobiles, Uber for taxis, Airbnb for hotel rentals, Netflix for video rentals and Facebook for media. Capital is returned to these investors through liquidity events (originally public offerings, but today mostly acquisitions). What’s holding large companies back?

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

It struck me as I watched the teams try to find how their technology would solve real customer problems, is that machine learning is following a similar pattern of previous technical infrastructure innovations. Most often the first acquisitions in a hype cycle are for the “shiny objects” – the technology, the team and the tools.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 120

www.ashmaurya.com

AUGUST 29, 2012

You can learn more about his approach to developing customer relationships in his new book Cold Calling Early Customers. There are many channels that can produce your first early customers and contacts, but the one I see most often is cold email. He is a Ph.D. dropout who spent time working for Google.

Email 52

Email Customer Tennessee Software Review 52

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2016

Note: If you’re viewing this post on the website WordPress autoplays all the videos simultaneously. Then… Scroll down and manually pause the videos until you’re ready to play them. And we will build a knowledge base of DOD/IC acquisition primers, customer development best practices, org charts, etc.

Agile 120

Agile Security Audio Video 120

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 29, 2014

If you have embedded videos or blog posts that aren’t formatted for mobile use, then a high Bounce Rate percentage may be an indication you should investigate further and consider redesigning those pages to improve UX. Another useful report is Channels (Acquisition > Channels) with the “Mobile Traffic” segment applied.

Analytics 65

Analytics Mobile Channel Conversion 65

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

This might include new products, markets or acquisitions. The video below (from Strategyzer.com) emphasizes that companies will need to have an organization that can do two things at the same time: executing and improving existing models and inventing - new and disruptive – business models. We will propose some alternatives.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 333

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Its the same with acquisitions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No one wants to buy you till someone else wants to buy you, and then everyone wants to buy you. The key to closing deals is never to stop pursuing alternatives. Expo SF (May. Want to learn more about me?

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

You delight customers just like before. In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Fourth , would the same Lean Startup methodology (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) used in the Lean LaunchPad and NSF I-Corps class work here? We learned a lot developing the Hacking for Defense class, and even more as we taught it and worked with the problem sponsors in the DOD/Intel community.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 128

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 3, 2012

Matt Brezina (Xobni, Sincerely ) for advice on customer development, finding product/market fit and scaling user acquisition. Justin Kan ( Justin.tv , Exec) for advice on starting companies, recruiting talent, and management as well as online video and advertising.

Founder 116

Founder San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup 116

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Fourth , would the same Lean Startup methodology (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) used in the Lean LaunchPad and NSF I-Corps class work here? We learned a lot developing the Hacking for Defense class, and even more as we taught it and worked with the problem sponsors in the DOD/Intel community.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 120

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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# Let’s begin with the four customer currencies. And this is true outside of games.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” More here: [link] Video: [link] Reply Justin Wickett , on March 23, 2009 at 5:44 pm Said: Pretty impressive how much knowledge can be extracted from natural processes. Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America?

Silicon Valley 247

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 247

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

Why should customers buy from you? In this guide, you’ll learn how to differentiate your business and attract your ideal customers by creating a unique selling proposition. How a unique selling proposition (USP) attracts better customers and builds your brand (and where marketers get it wrong). The basics are important (e.g.,

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

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 bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

ConversionXL

JUNE 19, 2014

As a follow up to our data driven traffic acquisition article , we’re going to be looking at the roles emotion & data play in “activating” customers and using Dave McClure’s Conversion Metrics as a guide to the larger conversation. Strongly Recommended Reading: How to Create Customer Feedback Loops at Scale. image source.

Greece 98

Greece Customer eCommerce Design 98

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

He was constantly looking at the multiple lines on the ALR-20 display and could see the Soviet radar order of battle: ground to air communications, what radars were around (search, acquisition, tracking, etc.), Ever talk to someone from the other side who had similar stories of struggling to track and shoot down that 170-ft signature sphere?

Silicon Valley 195

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 195

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

The company was founded to build games with embedded video to bring Hollywood stories, characters, and narratives to a market where “shoot and die” twitch games were in vogue. But underlying the company’s existence was a fundamental hypothesis we refused to see or test - customers would care if we did. They think the games stink.”

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

andrewchenblog.com

MARCH 10, 2010

Coupled with A/B testing, customer development, and thinking through business problems in a scientific, hypothesis-driven way, you end up with a powerful cocktail of techniques to build a modern startup in the most iterative way possible. Listen to your customers. We’ll call this general category of debt Type I.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47

ConversionXL

JUNE 19, 2014

As a follow up to our data driven traffic acquisition article , we’re going to be looking at the roles emotion & data play in “activating” customers and using Dave McClure’s Conversion Metrics as a guide to the larger conversation. Strongly Recommended Reading: How to Create Customer Feedback Loops at Scale. image source.

Greece 107

Greece Customer eCommerce Design 107