ConversionXL

MARCH 29, 2017

You’re not going to find your next major growth breakthrough in a growth hacks listicle. It should go without saying that growth starts with the product. High-growth companies simply have something most companies don’t, right? Some secret growth hack or silver bullet that skyrocketed them to household names. via CXL Live).

Marketing 48

Marketing Distribution Retention eCommerce 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” One of the times I screwed this up it left a legacy of 25 years of questionable design in microprocessor architecture. Endianness” refers to the byte order of data stored in external memory.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

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 I can even imagine cases where it might burn more cash than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

See the previous Ardent posts for context.) Supercomputers With the introduction in 1976 of the Cray-1 , supercomputers were defined as the fastest vector-processing computer , one in which a single instruction performed operations on an array rather than a single number.

Silicon Valley 147

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 147

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. You have to wonder: does the VC you have on your board today have the right skill set to help you succeed in today’s economic environment?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

It took me 8 startups and 21 years to get it right, (and one can argue success was due to the Internet bubble rather then any brilliance.) In 1978 when I joined my first company , information about how to start companies simply didn’t exist. No internet, no blogs, no books on startups, no entrepreneurship departments in universities, etc.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Where were the books explaining why were all these chip and computer companies started here? 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? How did this culture of “make it happen&# emerge, etc. I needed to dig deeper.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. Dancing Around the Question Union Square Ventures was kind enough to sponsor a meetup the night before my class.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

mashable.com

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

Here, we’ll share a few ready-made spreadsheets you can copy (navigate File + Make a copy ) and use for social media analytics. Copy the spreadsheet here. Top Stories Photo & Video Galleries Top Lists Trending Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video More Topics. People Recommended Mashable Staff More people.

Social Media 108

Social Media Analytics Media API 108

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

If the product does work, and say we’ve developed a drug that cures a type of cancer, your only problem is how big is the licensing deal going to be – not about whether there will be customers. Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

A Phone Call After I left MIPS Computers I was in New York tagging along with a friend (a computer architect whose products at Apple a decade later would change the shape of personal computing) who was consulting for a voice recognition startup. We were on the University of North Carolina campus to meet with Fred Brooks and Henry Fuchs.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Tag Memes - Someone posts a question and "Tags" five people to give their response. Discussion Group Hub - questions/topics are raised via the discussion group and can go out into the blog world to get a more diverse audience - which is now happening with this group. See Five Things Meme as an example. as an example.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

One of the things he mentioned was that when it came to decision-making he still tended to think and act like an engineer. Most decisions in a startup must be made in the face of uncertainty. This doesn’t mean gambling the company’s fortunes on a whim. It means adopting plans with an acceptable degree of risk, and doing it quickly.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

The story had universal appeal, and we spun the tale and keep the buzz going. Everyone Else is an Idiot The theme of our press blitz was all about how we were going to show the old tired game companies the right way to make video games. At the time I was a true believer that Rocket Science was going to change the gaming world.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Of course no VC firm will come right out and say, “If you’re an EIR for us you can’t do your next deal with any other firm.&# Hmm… You’ve taken their money, eaten their food, sat in their meetings and you are going to take money from someone else? It really means that the VC’s would like to own a piece of you.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.”

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. As a reminder, this post is not legal advice, it’s not even advice. It’s just a story about what happened to me. Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. His enthusiastic response was, “This will revolutionize marketing departments!”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I caught my breath and thought about it for a minute and said, “How about I go talk to the new training manager. Could I work here if he wanted to hire me? 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. Driving across the U.S.

Agile 245

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

This post makes a lot more sense if you look at the earlier posts as well as the video and slides. He started the Stanford Honors Co-op in 1954 which allowed companies in the valley to send their engineers to Stanford graduate engineering programs. So I started to read all I could find on the development of microwaves.

