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.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. What plan says that?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

Going into the first four weeks their business model hypotheses looked like this: Last week we told them team: 1) see if the market size was really large enough to support a business, and 2) to find that out they were going to have to ?talk talk to more customers? cold calls, in-person interviews, and a web survey. (We

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Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

This lets them deliver a series of minimal viable products to customers in a fraction of the time. For products that are simply “bits” delivered over the web, a first product can be shipped in weeks rather than years. Today open source software has slashed the cost of software development from millions of dollars to thousands.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Categories and indexes on the web pages aren’t quite the right metaphor or substitute for random access. After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. The first time I taught the class at the Haas Business School, U.C.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. 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.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

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. This is a great configuration for a starting team. Here’s why. What should I do?’.

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Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

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.

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

And I understood engineering since I interacted with them almost daily. I also knew our customers. And finally, I had a great working relationship with our engineers who designed the chips. As part of the sales organization, I thought I kind of figured out what the function of the sales department was. (In Thanks Steve!

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Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

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.

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Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 279

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. We were changing the business model when we changed executives. Ritualized Crises.

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Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Thats what business is designed to do.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 13, 2011

Conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant. Business School classes were only open to business school students, Engineering School classes were only open to engineering school students, etc. Startups are inherently chaos. What skills?

Startup 324

Startup Lean Engineer Business Model 324

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Amazon Web Services. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Web Tools: Hereâ??s We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging. We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Startups built every possible feature the founding team envisioned (using “Waterfall development,”) into a monolithic “release” of the product taking months or years to build a first product release. The Business Plan (Concept- Alpha-Beta - FCS ) became the playbook for startups. Thus began the 5-year dot-com bubble.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

For the many entrepreneurs that send me cold emails asking for me to review a business plan or answer a strategic dilemma: Im much more likely to answer if youve already tried getting an answer on the mailing list. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May. .

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Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

” Introduced a few months ago as an Austin event, I’m now doing this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. 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.

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Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

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. Startup founders need to use their own judgment to ask: which is the riskiest assumption underlying my business plan?

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

We just had our app support a few tens of thousands of customers, and it did well. Some combination of the dot-com crash and a just terrible business plan prevented us from having to take our scalability problems to the next level. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

I think this idea is particularly appealing to those of us from an engineering background. Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May. .

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

My startup business (web development) is being shunned by virtually every other potential investor I approached thus far. The only folks who invested in me were the ones who barely understood the business plan. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He argued that software engineers don’t finish what they start, and that you’re better off paying a technical person than partnering with one. He picked engineers who were technically-driven but not entrepreneurially-driven. He picked engineers who weren’t comfortable taking risks as great as he wanted to take.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Angel investments in mobile and web apps today are approaching the “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” strategy. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Teaching , Venture Capital. There’s a better way.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Angel investments in mobile and web apps today are approaching the “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” strategy. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Teaching , Venture Capital. There’s a better way.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

But when it comes to the specific of a product release, business plan, or marketing launch, all that matters is: do we have a strong hypothesis that will enable us to learn? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

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

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. 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 - seems like another planet.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. 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. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

This week they broadened the discussion with interviews with the city planner in Mariposa, Texas and the city engineer from Rapid City, South Dakota. The Agora Cloud Services team was now making a tool set for managing Amazon Web Services cloud compute usage. They believed their tools could save customers 30% of their Amazon bill.

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South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 217

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea. Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life? " => I have not bothered to put up a landing page, survey to test customer demand, or done any customer development whatsoever. Rockstar v.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that. However, for the Web 2.0

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Communication between scientists, engineers and corporations were relatively open, and ideas flowed freely. At Stanford, Dean of Engineering Fred Terman wanted companies outside of the university to take Stanford’s prototype microwave tubes and electronic intelligence systems and build production volumes for the military.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 159

news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

His friends at General Electric said he was wasting his time on the gas combustion engine because the world was going electric. -- ErrantX 215 days ago | link. The story of the v-8 engine is a bit different. Think about that, people wont even steal your ideas if you give them the plans. From "Think and Grow Rich".

Stealth 41

Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

It’s actually pretty hard to find a good start-up job if you have no real engineering or user acquisition / product management skills. Big Picture Overview of All the Components of a Web Service [To Come] More to Come… Cliff Dailey This is a great post. Thanks a lot for writing. Any advice? davetomback Great post.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

But instead of spending the time and money to develop products on spec, TPGTEX creates mocked-up webpages that list the features of a potential new product -- such as a system for making radio-frequency identification, or RFID, labels -- along with its price. The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137