Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Market Types « “Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch Closure » 21 Responses Tweets that mention Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development « Steve Blank -- Topsy.com , on November 16, 2009 at 7:20 am Said: [.]

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

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. There are usually hopes of making it up on advertising, digital goods, transactions, consulting, but until the numbers are proven this is just as speculative.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

How could the creators of Titanic or Grand Theft Auto framed their efforts in terms of a problem hypothesis? Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Researchers polled experts in lending, mezzanine capital, private equity, venture capital and private businesses themselves. Not a big shock, but things don’t look pretty, especially in the venture capital world. 41% of them feel that they qualify for venture capital funding. dasein Yeah, I agree.

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

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. These two posts were amazing. Anyways, here’s one question I have. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

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 magazines did they read?

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

We will accomplish this through demand-creation activities (advertising, PR, tradeshows, seminars, web sites, etc.), 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.

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. Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw. focused on the technical fact that we accelerated (made much faster) this arcane piece of computer code. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I always try hard to make this blog a place where you can learn lessons rather than an advertisement for portfolio companies. I first met the founder of Pose, Dustin Rosen , when he was a junior person with an LA-based venture capital firm called The Mail Room Fund. Pose is no different. “And importantly Web 2.0

Term Sheet 303

Term Sheet Mobile Cofounder Early Stage 303

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

We faced this same problem in entrepreneurship and venture capital, but we are getting past it. If our goal is just to create a blog or a YouTube video as a hobby, there’s no need for this kind of rigorous process. And, most importantly, what could we do right now to answer the riskiest of these questions. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

During the Internet bubble, one more function of the marketing department was to “buy” customer loyalty with enormous advertising and promotion spending to create a brand.) Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.? All this leads up to a flurry of press events and interviews, all geared to the product/web site launch date.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

This video should be the gold standard in explaining contract terms.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Hunter Walker

MAY 20, 2018

The idea was to build a publishing-focused brand with events as a revenue base while we figured out our own differentiation in a crowded market — and then added business lines around advertising, custom content and now subscriptions. We’ve built Digiday without venture capital.

PR 64

PR Media Differentiation Audience 64

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

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

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Prodigy spent $50 million on advertising and in-store displays. For the first few years, one prominent Prodigy advertiser was America Online. Like that, but better&#. What made it so easy? Oh, and the really fun part: When you’re in a new market, your competitors may not realize they’re your competitors.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

The company has a large press event, and Marketing launches a series of programs to create end-user demand (trade shows, seminars, advertising, email, and so on). I think that the insights in this series of blogs, and the Youtube videos on Customer Development (see link at top of page), ring very true. Marketing is at its peak.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Netflix went from mailing DVDs to streaming video. For example, if you’re an early-stage SaaS provider that is shifting from a horizontal solution to a vertical focus, your mission, culture, and competencies can stay the same and the pivot transition will probably go smoothly. Apple went from Apple II to the Macintosh to iOS.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

BeyondVC

MARCH 19, 2007

Sure, they didn’t tell us much in the public sessions as sometimes you can come away with the impression that Microsoft is doing everything and the only opportunities for startups are niche verticals built on Microsoft’s platform. Just to be clear, this is not in any way, shape or form a Microsoft love-fest.

Acquisition 60

Acquisition Cloud Mobile Vertical 60