Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Founders innately believe they understand a customers problem and just need to spend their time building a solution. You can test your hypotheses with a series of experiments with potential customers.

Customer 415

Customer Business Model Restful Video 415

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of this century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. This new framework can act as the front-end of Customer Development.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

The country exited the Civil War as a nation of small businesses and ended the century with large national corporations (railroads, steel, oil, food, insurance, etc.). These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Market segments drive your business model.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Noam is one of a rare breed of business academics: he studies entrepreneurship using a rigorous empirical approach. by Eric Ries.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

Kauffman launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. In January 2014 Part 1 of the “ Startups ” section of Founders School went online. 1:28: Using the Business Model Canvas.

Intellectual Property 329

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 329

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

However, in meeting some of the sports startups one of the things that struck me is that most of the founders who said they wanted to grow big hadn’t given much thought about how they would go about building size and scale. For example, many of the Australian sports tech business models shared common elements. Establish U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 324

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 324

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.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

They operated this way because their existing business models didn’t allow them to initially profit from those opportunities – so they ignored them – and continued to chase higher profitability in more-demanding segments. Therefore, for founders, entrepreneurship wasn’t a job, but a calling.

Lean 429

Lean Business Model Government Agile 429

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 216

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 216

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need. Writing a business plan that doesn’t allow for trial and error.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” Well all the agencies we interview tell us they can survey our customers and come up with our positioning and then help us target the right blogs, influencers and press. Not to turn them into channel sales people but to hear customer objections unfiltered.

PR 316

PR China Lean Channel 316

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ? A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

It’s now been over 3 years since the team has left my classroom and I thought I’d share with you what the two founders, Jorge Heraud and Lee Redden, learned then and what they’re doing now. Students need to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week. Now they were figuring out how to create demand.

Lean 274

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 274

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. Managing the Business. Here’s why.

Balance Sheet 300

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 300

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model. Wastes Founders Time.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” Well all the agencies we interview tell us they can survey our customers and come up with our positioning and then help us target the right blogs, influencers and press. Not to turn them into channel sales people but to hear customer objections unfiltered.

PR 208

PR China Lean Channel 208

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In fact, at the time (1996-1997) we offered both a downloadable product, that our customers could install on their own servers, and a “hosted-offering”, which came to be known as “On-Demand”, then the “ASP” (Application Service Provider) model, and today we call it “SaaS” (Software as a Service).

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. The question was: what did the founders want to do? Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”.

Hockey Stick 284

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 284

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model. Wastes Founders Time.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) I gave Frank the same advice I offered all the other universities who asked. Make it Better.

Lean 271

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 271

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

And no amount of business success is enough if you don’t have time with your family. Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Ryan Smith , co-founder of Qualtrics insight platform. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield. You guys were geniuses.”

Cofounder 146

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 146

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

And no amount of business success is enough if you don’t have time with your family. Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Ryan Smith , co-founder of Qualtrics insight platform. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield. You guys were geniuses.”

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

But the bubble mantra of get “big fast” and “first mover advantage” demanded tens of millions more to create a “brand.” VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. That requires building a company using Agile and Customer Development.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" By delegating and training, we create a corps of leaders who could step in to provide CTO-like services on demand. However, they insisted on using a platform that totally contradicted their business model.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.). New, agile and adroit venture firms with new business models have emerged to deal with the reality that 1) web 2.0

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

By getting out of the building on a team project, the class helped students viscerally understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 127

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. As operators of an accelerator—and founders in our own right—Ben and I had constantly struggled with what the “right” numbers are for a business.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. The process, which Blank detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany," uses customer feedback to refine and improve a product before scaling a business.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Some of the conversations went like this: Startup 1 Entrepreneur -“I’m competing against Company x and have been following the Customer Development process and I’ve talked to lots of customers.” Do you know how they create demand? Do you know the archetype of their customers? This is easy to test.

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I reminded her that all the Lean tools she learned in class–Customer Discovery, business model and value proposition canvases– contained her answer. For example, our goal could be: Create demand for our products and drive it into our sales channel. Painful and invaluable” was her reply. Here’s how.

Marketing 312

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 312