Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. Personal branding helps founders and executives establish credibility, which is crucial for launching successful businesses, especially if they start multiple companies. Custom development. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

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

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

This thought was in my mind as I was reading Lean Analytics a new book by my friend Alistair Croll and his collaborator Benjamin Yoskovitz. In this post, we’ll look at each of the four steps in the Lean Analytics Cycle in more detail. That’s because they require you to have a deep understanding of your customers. But they are.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

However, about 5% of the VCs in our database, mostly younger ones, are trying to build a competitive advantage by crawling large amounts of publicly available data and building analytical functions to flag companies with accelerating traction to them. ” Historically, investing was a manual, artisan process. Two Sigma Ventures.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Enable Google Analytics tracking. You just have to sign up for Google Analytics, get your account number, and plug it into your site. Use Googles built-in Analytics/AdWords integration, to track the effectiveness of each ad you run. If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

However, in meeting some of the sports startups one of the things that struck me is that most of the founders who said they wanted to grow big hadn’t given much thought about how they would go about building size and scale. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Founder Dialogues : Eric Paley plays talk show host on this recurring fireside chat style event that has featured Boston’s BEST founders. OnStartups: One of the largest online startup communities founded by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah. Boston Hardware Startup Meetup – Meetup organized by the founders of BOLT.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

He had an idea for a new class of enterprise software insight-as-a-service based on big data web analytics as a Cloud/SaaS (Software As a Service) application. Bob had taken to heart the business model canvas and Customer Development lessons. The first thing that I noticed was that Bob couldn’t seem to find a co-founder.

Customer Development 330

Customer Development Cofounder Later Stage Software 330

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Examples of these applications include: remote patient monitoring, analytics/big data (aggregation and analysis of clinical, administrative or economic data), hospital administration (software tools to run a hospital), electronic health records (clinical data capture), and wellness (improve/monitor health of individuals). Regulatory Issues.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

In the early fall of 2009, as kaChing prepared for its marketplace launch, the management team showed the app—which included real time market data, SEC-grade accounting, analytics, compliance and customer management tools—to a number of investment pros to get feedback and endorsements.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In Customer Development the goal of a minimum feature set is to pare the features of the first product release to the minimum necessary for early customers. And if you actually want to respond to shifting customer behavior by running a new marketing campaign (ads, email, etc.,) Founder Too. An Epiphany.

San Francisco 228

San Francisco Database Advisory Board Silicon Valley 228

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. We’re all familiar with Product Development, and thanks to the amazing Steve Blank and Eric Ries , Customer Development has become the mantra for so many startups. In a nutshell, Product Development is about building something.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Additionally, he is the co-founder of ConnectYard , a social analytics platform for e-learning platforms. We did do a lot of … customer discovery.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder DC Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 120

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

At Facebook we never did testing or looked at analytics. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Waves of technology platforms The lean startup Customer Development Engineering Greasemonkey compiler Great open source scalability tools from Danga Ideas.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. SlideShare asked customers what they had expected in the product; the responses were often literal descriptions.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller , co-founder of Level Therapy , provider of mobile therapy sessions. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher. Where did this company miss?

Columbus 245

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 245

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 20, 2010

As a good student of startup theory, especially modern theories of customer development, this time I was methodical and purposeful. A year after leaving Smart Bear, having talked with dozens of startup founders about their marketing woes, I realized 100% of them needed the marketing-measurement engine I built at Smart Bear.

Startup 239

Startup Campaign Turkey Customer Development 239

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2016

It follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Nigel and Vaugn Caldon , co-founders of BallStar social network for basketball players. Nigel also teaches Data Analytics at General Assembly NYC. . Nigel Caldon.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur North America Cofounder Silicon Valley 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

Of course, I can still get access to the data about who’s signing up and when – and a lot more analytics, to boot – but I have to ask. So the product development team was busy creating lots of split-tests for lots of hypotheses. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

This is often a tough concept for engineering founders who believe that if we just tell customers about the features that make their product faster, cheaper, etc. Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing. they’ll win.). The question is when ?”

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

They use customer development , split-testing , and actionable analytics as vehicles for learning about how to make their vision successful. But they do not blindly do what customers tell them , nor do they mechanically attempt to optimize numbers. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process. Become a Web Developer from Scratch!

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller , co-founder of Level Therapy , provider of mobile therapy sessions. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher. Where did this company miss?

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Remember, radio programs get no realtime analytics, no click maps, no funnel reports. And Red Room founder/CEO Ivory Madison on popular metrics that everyone should stop using. And Sincerely’s Matt Brezina on the secrets of developing mobile apps quickly. And Tendai Charisika on creative ways to get out of the building.

Lean 159

Lean San Francisco Houston Engineer 159

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? By doing the job.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

The Startup Toolkit

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Instead of talking to customers, I watched analytics or sent out a survey. Customer-facing stuff is hard! I began my time in sales & customer development roles as a pathologically shy techie. Sales and customer development meetings became a pleasure for me once I deeply understood the industry.

Customer Development 37

Customer Development Analytics Sales Founder 37

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

How do we know how much energy to invest in analytics vs. doing real work? How do we know how much energy to invest in analytics vs. doing real work? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? But its lethal when we start to run the company using vanity metrics as a guide.

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Most importantly, it’s now possible to have detailed analytics on exactly what’s happening to messages and ideas as they flow through word-of-mouth channels. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Scaling up successful tests is easy for the same reason.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

The founders coming out of the DEC ( Digital Equipment Corporation ) and Intel culture of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. As an early employee I worked all hours of the day, never hesitated to jump on a “ red-eye ” plane to see a customer at the drop of a hat, and did what was necessary to make the company a winner.

Entrepreneur 276

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 276

The Startup Toolkit

JANUARY 12, 2017

Learning in advance that you don’t need to build a feature is one of the highest-impact (and most common) results of good customer development. It’s why talking to customers is able to speed you up, even though it feels like it’s slowing you down at the time (“But we could be coooooodiiiiiiiing!”).

Stealth 20

Stealth Bootstrapping Valuation Equity 20

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

If you’re a non-technical founder, while your team is building and refining your product, you’ve got to figure out what to do with your time. It’s the kind of thing you can repeat in an elevator, simple to understand , universally applicable , and, most importantly, doesn’t burden your tech team with a lot of custom development.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Slowly, over time, we optimized (or eliminated) each step in the process of becoming a customer by giving us money. In the process, we had also built a simple cohort-based analytics system. And then we would use that simple analytics system I mentioned to monitor the conversion rates of customers from each campaign.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164