Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

You’ll realize you’re ready to exit the Search step when you have customer validation: You’ve found a sales channel that matches how the customer wants to buy and the costs of using that channel are understood. If he already had an advisory board (formal and/or informal), add CEO’s who have been through this phase.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 5, 2010

In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

Business Model 120

Business Model Advisory Board Angel Investor Channel 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and customer segment. Save your viral campaign and major inventory buildup for later.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Advisory Board. Sean Murphy on the first dozen enterprise customers - Gabriel Weinberg , September 8, 2010 I recently did a Traction Book interview with Sean Murphy who runs a boutique cutomer development firm in Silicon Valley. We discussed (for ~1hr) how to approach getting the first set of enterprise customers.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

In my experience with technical entrepreneurs, they work hard on creating an innovative and elegant solution, and assume that customers will flock to them (“if we build it, they will come”). The founder had simply not done the work to validate a price and the perfect customer segment. Make every pilot customer commit to be a reference.

Product 137

Product Advisory Board Business Model Cofounder 137

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

In this excerpt, authors Steve Blank and Bob Dorf continue to explain the Customer Discovery Philosophy (see Part One, " Is Your Startup a Valid Vision or Just a Hallucination? "). Customer discovery turns founders’ initial hypotheses about their market and customers into facts. We call these early adopters earlyvangelists.

Customer 119

Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

The larger-account division wanted to move the pricing in just the other direction – making the low-end products more expensive, so their large customers would have an increased incentive to upgrade. Many custom reports had been created for this meeting, and the data warehouse team was in the meeting, too.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

mashable.com

AUGUST 20, 2011

Whether that’s a funny ringtone or an impromptu blast of Rebecca Black’s “Friday,&# coworking can be a great way to network, make friends and have a built-in advisory board of people from many different industries. Sign in with Facebook or Twitter to get started!

Cofounder 81

Cofounder San Francisco Social Media Startup 81

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

It has been awesome, flattering, and humbling to see that post went viral and has been seen by so many thousands of people — mainly aspiring entrepreneurs — and has been translated into many languages. It’s not about you, it’s about your customers. At Fab we have been focused from day 1 on making our customers smile.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 17, 2013

In using such a scattershot approach to social media, these organizations are missing out on major opportunities to engage with potential and current customers, manage their reputations, and more — and they may be alienating social media users in the process. Listening: Interact meaningfully with customers.

Social Media 217

Social Media Media Curation Social Network 217