Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Alexander Osterwalder and I spent last week in Salt Lake City, Utah as judges at the 2 nd Annual International Business Model Competition , hosted by Professor Nathan Furr , and his team at the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. Large companies wrote business plans, so VC’s made startups write business plans.

Business Model 267

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 267

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Designing Your Business Model Crafting a business model is like building a blueprint for your venture. Then, consider how you’ll reach your customers and what kind of relationship you want to build with them. Revenue streams are another critical component of your business model.

Intellectual Property 138

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 138

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) Sales process: buyer/ user/ influencer etc.? They had 16 interviews with target customers (Zynga, Yahoo, VMware, Walmart, Zeconder, etc.)

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Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 240

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) As we described in previous posts , startups fail on the day they’re founded if they are organized and managed like they are a small version of a large company. that make up a business model.

Burn Rate 251

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 251

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

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. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

By now the nine teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad Class were formed, In the four days between team formation and this class session we tasked them to: Write down their initial hypotheses for the 9 components of their company’s business model (who are the customers? Their business was a robot lawn mower.

Business Model 238

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 238

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

I''ve been thinking a lot lately about scaling sales. . Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. How do I build a repeatable, scalable sales process that is like an industrial machine - not a crafts project? 1) Enterprise Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.). In contrast, startups search for a business model. (Or Their objective is to get users, orders, customers, etc.

Wiki 316

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch. He went through his product feature by feature and matched them to the customer problems.

Forecast 276

Forecast Sales Customer Customer Development 276

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

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 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

I’m recovering from a reading spree of Chandlers Strategy and Structure , Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management and The Other Side of Innovation by Trimble and Govindarajan, Henry Chesbrough’s Open Innovation , as well as The Innovator’s DNA from Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen. Full disclosure. General Motors Organization Chart ~1925.

Business Model 334

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 334

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. Here’s what happened when an extraordinary Digital Health team gained several critical insights about their business model. At Linden Lab, delivered the open-sourced Second Life Viewer 2.0

Customer 327

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 327

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Prior to founding Carely , Michael Eidsaune earned his MBA in finance and spent several years in investment management, eventually earning his level 1 CFA certification. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 145

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. Traditionally, engineering, sales, and marketing have all focused on the immovable launch date. Neither management nor investors tolerate “wrong turns” that result in delays.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Every large company, whether it can articulate it or not, is executing a proven business model (s).

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IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

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. We even ran an executive education course last fall at Berkeley on Corporate Business Model Innovation that helped each of us understand the others’ perspectives on this problem.

Startup 330

Startup Business Model Lean Russia 330

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Prior to founding Carely , Michael Eidsaune earned his MBA in finance and spent several years in investment management, eventually earning his level 1 CFA certification. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. For a micro-ISV, selling to big businesses can be more lucrative than selling to consumers. Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates. Here’s why.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff put it best when he said that even though every company knows customer references are important, most companies have a lax approach to actually managing them. Someone may hand him a list of prospective references who may or may not be happy customers, or strategically significant, or even profitable.

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Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

You take that money and invest a good portion of it in traditional sales and marketing efforts — including product developers, creative people, and salespeople, all of whom are paid to figure out what buyers want and to say good things about your company — in a quest to get even more customers. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

National Instruments used an especially creative approach with its customer influencers, who were mid-level IT managers at the companies they did business with. It also increased the reputation of the mid-level advocates, who were seen as strategic thinkers bringing new ideas to senior management.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

And there are more to come: your first job, getting married, buying a house, having a child, becoming a manager, starting a company, retirement – and eventually commencement speaker. Established businesses execute business models while startups search for them. In 33% of the commencement speeches this year, 2.8

Lean 223

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. Mainstream Entrepreneurship recognizes that with the Lean LaunchPad class we now have a methodology of making small businesses fail less.

Silicon Valley 311

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 311

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Find and engage customer advocates using a gamification platform that makes it interesting and enjoyable to advocate. Allow customers who identify themselves as promoters on surveys to immediately provide a recommendation on the spot. . This has resulted in dramatic increases in sales.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales. It may just be that the message of building companies that have predictable revenue and profit models hasn’t percolated through the VC business model. On its first day of trading, Netscape stock closed at $58/share, valuing the company at $2.7

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

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.

Balance Sheet 304

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 304

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. That means in their core business, large companies have a series of knowns.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

They use the Business Model (or Mission Model ) Canvas to keep track of their key hypotheses and then rapidly test them by talking to customers and iterating their Minimal Viable Products. Diagram Your Business Model. The best way to start is by drawing a business model canvas. In what order?

Marketing 325

Marketing Startup Government SEC 325

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 4, 2010

First Movers tend to launch without really fully understanding customer problems or the product features that solve those problems. They guess at their business model and then do premature, loud and aggressive Public Relations hype and early company launches and quickly burn through their cash. Otherwise the jury is in.

Silicon Valley 322

Silicon Valley Differentiation United States Customer Development 322

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2011

Week 3 of the class and our teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad class were hard at work using Customer Development to get out of the classroom and test the first key hypotheses of their business model: The Value Proposition. What sort of sales structure and salesforce does it require? Syllabus is here.

Cloud 237

Cloud Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 237

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

The role of a founding CEO in a startup searching for a business model is radically different than a CEO building and growing a company. Do they “get&# Customer Development ? These VC’s are skilled in helping you search for the business model. Your potential business model?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). It means someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business.

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Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 299