Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” It instantly creates a shared visual language while defining a business.

Customer Development 331

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 331

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. And what the market needed would, of course, be exactly what we had envisioned.

Lean 319

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 319

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

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 250

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 250

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

The pandemic has upended the business models of most startups and existing companies. As the economy reopens companies are finding that customers may have disappeared or that their spending behavior has changed. Suppliers are going out of business or requiring cash-up-front terms. Here’s how.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

Therefore we needed them to think and learn about two parts of a startup; 1) ideation - how to create new ideas and 2) customer development – how do they test the validity of their idea (is it the right product, customer, channel, pricing, etc.). Hawken students practicing Customer Discovery in a mall.

Lean 334

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

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 334

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Doing so meant they would have to take risks for IP acquisition and customer/market risks outside their experience or comfort zone. 2) We should have had buy-in about the value of disruptive new business models, design and open innovation thinking. 3) We unknowingly set up an organizational conflict on day one.

Programming 269

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 269

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2012

When Bob Dorf and I wrote the Startup Owners Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. I thought they might be worth enumerating here: A Startup Is a Temporary Organization Designed to Search. for A Repeatable and Scalable Business Model. Pair Customer Development with Agile Development.

Customer Development 330

Customer Development Developer Customer Cofounder 330

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 286

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 286

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

His basic point was: If someone, including me, tells you something isn’t a great idea and there’s no market for it there are only two acceptable responses. I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers." I saw a great post from Tristan Kromer Pivoting on Investor Feedback a.k.a

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Try innovating inside a large company where 99% of the company is executing the current business model, while you’re trying to figure out and build what comes next. Why are some companies able to reinvent themselves while others, once market leaders, are disrupted? So they prepare for future markets by exploring new ventures.

Incubator 414

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 414

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Get Out of the Building and test the Business Model. to get hard-earned information.

Lean 303

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 303

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Back then, an entrepreneur used a serial product development process that proceeded step-by-step with little if any customer feedback. Luckily Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas presents a visual overview of the nine components of a business on one page. customer relationships to create demand.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the early 1920s a new dean changed the curriculum – shifting it from an industry orientation (steel, railroads, etc.) – to a functional one (marketing, factory and employment management (HR), etc.). It’s not about read and remember, but rather is about problem exploration, design and inventing and iterating solutions.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. ———-.

San Jose 259

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 259

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

Business Plan Versus Business Models. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. initial business model hypotheses).

Business Plan 316

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 316

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

What we found is that during the class almost all of them pivoted - making substantive changes to one or more of their business model canvas components. In the real world a big pivot in life sciences far down the road of development is a very bad sign due to huge sunk costs. identify financing vehicles before you need them.

SBIR 318

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 318

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We want to make a bet that your Lean Launchpad class can apply the scientific method to market-opportunity identification. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. The class textbooks were “ The Four Steps to the Epiphany and Business Model Generation.”).

Incubator 306

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 306

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

clinical utility, customer, quality of data, reimbursement, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of CRO’s , and partners, etc.,) you make substantive changes to one or more parts of your initial business model, and this new data affects your biological and clinical hypotheses. They cannot be done by proxies.

Lean 273

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 273

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

This isn’t just about having a eureka moment; it’s about understanding the problem you’re solving and why it matters to your potential customers. Take the time to research your market, identify your target audience, and refine your idea until it’s both good and compelling.

Intellectual Property 158

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 158

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. Price is as important as any other feature to determine product/market “fit.” In a huge market this is probably still OK because there’s enough customers for everyone to thrive in different ways.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. If they were a commercial company, they figured out product/market fit; or if a government organization, it focused on solution/mission fit. that result in innovation theater.

Government 319

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 319

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. business models. business models. Unlike U.S. I can’t imagine a U.S.

China 326

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 326

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. Now, 4 years after I arrived at BerkeleyHaas, we don’t teach business plan writing in any of our entrepreneurship classes or in any of our dozens of programs and competitions. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

Problem is, users don’t want them to have that data and are highly sensitive when it’s used to market to them. The problem is that marketing departments are trying to apply traditional marketing approaches to an entirely new environment — and it’s not working. Restore community marketing. Why fight nature?

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

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 251

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 251

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2010

I’ve been teaching Customer Development at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Business School since the fall of 2004 and in a joint MBA with Columbia since 2005. Back in 2004, Jerry Engel the head of the Entreprenuership program at Haas Business School at U.C. A lot has happened since I first authored and taught the class. Four Steps.

Customer Development 235

Customer Development Lean Developer Customer 235

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. business models. business models. Unlike U.S. I can’t imagine a U.S.

China 218

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 218

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Similarly, customer introductions are invaluable in the early days, but become less valuable once a company has a fully-formed go to market function.”. For technology vendors and models, see Venture capitalists eating our own dog food: Using technology and analytics to make better investments. . Customer Development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ?

Search 324

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 305

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

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, – the business model – is what turns a product into a business. using the business model canvas as the framework. Reflection Week. Nova Credit.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

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 266

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 266

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Scalable startups are on a trajectory for a billion dollar market cap. Not all start ups want to go in that direction – some will opt instead to become a small business. has a large enough market that most U.S. Further refinement of Product/Market fit could be done locally by using Value Proposition Design.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 141

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 141