Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. Are These Your Slides?

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But to get video to fit and playback on the computers of the era, they needed to compress it. But here was a $499 product that could let everyone use video.) This is the first way to get video into a computer, we’re going to sell and market this board like there’s no tomorrow. The software was idiot proof. And they were right.

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Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

What’s Marketing? But the one group that had me stumped was something called “marketing.&# &# Explain it to me again,&# I’d ask. One day I heard there was an opening in the marketing department for a product marketing manager for the Z-8000 peripheral chips. But Intel was kicking our rear.

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Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Blog About Log in Register Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key factors: team, product and market, with particular focus on the importance of product/market fit.

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Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

APRIL 27, 2010

Why on earth would I use their product when I already use Google Analytics (99% of the web developers do too)? I am aware that KissMetrics is applying the lean startup principle that promotes to publish a minimum viable product and iterate based on feedback. The simplicity of a product is perceived differently by everyone.

Ruby 37

Ruby Australia Analytics RSS 37

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

MARCH 11, 2010

I recently received this unsolicited email from Craig Shinney (slightly edited to protect identities) – I just wanted to write to tell you that about one year ago, I started getting into Internet marketing and experimenting with all sorts of different methods of the various types of blogs and tools that all the different marketers recommend.

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Vertical Business Model PPC Internet 80

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

OCTOBER 27, 2010

More importantly, you can make this change today and take advantage of something that all bloggers who use WordPress to sell affiliate products, should use. Here’s why I use it… Affiliate Link Management Made Easy Way back in 2005 I wrote a review of a product by Perry Marshall that I promoted using an affiliate link.

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Affiliate Software Review Marketing HTML 81

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media. By the time this point has been reached, the focus has ceased to be the technology and the product, but on organization.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. These steps mesh seamlessly and support a startup’s ongoing product development activities.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

www.cscyphers.com

MARCH 8, 2012

My own experience fits with this as well. It can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff when you’re talking to a marketing person (‘Ah, you do internet marketing? the marketing to get potential customers to use that weekend website. the marketing to get potential customers to use that weekend website.

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Cofounder Technical Review Founder Software Review 40

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

MARCH 10, 2010

My plan, based on all the Internet marketing advice I studied from the experts to “create a product&# , was to start by releasing an ebook to test the waters as my first product. You will find plenty of articles on SEO in my archives under the SEO category if you’re keen for study materials.

SEO 76

SEO Engineer Search Software Review 76

clicksend.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 26, 2010

He simply did not fit into the company: he had little to add, he couldn’t contribute to the product, and he had a differing vision. You need a programmer, and if you’re the right fit a programmer will also need you. My co-founder wanted to be able to focus on the product, and my background allowed him to do so.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Non-Compete RSS 40

www.chancebarnett.com

MAY 10, 2011

With the theory and insights and tips I gave about Positioning your business, finding your market online and “framing” your product to a hungry crowd… when it comes to actually sitting down and deciding what’s on your landing page, it can be a challenge knowing where to start. Traditionally this is a headline, image or tag line.

SEM 47

SEM Email Los Angeles Conversion 47

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

So what you want to do next is to think about all the functions in your business and where they fit in your long term success (or ability to learn) and identify as targets for outsourcing partially or in time. PR/Marketing. The best early PR is a product that people actually love plus a genuine story to tell from the founder.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

www.ere.net

JULY 15, 2012

Browse Articles by Tag. Browse Articles by Tag. If you’re targeting top performers or poaching from competitors, the remaining steps of the recruiting process must be designed to “fit” the needs in the job search process of your targeted candidate if you expect to even gain their attention. Not logged in. [

Hiring 57

Hiring Metrics Search Widget 57

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Technology | Tagged: Customer Development , Tips for Startups « The Sharp End of the Stick Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions » 2 Responses links for 2009-05-06 « Blarney Fellow , on May 6, 2009 at 5:17 pm Said: [.]

