Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Prodigy spent $50 million on advertising and in-store displays. Like that, but better&#.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Everyone Else is an Idiot The theme of our press blitz was all about how we were going to show the old tired game companies the right way to make video games. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

I thing I’ve learned over the years is that technology purists hate advertising even when it is that revenue stream that truthfully drives much of our industry. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

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Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Videos/presentations. Customer service. Use us to power any video chat applications (talkshow, education apps, collaboration, etc). VoiceBunny : Need a sexy voice-over for your videos?

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Since this was the marketing department, I was going to be planning to spend some advertising and public relations dollars. Now I had happy and surprised customers walking around with paid advertising for my company. Who did they think were the leaders in the color graphics board and monitor market? What reviews did they trust?

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Noah Parsons says, “Start with cheap mockups, wireframes, or even sketches on paper to make sure that your customers are going to want what you build.”. Including software prototypes, MVPs come in many flavors, including: Explainer videos. Building the Minimum Viable Product by Eric Ries [YouTube video]. venture capital.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires. We will accomplish this through demand-creation activities (advertising, PR, tradeshows, seminars, web sites, etc.),

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

All the marketing materials, data sheets, advertising, press releases, trade shows, etc. Technically our positioning was correct, and with an infinite marketing budget (my back of the envelope calculations said $60M) and time, we might have made this technical fact ( QuickDraw acceleration) something a customer understood and cared about.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Poplytics – online surveys and analytics AskYourTargetMarket – market research surveys SurveyMonkey - granddaddy of on-line surveys Amazon Mechanical Turk – you can set up a question and get answers PickFu – A/B testing $5 for 50 opinions Collaboration Dropbox – store, sync, and, share files online.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. As another example, I could see which magazines are on people desks, and that tells me where to advertise.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you think you are going to offend your customers or embarrass your engineering organization, get out of the marketing department. Design your graphics, pre-show promotion, literature and show directory advertising around your focused message and theme. IBM doesn’t have to shout to get noticed, but you do. Blog at WordPress.com.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

We faced this same problem in entrepreneurship and venture capital, but we are getting past it. Seed-stage investors are learning the metrics of traction, and are getting better at identifying those companies that are really achieving validated learning about customers. In other words, what is the minimum viable product ?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I haven’t looked at the video yet, but I should be able to understand from the headline and get some kind of emotional reaction to the headline. I’m instantly out because those companies are horrible for venture capital.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. link] Closer To The Ideal » Blog Archive » Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg says don’t take venture capital money [.] I think I just really feared working for the Man.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84