Steve Blank

MARCH 14, 2012

Today, the second half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. This team spoke face-to-face with 326 customers. As often happens, this team came into class convinced that their market research proved that their business was providing credit to underbanked customers. Team MiCasa.

Lean 252

Lean Business Model China Customer Development 252

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

Why David Rose recommends it: “It lays out in explicitly stark terms the difference between ‘small business ownership’ and ‘entrepreneurship.’ After you finish this, you should have a pretty good feel for whether you have what it takes to create a high-growth business.”. Tim Berry is the expert on business planning.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

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

MARCH 26, 2014

For those who don’t know, I wrote the book Open Innovation in 2003, and followed it with Open Business Models in 2006, and Open Services Innovation in 2011. In this post, I want to share some new thoughts that build on Steve’s post, and connect them to Lean Startup methods. While a simple statement, this is a profound insight.

Startup 330

Startup Business Model Lean Russia 330

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Last May, I shared the news that long-time Lean Startup advocates Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits were working on a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur featuring illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. That new book is about to hit bookstores everywhere.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

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 253

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Roominate , one of my favorite Lean LaunchPad teams came out to the ranch last week for a strategy session. Then summarize it in a brief – a one, max two-page document that you hand to prospective PR agencies. Not to turn them into channel sales people but to hear customer objections unfiltered. There’s Not Enough Time.

PR 319

PR China Lean Channel 319

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

But businesses are finding that Continuous Deployment not only changes engineering but has ripple effects on the rest of its business model. And these changes may have unintended consequences leading to customer dissatisfaction and confusion. The Old Days – Waterfall Product Development. Lessons Learned.

Continuous Deployment 331

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 331

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Our Lean LaunchPad class teaches scientists and engineers that starting a company is another research project that can be solved by an iterative process of hypotheses testing and experimentation built around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Scientists Unleashed.

Silicon Valley 245

Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development Business Model 245

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

In each case, the business plans were big, long, serious documents that had only a minor semblance to actual business that got created. In the 1990s, business plan competitions were all the rage. I was a judge early on at the MIT $10k Competition (now the $100k Competition) and read lots and lots of business plans.

Business Plan 193

Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

This thought was in my mind as I was reading Lean Analytics a new book by my friend Alistair Croll and his collaborator Benjamin Yoskovitz. In this post, we’ll look at each of the four steps in the Lean Analytics Cycle in more detail. Another way to find the metric you want to change is to look at your business model.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Roominate , one of my favorite Lean LaunchPad teams came out to the ranch last week for a strategy session. Then summarize it in a brief – a one, max two-page document that you hand to prospective PR agencies. Not to turn them into channel sales people but to hear customer objections unfiltered. There’s Not Enough Time.

PR 211

PR China Lean Channel 211

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Reinventing the board meeting may allow venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. for a business model. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 289

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 289

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Lean Startups/Back to Basics (2000-2010): No IPO’s, limited VC cash, lack of confidence and funding fuels “lean startup” era with limited M&A and even less IPO activity. The IPO offering document became the playbook for startups. 2001 – 2010: Back to Basics: The Lean Startup. Facebook, Android/Apple App store.)

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Today, I want to introduce you to a new concept for starting and growing successful companies: Lean Planning™. Before I dive too deeply into the Lean Planning methodology, it makes sense to talk about its history and where it comes from. It starts with “Plan-As-You-Go” instead of detailed, formal business plans.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Join a select cross-disciplinary class that will put you hands-on with the masters of lean innovation to help bring rapid-fire innovative solutions to address threats to our national security. Targeting, assessments, technology, recipes, and tactics all flow at the speed of a Lean Startup. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CIA, NSA.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

BMNT , a new Silicon Valley company, is combining the Lean Methods it learned in combat with the technology expertise and speed of startups. The OODA Loop was the Lean Startup philosophy before lean. The REF had permission to shortcut the detailed 100+ page requirements documents used by the defense acquisition process.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

So I was astonished how ready and eager students were for a class that combines the toughest problems in national security, with learning Lean Innovation methods. We had more applicants (70+) for the 32 seats in this class than we usually get in our Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship class. Result: Hell yes.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 130

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

So I was astonished how ready and eager students were for a class that combines the toughest problems in national security, with learning Lean Innovation methods. We had more applicants (70+) for the 32 seats in this class than we usually get in our Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship class. Result: Hell yes.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

First, SlideShare is a fantastic product (that I use on a regular basis) and an impressive company example of Lean Startup practices in action. Second, their story illustrates a key Lean Startup idea: proving the business in micro-scale. Early this year, SlideShare launched custom channels. That is customer development.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Me – “Have you used Company x’s product? Do you know have they distribute their product?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21 st 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. Problem – Lean Doesn’t Have a Market Definition Step.

Customer 424

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 424

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery. Here’s how.

Oakland 329

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 329

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.)

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Up and Running

DECEMBER 5, 2016

Lean Planning is a concept that we introduced back in 2012 as an evolution in business planning. The traditional business plan just wasn’t fitting the needs of modern, fast-moving companies and it was time to bring more of a scientific approach to business planning. But, where did Lean Planning come from?

Lean 60

Lean Silicon Valley Business Model Forecast 60

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2014

Going into the class we had three questions: Could companies who were already pursuing a business model be convinced to revisit their key commercialization hypotheses – and iterate and pivot if needed? Their diagrams of the healthcare customer segment in slides 15-18 were outstanding. Evidence-based Translational Medicine.

SBIR 269

SBIR Lean Video Customer Development 269

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Rob Adams, the director of MootCorp, is doing an amazing job at providing value to all participants, whether it’s feedback on their business model or making the right introductions. It made me re-think some of the fundamentals of what we were doing and make a few more user/customer meetings on one of our next releases.

Business Plan 156

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 156

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

I couldn’t write a single line of code, and I didn’t have any clue how to start a business. Four books helped me out a lot over the last few years: Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, Running Lean by Ash Maurya, The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. You’re not alone.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? Initially we had a different business model (an entire venue, track design, sleds, etc for $1 million+) which made it hard to sell.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Our business model was Pinterest. It goes to show you that the business model was good but we just … We’re not the right team. You need to go out and do some customer development. The original idea was actually to do the business model that is now Threadless, before threadless was existing.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

For modifications, please edit the original document here. An additional list of business resources for startups is available here. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Scanning / Document Management. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53