Analytics 121

Analytics Silicon Valley Customer RSS 121

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.) are all expensive and potentially fatal distractions if done before you have found product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. Something else? Who’s the customer?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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. Do they believe you have a big enough vision and market. Did the VC’s like your team ?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Software By Rob

AUGUST 11, 2009

At some point in the past year I watched a video of an Eric Sink presentation and he asked the following question (he said it was asked of him by a college student): Why would someone buy your product when it has an open source competitor? Market Hard. You have a marketing budget; odds are high your open source competitor does not.

Open Source 62

Open Source Software Review Non-Compete Software 62

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

If youre looking for funding for a prelaunch product or service, youll need a to be a very interesting person [or someone] with deep expertise in your field," Roberts wrote in a guest post on Mashable. As an undergrad, he studied philosophy at Brigham Young University. startupcto

Silicon Valley 46

Silicon Valley Semantic Social Network Cofounder 46

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines. Finally, GM created the notion of perpetual demand within brands by continually obsoleting their own products yearly with new models rolled out every year.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development process puts you in continuous contact with customers to test your concept, fail, and iterate way before you actually ship the product.

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Little Indians and Big Indians At MIPS Computers , my second semiconductor company, I was the VP of Marketing and defacto head of Sales. As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. I was just in marketing.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, medical devices, etc.,) Before you go to a trade show sales and marketing need to agree to measurable goals. you know they’re expensive in time, dollars and resources.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 10, 2010

Twitter has become part of almost every startups marketing and engagement strategy. When someone follows you, you want them to be following you for the right reasons — because they’re truly interested in your company, or your product, or what you have to say. It’s become a channel. Very often this happens inadvertently.

Startup 93

Startup Channel Audience Search 93

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

There are a couple of good reasons a company should consider bootstrapping its market entry. Or the founders have taken on a small amount of seed financing, just enough to get them into the market. But each stage needs to be completed, if you are to reasonably expect a quality product. How much will this cost?

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Their presentation looked like this: Market/Opportunity Lessons Learned Slide 1 Lessons Learned Slide 2 Lessons Learned Slide 3 Why We’re Here Telling the Cafepress Customer Discovery and Customer Validation story allowed Fred and Maheesh to take the VC’s on their journey year by year. Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch [.]

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them. Let’s look at some examples: In a traditional business, customers pay money for a physical artifact (a product) or a service.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

By the late 1930′s when HP started, a small group (measured in hundreds) of engineers who made radio tubes were building the valleys’ ecosystem for electronics manufacturing, product engineering and technology management. Who would have known?

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

mobile.smashingmagazine.com

JANUARY 16, 2013

Conventions like navigation bars, two- and three-column layout and hover effects evolved to fit the mouse-based wide-screen standard. Wider ranges of text sizes do not fit well. Variations on a website make it difficult to fit everything into a mobile solution. Mobile devices shake old habits in two ways.

Mobile 101

Mobile HTML Flash Software Review 101

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

Traffic is, and will always be, a hot topic in internet marketing. If you can get a popular site to recommend your product, one of the results of that can be high quality targeted traffic. Market Samurai then gave me the top 10 sites that rank for all of the keywords I entered. Who links to my top competitors? All the Best!

Email 82

Email Internet Video Audience 82

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. His marketing and sales instincts and skills seemed magical and he built the company into a $400 million OEM supplier, ultimately selling the company to Unisys.

Entrepreneur 276

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 276

www.pakman.com

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Things like business white-papers or product reviews are perfect examples of informational traffic. Share this: Tags: consumer web , social media , social web , traffic. However look for Twitter to use Twittercards and link management (affiliate programs, “products in your stream”) to differentiate. Contact Me.

Social Media 47

Social Media Vertical Advertising Distribution 47

bhargreaves.com

MARCH 7, 2010

Most disturbingly, I’ve occasionally found myself agreeing with an entrepreneur’s decision to hire a development shop to build their product. In brief, startups succeed because there is strong alignment of interests among all parties, especially with the people who are actually building the product.

Hiring 40

Hiring Technical Review Agile Software Review 40