Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. I have seen really great product people espouse the death of the business plan. Do so at your peril.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

These false assumptions – that you know the customer problem and product features – led startups to organize their product introduction process like the diagram below – essentially identical to the product management process of a large company. The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. In ten years, from the early 1950′s to the early 1960′s, the valley went through a hiring frenzy as jobs in microwave companies went from 700 to 7,000. Who would have known?

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Hire the absolute best and the brightest, true experts in their fields, who in turn can hire the smartest people possible to staff their departments. Build a truly mainstream product. Build the product in stealth mode to build buzz for the eventual launch. Here are a few: We know what customers want.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

It had taken the company almost twice as long as planned to get their product out the door. raised their voices in a annoyed investor tone) that the headcount and its attendant burn rate combined with the lack of revenue meant the company would run out of money much sooner than anyone planned. All this takes time.”

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Were talking PayPal -sized variations.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. There’s something about working on a crappy desk that spurs better ideas and more productivity than a “professional&# desk with an ergonomic chair. We need our own cafeteria so employees don’t have to leave the building.

Silicon Valley 205

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 205

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Product launch) In todays world, there is no reason you have to do these two things at the same time. Do some Customer Development instead.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

The Startup Toolkit

JUNE 27, 2012

Similarly, I think that working nights & weekends is an awesome way to start doing customer development and answering the big questions about your business. 3] I mean organisational scale rather than technical scale — hiring, funding, advertising, etc. 2] Data via the startup genome project. [3]

Burn Rate 35

Burn Rate PR Campaign Hiring 35