YoungUpstarts

MAY 9, 2017

Lean is a methodology that can be applied to all disciplines of knowledge work to increase business efficiency, agility, and visibility. Lean is more about aligning your organization’s skills, talents, resources, processes, and strategy with the needs of your customers. 2 More Efficient Business Processes.

Lean 124

Lean Agile Technical Review Dilution 124

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. It is death in a rapidly changing business.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

Yet everyone – investors, entrepreneurs, academics — expected new startups to follow the same practices that worked for large companies – write a business plan, forecast 5-year sales projections and build the product without ever talking to customers. The National Science Foundation adopted it.

Lean 221

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 221

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. Experienced entrepreneurs kept finding that no business plan survived first contact with customers. So what would a search process for a business model look like? He called it the “Lean Startup.”.

Lean 317

Lean Georgia Michigan Business Model 317

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. We were putting the plan before the planning.

Lean 286

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 286

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2020

Nurturing your business through its difficult early years means understanding your customers, your competitors, and the market. Your products and services may be the best around, but if there’s no demand, whether due to market changes or competitor dominance, your business, sadly, won’t be long for this world. No exceptions.

Startup 190

Startup Forecast Agile Demand 190

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. We were putting the plan before the planning.

Lean 178

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 178

Up and Running

JANUARY 9, 2017

Each tip is a critical stepping stone in leading your business toward your goals. Develop this statement and make it publically available to both employees and customers. This statement should answer the key questions that drive your business: Where is your company headed? Formulating a development plan.

Tennessee 60

Tennessee Forecast Agile Programming 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 17, 2019

This means doing some homework first, not only in the form of market research, but even more importantly, by creating a business plan. They make use of the latest technology; they’re constantly on the lookout to improve their services; and they have the ability to reach a wide range of potential customers.

Forecast 124

Forecast Agile Demand Matching 124

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

(Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.) There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) Their objective is to get users, orders, customers, etc.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Up and Running

DECEMBER 5, 2016

Lean Planning is a concept that we introduced back in 2012 as an evolution in business planning. The traditional business plan just wasn’t fitting the needs of modern, fast-moving companies and it was time to bring more of a scientific approach to business planning. See Also: Business Planning Guide.

Lean 60

Lean Silicon Valley Business Model Forecast 60

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory – income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models, 5-year forecasts, etc. And they’ll do this using the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

That’s because the model is based on assumptions about customers that are totally unproven. If we already knew who the customer was, how they would behave, how much they would pay, and how to reach them, this wouldn’t be a disruptive innovation. The solution is to change our focus from outputs to inputs. If it costs $0.10

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Growthink Blog

SEPTEMBER 11, 2016

CCS Insights forecasts that 411 million smart wearable devices, worth a staggering $34 billion, will be sold in 2020 (up from 274 million this year). In his words, he focuses on the intersection of “Mobile + Digital + Apps + IoT + Wearables + UX + Cloud + Enterprise + Monetization + Government + Agile.”

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Forecast Cofounder Agile 48

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2014

If not, be agile enough to change direction and re-focus,” Nelson advises. This is a process she went through first hand, deciding on the fresh direction for her business as they went into development a new product. Keep customers at the forefront, and listen to them. Plan ahead. Be hyper-focused.

Bootstrapping 107

Bootstrapping Cofounder Portland Burn Rate 107

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

Most of our management tools, like planning and forecasting, require a long and stable operating history. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Customer data is rarely used to make decisions. How do you know when to pivot and when to persevere?

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167