Silicon Valley 180

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 180

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

My mother kept asking if they were going to make me pay the money back. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

I learned a lot at Convergent, going from product marketing manager in a small startup to VP of Marketing of the Unix Division as it became a public company. Not only didn’t I mind, but I couldn’t wait to go to work in the morning and would stay until I dropped at night. Two of my role models for my career were in this company. (And

Entrepreneur 276

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 276

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? No, not really. Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? And we lost money when we did so. Therefore, no, we weren’t really equipped to be the low cost provider.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

At the time no one (including Apple) knew exactly what consumers were going to do with multimedia, it was still pre-Internet. And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. But Apple had planned to announce and demo QuickTime without a way to get video into the Mac.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We thought we had figured out what the next generation of games was going to be. Don’t worry the games are going to be great.” While the Rocket Science press juggernaut moved inexorably forward, a few troubling facts kept trying to bubble up into my consciousness. That’s OK, because we knew better.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all startups. Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs.

Vertical 149

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 149

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

You don’t want to launch with the wrong idea only to realize you need to go in a different direction and have to re-do a bunch of the work. You don’t want to launch with the wrong idea only to realize you need to go in a different direction and have to re-do a bunch of the work. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce SEO Software Review Social Media 60

Up and Running

DECEMBER 16, 2015

I don’t have children yet but when I do, I know I’m going to want to make sure they’re intelligent, creative, compassionate, and self-confident—probably what every non-parent hopes for, right? And, given it’s the holiday season, I decided to go about presenting the data in a slightly more entertaining manner.

Stock 60

Stock Entrepreneur Software Review Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

These analysts not only told us that the market had plenty of room to grow, they took an interest in us, since we were going to be a hardware company going after this growing market. In this one month we had learned more about desktop publishing on the Mac than any one of our competitors. Now the question was what to do with it.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Customer RSS Philippines 134

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

You’d think conversion optimization and SEO should play together nicely, right? In theory, conversion optimization aims to improve the user experience, which, conveniently, is what Google wants to do as well with their top search results. Therefore, the more you test and improve your site, the higher it should appear in the rankings.

SEO 48

SEO Technical Review Algorithm Jacksonville 48

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Burnout can turn productive employees into emotional zombies and destroy careers. But it can also force you to hit the pause button and perhaps take a moment to reevaluate your life and your choices. Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley 175

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

mashable.com

JULY 18, 2012

Google VP: Here’s How to Get Bought By Us. If you’re a startup looking for the fabled goldmine of a Google exit, here’s the guy you’ll want to meet: David Lawee. If you’re a startup looking for the fabled goldmine of a Google exit, here’s the guy you’ll want to meet: David Lawee.

San Francisco 104

San Francisco Acquisition Social Media Mobile 104

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Not a process I recommend, but one in which the lessons stuck for a lifetime. Read the previous Ardent post for context.) Lessons to Learn By the time I joined Ardent I thought I was an experienced marketer, but I’ll never forget my first real lesson in what it meant to understand customers and product/market fit.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

mobile.smashingmagazine.com

JANUARY 16, 2013

If it’s not here, it will be soon. - select -. Newsletter. JavaScript. Techniques. Web Design. Typography. Inspiration. Responsive. iPhone & iPad. WP Word Press. Essentials. Techniques. Mobile Design’s Wake-Up Call Preparing Websites For The Unexpected. By Ben Gremillion. January 14th, 2013. Responsive Design , Strategy.

Mobile 101

Mobile HTML Flash Software Review 101

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Was she going to propose a coherent communications strategy? While I was waiting in the lobby to pick up my offer letter, the head of marketing communications (who was to be one of my direct reports) came up to me as I held my just signed employment agreement. An in-depth reseller survey? Or offer some real insights into our customers?

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

www.chubbybrain.com

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You should sign up for our newsletter here. Get started here. With that preamble, here is the list in no particular order. October 3rd, 2010 the Chubby Team 48 Comments. Want more entrepreneurial goodness? Also worth a read after you review these startup failure post-mortems. However, this survivorship bias is problematic.

Software Review 79

Software Review Startup Technical Review Vesting 79