Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Here’s how. Build-Measure-Learn.

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Up and Running

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Our customer INGLOT Cosmetics Canada is a great example of creating an omnichannel network that extends not only to all online channels but also to their in-store experience. It will not only benefit customers but help cut costs on unnecessary ad spending or marketing campaigns that simply don’t connect with your audience.

eCommerce 152

eCommerce Sales Software Review Canada 152

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Operate small, but show a big-company image.

Equity 349

Equity Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity 349

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

We just finished the 6 th annual Lean LaunchPad class. For the last 6 years I’ve taught the Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford and Berkeley. business plans are fine for large companies where there is an existing market, existing product and existing customers, but they are useless in a startup where most often none of these are known.

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Up and Running

JUNE 25, 2020

If your sales have recently hit a plateau, check out these 10 proven methods to continue growing your business. You went through the process of identifying a target market when developing your business plan. But now you have an active customer base that you need to engage with and in the process improve your business.

Small Business 180

Small Business Hosting Social Media Community 180

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. 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.) This post is part four. Syllabus is here.

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Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 240

Up and Running

JANUARY 15, 2018

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready to start a small web design firm, you’ll need to develop a host of skills to help you run a successful business, including time management, sales and promotional strategies, and client acquisition. Create a Lean Business Plan. Calculate startup costs. The basics.

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Web Design Software Review Elevator Pitch 86

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2020

If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Operate small, but show a big-company image.

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Hockey Stick Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 423

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

To create this first year in business checklist, I turned to our in-house experts here at Palo Alto Software: Sabrina Parsons, CEO; Noah Parsons, COO; Josh Cochrane, Vice President of Product Development; and Josh Fegles, Academic and Government Channel Sales Director, and founder of gluten-free cookie company Jude’s Foods.

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Forecast Software Review Lean Finance 60

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

For these businesses, it is imperative to get funding from the start without which the company cannot be set up. It is going to cost a lot of money just to get the initial batch of products to test the market and would definitely require external funding. You can get a personal loan without a business plan. Crowdfunding.

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Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2017

In the Lean Startup methodology, one of the most important elements is getting out of the building. In this article, I’ll give a quick overview of the best practices for validating your business idea in use today. In this article, I’ll give a quick overview of the best practices for validating your business idea in use today.

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Business Plan PPC Lean Campaign 94

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Many entrepreneurship courses focus on teaching students “how to write a business plan.” If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. This class is not about how to write a business plan.

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2014

Since the Pivot is one of the core concepts of the Lean Startup I was puzzled. A pivot is a fundamental insight of the Lean Startup. A pivot can change any of nine different things in your business model. Definition: “A pivot is a substantive change to one or more of the 9 business model canvas components.”.

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Business Model Lean Customer Development Channel 332

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 6, 2018

In today’s rough-and-tumble startup scene, “lean” is all the rage, and the ability to cut costs without compromising performance is prized above virtually any other managerial competency. Of course, cutting costs and eliminating whole expense categories are two very different matters. Creating a Business Plan.

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CPA Bandwidth Lean Startup 124

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. Analytics spark more questions and discussion than almost any other aspect of the Lean Startup method. Alistair and Ben, co-authors of the book Lean Analytics, will help you sort it out in our next webcast, Lean Analytics for Non-tech Companies.

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Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Up and Running

APRIL 30, 2015

Most people think that writing a business plan has to be hard. In fact, it’s possible to write your initial business plan in less than an hour. See Also What Type of Business Plan Do I Need? A new kind of business planning. With lean planning, you start with a pitch for your business.

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Business Plan Lean Channel Sales 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) Product Development Diagram 1. before you ship.

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Up and Running

MARCH 8, 2016

You know what your startup costs are and what you have to purchase to start. At Palo Alto Software, we use a lean planning process to determine whether or not an idea is likely to succeed or to fail. Getting funded and writing a business plan. If this is the case, you will need a business plan.

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SBA Technical Review Software Review Business Plan 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. What’s the customer acquisition cost?

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

OnlyOnce

JULY 9, 2013

The book has been described by a few CEOs who read it and commented early for me along the lines of “The Lean Startup movement is great, but this book starts where most of those books end and takes you through the ‘so you have a product that works in-market – now what?’ Chapter 3: Telling the Story to Your Investors…The Business Plan is Dead.

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Startup Advisory Board Elevator Pitch Forecast 95

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

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

Think of a business model as a drawing that shows all the flows between the different parts of your company. A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. What’s the distribution channel. Business Plan Versus Business Model.

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Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Up and Running

MAY 14, 2015

Business plans go by many names: Strategic plans, operational plans, internal plans, and many others. Lately, I’ve been focusing on lean business plans. There are also one-page business plans, although those are really more summaries. Business plans for startups.

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Business Plan Lean Forecast Balance Sheet 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

They’ve learned the best distribution channel to get the product from their company to the customer. The strategy and structure for 21st corporate innovation will come from emulating the speed, urgency, agility and low-cost, rapid experimentation of startups. and how to price the product. What We Now Know about Corporate Innovation.

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Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

The Lean Startup is the way most innovators build startups and innovate inside of existing companies. Cost Structure is changed to Mission Cost/Budget. Channel is changed to Deployment. Distribution Channel changes to Deployment. Change Cost Structure to Mission Cost/Budget.

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. Teams are iterating and pivoting right and left, one team threw their entire business model out the window and did a complete restart, and another team was having a meltdown over personalities. What’s the cost of the partnership?

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Revenue West Virginia Oklahoma Oklahoma City 229

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

Our new Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. what distribution channel? Come up with ways to test each of the 9 business model canvas hypotheses. Channel : Mowing and agricultural equipment dealers. This post is part two. Part one is here. Syllabus here.

Business Model 238

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 238

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

She has a separate team, with its own culture and office, and a mandate straight from top management to innovate without regard to the company’s historic products, channels, or supply chain. Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it. If it costs $0.10

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

You’ll realize you’re ready to exit the Search step when you have customer validation: You’ve found a sales channel that matches how the customer wants to buy and the costs of using that channel are understood. Filed under: Family/Career/Culture , Lean LaunchPad , Venture Capital. Time to Make New Friends.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. 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.

Cloud 237

Cloud Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 237

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Operate small, but show a big-company image.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. The concept of Partners , took some explanation as some teams confused partners with the Distribution Channel.). After a week of hectic customer discovery , the team further refined their new business model.

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South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 232

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

To be successful, you’ll invest a lot of time and money—so make sure that starting a restaurant is your passion, not just a business venture you hope will make money. Have a solid business plan in place. You can’t scratch a business plan out on a cocktail napkin. Utilize social media channel s.

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Philadelphia Business Plan Hiring Florida 143

Up and Running

JUNE 23, 2015

Maternova is an online marketplace for low-cost but vital obstetric tools; you might think of it as something like Amazon for childbirth-related medical supplies. ” She says that planning keeps them on track as goals get larger and their growth becomes more ambitious. Social media is our primary marketing channel,” Cote says.

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Cofounder Sweat Equity Social Media Business Model 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Customer Development by Vertical - Click to Enlarge (As a reminder, the Customer Development process says your business plan is just a series of untested hypothesis (unless you’re a domain expert.) Some of these are questions that would be addressed in a business plan. Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. Since we had gotten out of the software business when we came out of Chapter 11 , and our sales channel didn’t know what to do with software, we licensed ReelTime to Adobe.

Video 184

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 184

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. It was adopted by the consumer packaged goods industry in the 1950s and spread to the technology business in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

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Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269