Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. 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 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. And do your customer development. I was really overwhelmed this time.

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Venture Chronicles

AUGUST 2, 2013

I have covered a couple of topics in this series, the first being hiring the best people and the second organizing for success based on the attributes of the people you are hiring. and more on point is that the best product is a result of what you learn from your customers, not what you think you should be doing.

Product 62

Product CTO Hire Architecture Startup 62

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. How did Silicon Valley start?

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Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 279

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

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. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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. Strong pre-show promotion will let your customers and prospects know about your exhibit.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. Carpe Diem. We’re now in the second Internet bubble.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Boyd emphasized the importance of agility in combat: "the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than ones opponent." Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster. Customer development.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Id like to call special attention to Kurt Carr s perspective (lets hope he finishes his five-part series): Now that I’m back in Ohio (I was one of the token foreigners in a room full of Silicon Valley residents), I have found myself reliving and rethinking much of what I saw there. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. VC’s invested in things that ran on electrons: hardware, software and silicon. Quickly iterate the product in front of customers. Here’s why.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 260

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) Driving across the U.S.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 251

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Where did Silicon Valley come from? I think the absolute best reading on this subject is a book called Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 by AnnaLee Saxenian. And what were they doing beforehand?

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. 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. We finally settled on a $1.99 Setup a simple website.

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Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 20, 2023

While Silicon Valley remains iconic, cities from Bangalore to Berlin are making names for themselves as hotbeds of tech innovation. The Founder’s Journey To truly succeed, a founder needs resilience , a consistent capacity to innovate, and the agility to adapt to an ever-changing market.

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Technical Review Startup Silicon Valley Agile 137

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

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. Handspring’s customers understood what a Personal Digital Assistant was.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Although Im not a developer, I am captivated by the lean and agile start-up model that you write about. The problem is that the most authentic innovators and entrepreneurs are in the Valley. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. There are just too many of them out there.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Im not offering extensive studies or research to support this conclusion; the evidence from my peers right here in the innovation capital of America, Silicon Valley, is absolutely overwhelming. Asked to help, I am confident that Silicon Valley and every other innovation center will step up. They are nerds. Expo SF (May.

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Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Take a look: This full-day Master Class focuses on how to build a startup from the ground up to focus on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. Im working on a future post where Ill share the details of how I used customer development to shape both the content and packaging of this event, so look for that soon. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

At Toyota , they are called Chief Engineer : Toyota realizes that the Chief Engineer job is probably the most important one in the company because the Chief Engineer listens to the customer and then determines what the functions need to do to address the customer’s desires. What is customer development? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 17, 2017

In the 21st century you need a scorecard to keep track of the threats: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, ISIS in Yemen/Libya/Philippines, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, hackers for hire, etc. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan finding and deploying technology solutions against agile insurgents.

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Community Silicon Valley Technical Review Incubator 218

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, June 9, 2009 The Lean Startup Tokyo edition I had a blast speaking at Startonomics Tokyo , which was organized to foster ties between the startup cultures in Japan and Silicon Valley. benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders!

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Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Posted on March 29, 2009 by steveblank This is post II of how I came to write “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley “ 1974. Sure the rest of the stories diverge though… can’t really imagine a Soviet counterpart to the Customer Development method.

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Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 202

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 20, 2023

12:22] Would you look at the value derived by digital technologies differently than by producing customer value or revenue? [14:23] Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. 16:32] Are there organizations that are significantly behind in this rewiring ?

Technical Review 66

Technical Review Silicon Valley Generative AI Arizona 66

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Ive previously written about the advantages of having a pathetically small number of customers , and how to get started with customer segmentation. it seemed time to return to the subject of investigating who my customers are. Thats a common pattern to gaining customer insight. Customer knows they have a problem.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

ReadWriteStart

MAY 30, 2022

In this article, you’ll learn how bootstrapping makes you a better business – a leaner, smarter, more agile company that can roll with the punches. One in particular from a famous VC in Silicon Valley. Hire a bunch of new staff? . Secondly, just how badly do you need that funding? Don’t answer just yet.

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Bootstrapping Startup Equity Silicon Valley 147

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 It got bigger by inventing new test and measurement equipment and it hired people who knew how to execute that strategy. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 169

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2010

Heres an excerpt: Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster - WSJ.com Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists often churn out how-to business books and fancy themselves as management gurus, but few see their methodologies adopted. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 9, 2016

5 Under Used Strategies to Make Your Customers Feel Valued written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing. There’s a misconception that great customer service requires endless resources and personnel, complex software systems, and outsourced call centers. Your customer retention metrics will thank you.

Customer 28

Customer Silicon Valley Retention Agile 28

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

To turn your company’s stock into cash, you engaged a top-notch investment bank (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) and/or their Silicon Valley compatriots (Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens). Hire a CEO to Go Public. People had to actually pay you for your product.

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We can’t bring customers to this rundown building. We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. However, I’ve seen this story repeated time and again, and not just in Silicon Valley. Engineers were packed in cubicles or desks right on top of each other?

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Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 212

www.ere.net

JULY 15, 2012

Even among recruiting leaders, it’s common for them to realize that their hiring process is failing but be unaware of which steps in the process are causing the problem. There are three different FPI approaches that organizations can use to identify the key “failure points” in any hiring process. ™ All Articles. financials.

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Agile VC

JANUARY 18, 2012

1) Creating an Organization from the Ground Up - Picking co-founders and then later hiring other great folks is always tough, but founding entrepreneurs get to choose their colleagues and together create an organization and culture of their own. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC. Author howerl.

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Entrepreneur Cofounder Silicon Valley Seed Stage 100