Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I would come up for air once a month to religiously read the Harvard Business Review. It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. Today, we’ve come full circle as Lean goes mainstream.

Technical Review 327

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 327

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2011

What makes startups succeed or fail? More than 90% of startups fail, due primarily to self-destruction rather than competition. For the less than 10% of startups that do succeed, most encounter several near death experiences along the way. Three months ago I wrote about my ex-student Max Marmer and the Startup Genome Project.

Software Review 292

Software Review Early Stage Technical Review Startup 292

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I would come up for air once a month to religiously read the Harvard Business Review. It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. Today, we’ve come full circle as Lean goes mainstream.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2012

When Bob Dorf and I wrote the Startup Owners Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. I thought they might be worth enumerating here: A Startup Is a Temporary Organization Designed to Search. for A Repeatable and Scalable Business Model. Pair Customer Development with Agile Development.

Customer Development 328

Customer Development Developer Customer Cofounder 328

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. She posted her notes from the talk here.)

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 270

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. I asked some of the same questions I ask in my Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions and then I get to a very common conversation: Me : Do you have specs? Founder : Ummm. what do you mean?

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. business models. Small startups act the same way, simply cloning each other’s products.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

The most visible step was the first International Business Model Competition , hosted by the BYU Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. What’s A Startup? Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.)

Business Model 275

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 275

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. For a micro-ISV, selling to big businesses can be more lucrative than selling to consumers.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Lessons Learned.

Customer Development 329

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 329

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." " Today I had two conversations with early stage startups (see Free CTO Consulting ). " One was an enterprise software product.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We’ve been a startup for the past two years or so and we’ve come to a critical point on this crazy roller coaster ride. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. So how did Customer Development fail us?

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. We were positing that 20 years of teaching “how to write a business plan” might be obsolete.

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2021

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With Customers. How did we build startups in the past? The Business Model. An introduction to The Business Model Canvas. How to Get, Keep and Grow Customers ? How to Get Out of the Building and Test the Business Model. What is Customer Development.

Lean 356

Lean Customer Development Business Model Video 356

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2013

The Harvard Business Review is offering free reprints of the May 2013 cover article, “ Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything “ Available here.

Lean 330

Lean Venture Capital Customer Development Startup 330

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

Reading lists are dime a dozen, but reading lists that focus on rapid-growth startup businesses? If you’re planning to start and build a scalable, high-growth business, get ready to fill your bookshelves. There are many assumptions that can get in the way of starting and running a business. Not so much.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. business models. Small startups act the same way, simply cloning each other’s products.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

The class is designed for students who said they want a hands-on experience in what it takes to build a startup – not just writing a business plan or listening to lectures. Commitment is the first step in building a startup team. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 278

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 278

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary. Toxic Business Press and Contradictory Government Incentives.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Then came the Build-Measure-learn focus of the Lean Startup.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. What kind of objectives would a startup want or need for sales and marketing? For example, some startup sales execs believe hiring the core sales team is a key objective.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. What I found in Finland was: a whole lot of smart, passionate entrepreneurs who want to build a startup hub in Helsinki. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

After seeing the process work so well for scientists and engineers in the NSF, we hypothesized that we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , National Science Foundation.

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

This article ( Business Plans Are An Historical Artifact ) first appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal The Accelerators Column , which I’m contributing to on a regular basis. . Timmons’ classic book “New Venture Creation” and the course ended with the submission of a written business plan.

Business Plan 193

Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses. Lessons Learned.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

We realized this mechanism had been occurring for years at University’s startup competitions, such as the MIT 100K Accelerate Contest. We dubbed the program Qualcomm’s Venture Fest and the process, “ Collective Entrepreneurship ”, a three-phase program combining crowdsourcing with entrepreneurial techniques for startup creation.

Programming 291

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 291

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

We realized this mechanism had been occurring for years at University’s startup competitions, such as the MIT 100K Accelerate Contest. We dubbed the program Qualcomm’s Venture Fest and the process, “ Collective Entrepreneurship ”, a three-phase program combining crowdsourcing with entrepreneurial techniques for startup creation.

Programming 283

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 283

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) It gets really tough when these projects are launched and have to fight for survival against current corporate business models.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2013

The Harvard Business Review is offering free reprints of the May 2013 cover article, “ Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything “ Available here.

Lean 222

Lean Venture Capital Customer Development Startup 222

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Scalable startups are on a trajectory for a billion dollar market cap. Not all start ups want to go in that direction – some will opt instead to become a small business. There’s nothing wrong with a business that supports you and perhaps an extended family. Building a Regional Startup Playbook.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

JULY 3, 2014

If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. 2 Minute Lessons Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

Lean 310

Lean Business Model Customer Development Business Plan 310

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Here’s the course announcement from Professor Vergara (in English): Customer Development Course in Chile – Lean Launchpad. The objective of this course is that groups of students finish with a completed software product that has real customers and an identified market. The syllabus for the Stanford course can be seen here.

Chile 235

Chile Silicon Valley Lean Agile 235

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Amazing lean startup resources A year ago, there was no lean startup movement. I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. If you are attempting to apply lean startup ideas in your own business - you are not alone.

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Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146