Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. We couldn’t cut product development (we had 23 people!) .&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. Time slipped; fixed overhead continued. And exactly as you’d expect, there came the time when the company ran out of money as it ignored its original market.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

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. This post describes such a model.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. In the first couple of months the focus should be on making sure the idea is valid, requiring the following activities: Development of the company vision and strategy.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2020

It’s got a big burn rate, it’s too big to pivot, and it goes bust. We have a studio team – developers, designers etc. Our team helped them figure out the product vision, we put incredible work into testing prototypes, and then our product developers built it – launching in time for the football season in August 2019.

Partner 68

Partner Early Stage Portfolio Metrics 68

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

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. Work in small batches.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

The product didnt convert well enough, the mainstream customers we were driving werent ready for the concept, and the event fed expectations about how successful the product was going to be that turned out to be hyper-inflated. Why do startups synchronize marketing launch and product launch?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Build a truly mainstream product. Insist on high levels of usability, UI design, and polish. Without conscious process design, product development teams turn lines of code written into momentum in a certain direction. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150