Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. It made more sense than our 60 page business plan predicated on a B-school class and a supernatural ability to predict the future. The founders do.

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. The Rise of Business Schools – Management as an Occupation. The business school was invented in the first decade of the 20th century in response to a massive economic transformation in the U.S.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. Startup Insights From Paul English, Co-Founder of Kayak - OnStartups , May 10, 2010 I’m just wrapping up several weeks of attending conferences across both coasts. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

And not keep investors informed about changes to your business model can have serious consequences. How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher.

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 120

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

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

If you’re waiting for a technical co-founder to put up a landing page with signup form, you’re lazy. If you’re waiting for a marketing guy to talk to customers, you’ll never understand the target market. As an investor, I will expect the same metrics an investor would get. Do you have a website up?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder NDA Founder Sweat Equity 47

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need. Writing a business plan that doesn’t allow for trial and error.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

We still have some collective scar tissue: the idea conjures up the hordes of dot-com hopefuls that descended on VC’s and angel investors with little more than a business plan. We also cavalierly lampoon the “suits” that get brought in to run startups after the founders are fired by callous VC’s. And there’s a worse fate, too.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

In fact, you could say that all that remains from my last book are the four steps of Customer Development. Integrates Alexander Osterwalders “Business Model Canvas” as the front-end and “scorecard” for the customer discovery process. Briefly, the new book.

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Lean Business Model Customer Development 291

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. Bob looked wistful, “Our founders built a company known for taking risks and moving fast.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Our LivePlan customers are entrepreneurs, our founder and staff have run and sold companies, the Bplans readers are aspiring entrepreneurs (or actual entrepreneurs), and as I sell my own handmade jewelry, I like to think I have a very small claim to the title. Getting your thoughts organized into a business plan pays off.

Curation 60

Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value. Or in English: A business model describes how your company makes money. (Or Or depending on your metrics for success, get users, grow traffic, etc.). Ann will be guest posting more on business models soon.). What’s the distribution channel.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

A veteran board can bring 50-100x more experience into a board meeting than a first time founder. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings. 2) Founders who have a great board do recognize the uncanny pattern recognition skills that good VC’s bring. The Wrong Metrics. Wastes Founders Time.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

A veteran board can bring 50-100x more experience into a board meeting than a first time founder. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings. 2) Founders who have a great board do recognize the uncanny pattern recognition skills that good VC’s bring. The Wrong Metrics. Wastes Founders Time.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

Most competitive analyses are: 1) sales documents for investors and/or 2) an attempt to rationalize the founders assumptions. It’s Part of the Plan. While most investors don’t actually read your business plan for a first meeting, a summary of your competitive analysis usually ends up as a slide or two in your PowerPoint presentation.

Customer Development 260

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 260

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Its easier to believe in a glorious future when you have only zeroes, for everyone: founders, investors, and employees. No vanity metrics should be looked at. Yet startups rely on collective learning in order to find their way.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

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

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?

Lean 146

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

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.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

It provides a basic introduction to analytics as they apply to Lean Startup, including sections on what metrics to use and how to interpret them. For instance, Ben lists out the worst of the “vanity metrics,” a term that describes appealing but meaningless or misleading numbers. We often tell founders that a business plan is nonsense.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

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.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

The core of the article is my first attempt to articulate the key metrics (in graph form) that I believe demonstrate customer value. When startups ask me what to measure, I always come back to these three as a starting point: Revenue per customer. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. If you haven't already, you should check out Discovery Driven Planning.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

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?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

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. What’s the worst case?

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Building Metrics / Usage Reports / KPI 3. Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly. Why do I do it?

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Small Business tools list. Startup Metrics for Pirates â?? SaaS Metrics Tutorial â??

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Ali G meets with business leaders and investors on Wall Street to learn how to create a new company around a new product idea. After some general lessons, he then proposes his first product idea, complete with flip charts, business plan, and marketing plan. Labels: customer development 3comments: Anonymoussaid.

San Francisco 104

San Francisco DC Continuous Deployment Lean 104

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers I see lots of startups whose business plans revolve around selling high-value ad space to brand advertisers. You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore).

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis. Being systematic about these hypotheses is what customer development is all about. The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis. For that, release early, release often will suffice.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Is a market a set of paying customers?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89