Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

No, the conversation was about to get more interesting. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. billion U.S.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2021

He was trying to sell the “story” of Customer Discovery as part of the Lean Methodology to his CEO by explaining how discovery worked with the business model canvas, agile engineering, pivots and MVPs. But talking about the method to others is not the same as “doing” Customer Discovery. Lessons Learned.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Conversion Business Model 435

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. The first class was an introduction to the concepts of business model design and customer development. This post is part one.

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

Street Smart Product Manager

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Many of my free product help calls are about ways to pursue customer development and gather VOC, bootstrap new product efforts, and apply lean principles to product management activities. Long Live “Agile Conversations” appeared first on Street Smart Product Manager. The post RIP PRDs.

Agile 46

Agile Conversion Lean Bootstrapping 46

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

When you outsource your IT projects or hire an offshore development team, it comes with many benefits. For example, an agile software development lifecycle model encourages self-organization and motivation rather than the delegation of authority and a seniority hierarchy. Out of the Box vs Custom Software.

Developer 93

Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. If youre worried about disappointing some potential customers - dont be. Measure conversion rates. Eric -- This is a pretty interesting idea. Expo SF (May.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

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. Market Type changes everything. Market Type Changes Everything Here’s the point. .

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Street Smart Product Manager

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Many of my free product help calls are about ways to pursue customer development and gather VOC, bootstrap new product efforts, and apply lean principles to product management activities. Long Live “Agile Conversations” The post RIP PRDs.

Agile 22

Agile Conversion Bootstrapping Lean 22

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting. As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. Expo SF (May.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2013

This was intended as a personal observation, not an ageist statement, and we devolved into a conversation about brain plasticity. At dinner last week, my long time friend Dave Jilk (we just celebrated our 30th friendship anniversary) tossed a hypothesis at me that as people age, they resist adopting new technologies. The essay follows.

Technology 168

Technology Coder Semantic Social Media 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The Customer is a Genius Then instead of talking about our products he segued the conversation into their products. And soon the conversation were about architectural tradeoffs and then how customers didn’t appreciate the elegant designs and how the world was going to hell in a handbasket because of these commodity microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Unfortunately, the video of our sllconf conversation is not online (due to technical problems), but we have a physical tape backup which we are endeavoring to get online soon.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right. Expo SF (May.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Just as a business incurs some debt to take advantage of a market opportunity developers may incur technical debt to hit an important deadline.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

“I’ve been running our company, cycling through Customer Discovery and Validation and the board suggested that I was running out of bandwidth and needed some help in closing our initial orders. I knew where this conversation was going. agile enough to deal with daily change, operating “without a map”. Yeah, and they were great.

Startup 312

Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Go on an agile diet quickly. With a product development team that is not shipping, any agile methodology will surface major problems quickly. Force anyone who is in customer contact to take the role of the Product Owner and insist that they deliver something new on a short regular interval. (For The selling order.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , ESL , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , ESL « Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores A Wilderness of Mirrors » 17 Responses Michael F. 2 weeks in they had outsourced my job, which lead to an awkward conversation. Reply Create.

Agile 245

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. My aspiration with the Lean Startup methodology has always been to provide such a framework, so that we have more intelligent conversations about what works and what doesnt for startups. Thats what this conference is for.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. We changed our model to B2B and adopted Agile around 2002. For now, Id like to ask a favor. Expo SF (May.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

If you look at the top 3 online retailers by conversion rate, none of these are award-winning designs : [link] [link] [link] However, they convert ~25% of visitors to customers. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. But where do those ideas come from in the first place?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

More agile competitors are starting to eat into our business. I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. How can we restart our innovation culture?”. That’s now changed.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

If you find yourself getting asked non-key questions, try to use your answers to steer the conversation back to the key questions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. The process they use to guide their search is customer development. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Weekly blog of the customer development narrative.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. After a few months of early beta at IMVU, we discovered that our actual conversion rate was about 0.4%. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When it becomes possible to build products "live" with customers, the cycle time changes and design becomes a much more dynamic process. We still struggle to create Firm software that is defect-free, and it still requires customer insight (and maybe some customer development) to discover what will Delight. Expo SF (May.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Use some customer development to find out. Split-testing is great for linear optimization; making our landing pages, conversion rates, and retention metrics incrementally better day-in day-out. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What if its both of you?

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 2, 2010

By all accounts, the conversation was a success. By all accounts, the conversation was a success. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? I certainly had a great time, and the early Twitter reactions seem positive. Of course, you can judge for yourself. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 149

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 149

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? It’s a fascinating time to see content industries in action, because they are facing a constantly changing landscape and are really trying to keep up. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Given that most recruiting channels are pay-for-performance, its usually cheaper, too, because it has a lower conversion rate. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? If you want to expand your pool of available passive candidates, give a site like NotchUp a try. Expo SF (May.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140