Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

To be honest I built the class out of frustration watching schools teach aspiring entrepreneurs that all they need to know is how to write a business plan or how to sit in an incubator building a product. Quotes from customers that illustrated learnings and insights. Every week the teams present their results. Pivot stories.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

The Yin and Yang of Product and Engineering - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 22, 2010 For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Tech support keeps angry customers at bay while having no power to effect change.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

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 ? Don’t Throw the Tomatoes.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. Many entrepreneurship courses focus on teaching students “how to write a business plan.” We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

A month or two before the QuickTime public announcement in May, the SuperMac hardware engineers (who had a great relationship with the QuickTime team at Apple) started a “ skunk works ” project. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. The software was idiot proof.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan. The revenue numbers and revenue model came from a startups original Business Plan. that make up a business model. All of these initial assumptions must be right for the revenue plan to be correct.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. The goal is for them is to observe this class, then host and teach the next round of 50 NSF Innovation Corps scientist/engineer teams in July. The GameSpeed customer discovery narrative blog is here. Here are the first five.

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Lean Business Model Agile United States 256

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 28, 2010

In a startup the search for a business model is chaotic, unpredictable and uncertain. Yet the Customer Development process uses a series of checklists to ensure that you walk through the Customer Discovery and Validation steps. Customer Hypothesis Checklist. Engineering was much smarter.

Business Model 239

Business Model Customer Development Engineer Vesting 239

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 distribution channel? what’s the product?

Business Model 236

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. Students formed 5-person teams, came up with a business idea then got out of the building to validate their business model. Did they get out of the building?

Intellectual Property 226

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 226

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As a formal method, the Lean Startup consists of three parts: The Business Model Canvas – to frame hypotheses, Customer Development – to test those hypotheses in front of customers, and Agile Engineering – to build Minimum Viable Products to maximize learning. Customer Segments is changed to Beneficiaries.

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

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.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2016

Before founding Clean Sleep , he worked for Boeing as a teenager, did mechanical drafting and design for a combustion engineering company, ran a beach volleyball bar with friends and founded Quick Set Concrete. Instead, he yearned to channel his creative energies. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Fort Worth America Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

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. We taught them theory, methodology, and practice using Customer Development and business model design.

South Dakota 217

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 217

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

I think this idea is particularly appealing to those of us from an engineering background. 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. So far, so good.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. 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. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. This business plan was a static document.

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Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 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

MAY 10, 2011

These diagrams are the visual representation of the how and the what a team learned in the class – how they tested their hypotheses by getting out of the building using the Customer Development process and what they learned about each part of their business model. is just another engineering process, not building a business.

Lean 279

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 279

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design. A minimum viable product in this category must answer the question: does my media content or channel command the attention of a valuable audience?

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

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. Do some Customer Development instead. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan. You cant really anticipate what the customer will like or not.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

It’s hard to imagine, but only a decade ago, the capstone entrepreneurship class in most universities was how to write – or pitch- a business plan. In my experience, I saw that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. Product/Market Fit Versus The Business Model Canvas.

Lean 248

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 248

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to. With that live, you’ll be able to show other smart engineers and advisors that you’re willing to take some risk and build something. Your existing customers are you best source of referals – just ask.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

When the product and channel are bits, adoption by 10’s and 100’s of millions and even billions of users can happen in years versus decades. Continuous innovation requires the imagination and courage to challenge the initial hypotheses of your current business model (channel, cost, customers, products, supply chain, etc.)

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

In fact, you cant go through traditional channels at all. One can see how it ripples through the entire business plan. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Firebase : Are all your developers front-end engineers? Google Custom Search Engine. Google App Engine. Search Engine Optimization Tools. usability testing for designers and developers. Google App Engine â?? Codeacademy. Steve Blank.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53