Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Waterfall Development. While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. The “build” step refers to building a minimal viable product (an MVP.) Lessons Learned.

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Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. In that spirit, I offer my perspective on ten common startup failure sources that rarely get admitted by entrepreneurs: Choose to skip the written business plan.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When Iridium was first conceived inside Motorola in 1987, worldwide cell phone coverage was sparse, calls were unreliable and per minute costs were expensive. Cell phone handsets were the size of a lunch box and cost thousand of dollars. A Business Plan Frozen in Time.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

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

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Who recommends a sale?

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

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

Up and Running

DECEMBER 22, 2015

I have to admit, I’ve seen some judges of graduate-level business plan competitions care about IRR, but never an actual angel investor during actual due diligence. Please, get a clue: Real businesses usually turn out net profits in single digits, and only rarely up as high as 20%. Product businesses usually can.

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Angel Investor IRR Software Review Startup 60

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 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

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. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

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Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 12, 2018

Where do you see your business in the next 3-5 years? Our 5 to 10 year business plan is centered on new efficiencies within the Ellison consumer purchase funnel. This investment will help us become faster and cut overall costs related to product development without lowering the quality.

Greece 49

Greece Iowa Nicaragua Chicago 49

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

They’ve learned the best distribution channel to get the product from their company to the customer. and how to price the product. for new product development that emphasize immediate returns. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development'

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Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

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? what’s the product? what distribution channel?

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Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 238

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.) You take your product vision and get out of your building to turn your hypothesis into facts. Technology?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Products: You obviously can’t create value without a viable product (or service) to sell. This section of your Venture Value Scorecard should summarize the important advances you have made recently in research and product development. Tags: scorecard venture value Akira Hirai business valuation.

Intellectual Property 223

Intellectual Property .Net Valuation Distribution 223

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

The dominant channel by which we reach customers is the Internet, whether you''re a small local restaurant on Yelp or a global maker of tissue paper. We often tell founders that a business plan is nonsense. A business model, on the other hand, is a snapshot of your business assumptions at this moment in time.

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Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Again, its critical to focus your marketing launch on those publications, venues, and channels that your potential partners are paying attention to. Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

He welcomed us by screaming, “Do you know how much it costs every minute this line is down.&# Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. the manager followed us still yelling. And that’s just to get started.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 310

Up and Running

MARCH 1, 2016

So, if I were going to invent something, I’d probably start by creating an affordable jeweler’s workbench, not least because I’d be able to test it, and because I already know all the distribution channels I’d need to hit in order to sell it. Of course, you could also calculate your price based on the cost of materials and manufacture.

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Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Non-Compete Naming 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A business that strives for something like this should absolutely be charging money from day one, in order to establish baselines for their two key metrics: CPA (the cost to acquire a new customer) and LTV (the lifetime value of each acquired customer). This is the simplest ecosystem and simplest driver of growth.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

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. So far, so good.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

tells you how much adwords cost. Great for visualizing work of product development. hire low-cost international engineering talent. outsourcing for small business. BPS : Business Plan Servicesâ?? s leading practice that is dedicated to providing full assistance with business planning.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Sean and Shawn from Napster met in an IRC channel. He said that you need a reliable business plan, six months of cash on hand, and cheap labor. More often than not, a startup/company fails because the product developed is not what the marketplace sought. Chad and Steve from YouTube met while working at PayPal.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

In the world of startups, this is like trying to sell a product to a very demanding customer who needs to see a lot of features before buying. Resegmented market (low cost variety). Heres a situation where you offer to do the job for 1/10th the cost. In fact, you cant go through traditional channels at all.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89