Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. And you will be dealing with change, but it won’t be the constant daily change the early employees dealt with.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Mucker Lab

OCTOBER 12, 2016

Vertical integration of different funding risks. I also believe that the ebb and flow of the venture investment cycle has been exacerbated by the recent vertical integration of early, growth, and even late stage venture funds. The investment thesis wasn’t wrong — it’s just that they bet on the wrong horse.

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Harvest Vertical IPO Early Stage 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. An example of a reversible decision could be adding a product feature, a new algorithm in the code, targeting a specific set of customers, etc.

Silicon Valley 300

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2013

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. This is not the total opportunity out there, and not the total target market, but the subset of customers who have and will spend the money you need to cure their pain.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2012

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. This is not the total opportunity out there, and not the total target market, but the subset of customers who have and will spend the money you need to cure their pain. A startup must gain traction.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2016

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. This is not the total opportunity out there, and not the total target market, but the subset of customers who have and will spend the money you need to cure their pain.

Startup 120

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 120

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. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. At least 12 months of customer history, generally 20+ enterprise customers or 200+ SMB customers. GSD Capital. “ GSD Capital partners with early-stage SaaS founders to fund growth initiatives.

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Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

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. This post describes such a model.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

View from Seed

JUNE 23, 2022

Automating their end-to-end eCommerce operations (from managing inventory to order fulfillment to customer service). RH: Who are your customers? Long-term: Influencers across the world with 10K+ followers and across all major verticals (e.g. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder?

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DC Cambodia eCommerce Social Media 156

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

In this post, I’m going to very *simplistically* dive into some high level categories and talk about how early stage investors consider each. Obviously within this category there are a LOT of verticals that are looked at very different — everything from e-commerce to B2B SaaS to marketplaces. But, you need to be growing FAST.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. No building, no money, no customers, no market? Think about all the assumptions you’ve made to get your business off the ground. Who are the customers? Great, sign me up.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 212

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know the archetype of their customers? We only have 20 customers, and Large Company x has millions.” Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

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Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. VII: Flexible VC, a New Model for Companies Targeting Profitability. With a portfolio that includes food, tech, and services, the fund is industry-agnostic and focused on the overlooked and underrepresented with high-margin business models.

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Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. These typically have a larger support ecosystem and greater assurance of long-term stability than the custom vendors.

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Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Usually financial metrics are pretty sparse at early stages and investors have a hard time giving companies “credit” for steady, linear progress. 3-5 major partnerships or enterprise customers. You need to show me that the “real” business model can work. I’m sure there are others.

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Business Model Seed Stage Valuation Vertical 65

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Needless to say, this isn’t a business model that works in the pandemic world. I’m sure its customers wonder, “Why is an organic grocer named RydeOn?”. In the world of technology companies, a pivot generally involves changing the product in a substantive way that changes how the company engages with its customers.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Intellectual Property At the next class I said, “You all ought to get out and start talking to customers on day one, and get early feedback on your idea. Don’t share the details of your manufacturing process with customers until you’ve locked up your intellectual property.” Just get out of the building.”

Vertical 149

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 149

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Of course HP did ship new products and innovate, but their center of innovation was sustaining innovation , around the core of their existing business. Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

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. MootCorp in particular has an impressive track record of putting early stage tech companies on the right path towards funding.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Ps: my limited perspective comes with self recognition of a lack of hands on experience always enjoy it when I stop in to read here Steve Reply Aamir , on July 2, 2009 at 10:18 am Said: Awesome post Steve… but isn’t drawing the business model for a gaming company going to be easy? Make game, market, sell, profit?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

To a Hammer Everything Looks Like a Nail In hindsight my failure was that I executed to my strength – telling a compelling story – without actually listening to customer feedback. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to listen to customers. I had outsourced customer feedback and ignored the input.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone – investors, customers, friends, etc. Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And that’s just to get started. Let me know what you think.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

View from Seed

AUGUST 2, 2017

Others take bets on certain verticals or business models, such as marketplaces, SaaS, or enterprise technology. For example, Upserve , a NextView portfolio company, is an all-in-one tech platform (POS, payments, CRM/loyalty, BI) to help restaurants better serve their customers.

Seed Stage 273

Seed Stage Portfolio Cofounder B2B 273

Rob Go

JULY 11, 2013

I was asked recently how NextView evaluates such early stage companies for investment. As a seed fund, we tend to layer in “ capital efficient beginnings ” to the mix given our investing model and belief about the best way to build internet and software businesses. So what are some examples of distribution advantages?

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Distribution Vertical Viral B2B 66

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets , and with my team of vertical marketers , I thought I had achieved absolution and redemption. Did the customers know they had a problem?

Silicon Valley 172

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 172