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Driving Corporate Innovation: Design Thinking vs. Customer Development

Steve Blank

Two methods, Design Thinking and Customer Development (the core of the Lean Startup) provide the tactical day-to-day process of how to turn ideas into products. . While they both emphasize getting out of the building and taking to customers, they’re not the same. .

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The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part.

Steve Blank

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

The mantra of “ first mover advantage ,” the idea that winners are the ones who are the first entrants in their market, became the conventional wisdom of investors in Silicon Valley.“ First Movers” didn’t understand customer problems or the product features that solved those problems (what we now call product-market fit).

Lean 335
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It Must Be A Marketing Problem

Steve Blank

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 248
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Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners.

Steve Blank

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. 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.

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The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part V: Happy 100th Birthday.

Steve Blank

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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Reinventing the Board Meeting – Part 1 of 2

Steve Blank

Silicon Valley, New York). The only numbers in those documents that are important in the first year of a startup’s life are burn rate and cash balance. If you’re in a technology cluster like Silicon Valley you may be able to attract ad hoc advice from experienced investors. Here’s how. better user growth.