Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Is there a profitable business model? What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched. In fact, they’re out searching for them!

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

The Enterprise: Business Model Execution We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model. The question is – why?

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IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan.

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Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 248

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. Lessons Learned.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Hearpreneur

JULY 10, 2017

Prior to starting Ozmo both Ming and I worked in a design house creating new and better products. Throughout my five years of experience in product development, I realized that most of product launch failure could have been avoided by getting the product right earlier on, or understanding the limit of the maker.

Entrepreneur 102

Entrepreneur Hungary Software Review Cofounder 102

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.)

Forecast 265

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 265

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 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

It made more sense than our 60 page business plan predicated on a B-school class and a supernatural ability to predict the future. More importantly, we’d witnessed Customer Development’s massive success at another local startup. Focus on revenue from day one. Temptation to focus on growth and worry about revenue later.

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Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Up and Running

MAY 22, 2013

In a consumer product category such as household cleaning products, the industry success rate is a dismal 15 percent to 20 percent according to a Bloomberg Businessweek interview with former Proctor & Gamble CEO, Alan “A.G.” Half the companies in our survey experience budget overruns in new-product development.

Product 75

Product Marketing Forecast B2B 75

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Most likely, your business plan is loaded with opinions and guesses, sprinkled with a dash of vision and hope. Customer development is a parallel process to product development, which means that you dont have to give up on your dream. This is a common mistake.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. Stickiness, Ben and Alistair say, is where people move on too quickly--they don’t make sure they really have a product that has the right features and functionality to meet their customers’ needs.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Your original business plan will probably go out the window when you land your first customer. He retrieved all documents by searching his email to find the one to which they were last attached, or, more often, he called me to re-send something and therefore move it up in his email stack.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Software By Rob

AUGUST 18, 2010

The only thing that seemed to be consistent about my growth was that my revenue was relatively flat while my user base kept growing. So in a desperate attempt to get things moving in the right direction, I experimented for a week by killing my free plan. This turned out to be a good move since it doubled their revenue that month.

Software Review 78

Software Review Software Revenue Cofounder 78

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

He said that you need a reliable business plan, six months of cash on hand, and cheap labor. Do a search in Twitter for #startupvisa to learn more. More often than not, a startup/company fails because the product developed is not what the marketplace sought. Eli abhay, Aaron Patzer said the most on this topic.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

There are hundreds of resources online, but searching for worthwhile sites is time consuming and sometimes unsuccessful. Business planning. To start your business, you’ll need a sound business plan. To start your business, you’ll need a sound business plan. Business Model Generation.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Now, Andrew’s excellent piece that I quoted from above correctly diagnoses two situations where consumer internet companies often get in trouble: They focus too much on short-term revenue, getting caught in a local maximum via constant optimization. It doesn’t say anything about which risks it should be used to mitigate.

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Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Software By Rob

AUGUST 5, 2010

The knowledge that you need 10,000 hours to master a subject, that certain trends become viral after the 412th person adopts it, or that you should make your product remarkable, is not going to help you launch. Nor will it save you a single minute during product development, or sell one more copy of your application.

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Founder Startup Software Review Software 78

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Search for: Videos. Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Tim Keane

SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

And in businesses that are not on a "harvest path," this system, (combined with a constantly updated market map) should work well for a long time, potentially providing a lot of positive cash flow for the company and its owners. Can they take our product to a new group of customers? What can we do to their revenue?

Harvest 60

Harvest LBO Investment Bankers Wisconsin 60

Tim Keane

APRIL 24, 2006

Last night, Bob Zieserl, Venture Capitalist, and general partner at Stratus Ventures, was the keynote speaker at the Marquette University Business Plan Competition. A clear point of view on how the business will achieve significant increases in value.) The product development cycle was excellent.

Wisconsin 60

Wisconsin Angel Investor Bootstrapping Venture Capital 60

Tim Keane

JUNE 13, 2006

(Of course, it goes without saying that no one would bottom-up an expense budget then fill in revenue to make it “come out,” right?). Then, on the expense side, I’d like to begin to understand how the growth in the business will drive costs as complexity increases. Signup for email updates. Enter your Email. April 2013. January 2013.

Wisconsin 60

Wisconsin Entrepreneur Startup Angel Investor 60

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Quora Home About Login Sign Up Add Question Before adding a question, search for it above. If you are a creative guy with a good head for business looking for an engineering partner, send me a summary of your idea and business plan, and I'll do the implementation!" This is not to say you should give up.

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42