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. Designing Your Business Model Crafting a business model is like building a blueprint for your venture.

Intellectual Property 128

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 128

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 322

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 322

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. So what would a search process for a business model look like?

Lean 288

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 288

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

Established businesses execute business models while startups search for them. I was a lone voice inside one of the country’s leading business schools challenging the conventional wisdom of the last 40 years, proposing that everything we were teaching about starting companies was wrong.

Lean 222

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 222

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Enter the Business Model Canvas. With the business model canvas in hand, we can now approach rethinking corporate innovation strategy and structure. Existing companies and their operating divisions implement known business models. Operating divisions execute the known business model.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 333

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. Assuming you know what the customer wants. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2013

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. So what would a search process for a business model look like?

Lean 180

Lean Agile Customer Development Business Model 180

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 312

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 312

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory – income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models, 5-year forecasts, etc. And they’ll do this using the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Engineer 280

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 280

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Our LivePlan customers are entrepreneurs, our founder and staff have run and sold companies, the Bplans readers are aspiring entrepreneurs (or actual entrepreneurs), and as I sell my own handmade jewelry, I like to think I have a very small claim to the title. Your customer. Your business model (or how you will make money).

Curation 60

Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Thats an important job, for sure, and Ive been called upon to do it from time to time.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

That’s because the model is based on assumptions about customers that are totally unproven. If we already knew who the customer was, how they would behave, how much they would pay, and how to reach them, this wouldn’t be a disruptive innovation. The solution is to change our focus from outputs to inputs. But $10.00?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

The Embrace infant warmer was developed - by getting out of the country -- and how Rob Emrich learned and scaled his non-profit, Road of Life. BetaBrand building apparel MVPs and testing them quickly with targeted customer communities. These business model assumptions are then ripe for testing, measuring and iterating upon.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Lean Planning is a set of tools for discovering a business model that works, building an action plan to test your assumptions, creating financial models and a plan for a viable business, and tracking your performance so you can adjust your plan on the fly, quickly and easily.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. They made other assumptions about the type of sales channel, partnerships and revenue model they would need. A Business Plan Frozen in Time.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

In the real world, most business plans don’t survive the first few months of customer contact. And even if they did – customers don’t ask to see your business plan. Preparing for a year is not the best way to spend time, rather getting customers is the better way to an Investor’s heart.

Business Plan 143

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 143

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

No business model, either. Instead, lets focus on building companies that matter , on creating real value for customers, and learning. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. So, the idea of starting without a business model is good ?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

To get to this Transition stage, the company needed passionate visionaries who can articulate a compelling vision, agile enough to learn and discover in real time, resilient enough to deal with countless failures, and responsive enough to capitalize on what they learned in order to secure early customers. All of this is often true.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Up and Running

DECEMBER 5, 2016

Instead of encouraging entrepreneurs to focus on developing long, in-depth, static business plans, Berry advocated for a simpler approach: Define your business identity: What’s your value proposition to your customers? Determine your target market: You need to know and understand your customers.

Lean 60

Lean Silicon Valley Business Model Forecast 60

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

The customer validation phase is critical for that kind of thing. 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. Caroline: Number five is not talking to customers. You need to go out and do some customer development.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

I wondered if business plans and 5-year forecasts were the right way to plan a startup. Experienced entrepreneurs kept finding that no business plan survived first contact with customers. So what would a search process for a business model look like? And in 2003 the Haas Business School at U.C.

Lean 318

Lean Georgia Michigan Business Model 318