Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. In contrast, spark gaps are broad-band radio “noise&# sources – the idea of discrete radio channels was impossible spark gaps because of this. I’ll stop channeling James Burke now.

Silicon Valley 294

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 294

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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. This is more challengine than it appears, and method of insulation is supporting varied input channels.

Silicon Valley 248

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 248

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Marketing is Heard From Engineering was discussing how sophisticated the graphics portion of our computer should be, debating cost and time-to-market tradeoffs of arcane details such as double-buffering, 24 versus 32-bits of color, alpha channels, etc. Customer development isn’t just for [.] Getting out of the building.

Silicon Valley 282

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 282

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Or blame my MarCom department who approved it.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

I wanted to understand how customers bought our products. I knew we were selling through a multi-level indirect sales channel. That’s a mouthful to say that our sales people didn’t sell our products directly to a customer. Market messages to indirect sales channels are just like that. The result is usually hilarious.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 206

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Steve I have to tell you some bad news, I just showed our potential channel partners and customers a few completed pieces of the games we had. Customer Development There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom. They think the games stink.”

Silicon Valley 221

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 221

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I lived through the time when working in my first job in Ann Arbor Michigan we had to get out a map to find out that San Jose was not only in Puerto Rico but there was a city with that same name in California. And that’s where my plane ticket ought to take me to install some computer equipment. The founders.

Restful 238

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 238

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

My guests this past week on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Pete Newell , managing partner of BMNT Partners. Matt Weingart, program development manager in the Strategic Development Office at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. Filed under: Customer Development. ” They made very, very deliberate choice to do that, to their credit because in formulating the hypothesis that data could be turned into a product, that’s leaping out into the unknown. Want to be a guest on the show?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Finally, since no one would believe a set of benchmarks named after our company, we needed a façade of independence, so we named them after the street the company was headquartered on in Sunnyvale California – they became known as the Potrero Benchmarks. We were constantly creating metrics [.] there were words of encouragement on the package.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 126

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

You can be an Independent studio or do “work for hire&# (either a revenue share or buy-out model) - If you’re an independent studio you have a set of choices for distribution channel and marketing models. - We understood none of this. More detail in future posts. steve Twitted by altgate , on July 2, 2009 at 5:22 pm Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes. The Customer Validation lesson of, “no formal launch until you have early sales validating the product and sales process&# was also born here.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

All of sudden what was an additional engineering and development effort now became a small, variable cost. As a bonus it meant the 1,400 aerial applicator companies could be a potential distribution channel partner. So we’ve learned to live with our customers. Build continuous customer discovery into your company DNA.

Customer 320

Customer Algorithm Customer Development California 320

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Since we had gotten out of the software business when we came out of Chapter 11 , and our sales channel didn’t know what to do with software, we licensed ReelTime to Adobe. But you probably never heard of ReelTime. You may know it by its final name. It was fun watching it happen.

Video 180

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 180

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Reply steveblank , on May 22, 2009 at 2:39 pm Said: Morteza, The comments about “ignore this post&# were meant that if your sales channel is the web you rarely go to trade shows. You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 134

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. I was simply confused about what a plan was for.

Business Plan 152

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 152

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

California Milk Processor Board) – 1993. The Phantom Sales Forecast – Failing at Customer Validation - Steve Blank , July 22, 2010 Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Make it unique.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

— When Michael and his father started the Robert Mondavi Winery, few people were drinking California wines. ” The majority of the time people preferred drinking our California and Napa wines over the Bordeaux or Burgundy ones. Before that, restaurateurs would never compare California with France.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 141

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

And they have channeled all this into whatever activity they could find outside of their home – sports, business, or …entrepreneurship. But a small percentage, whose brain chemistry and wiring is set for resilience, come out of this with a compulsive, relentless and tenacious drive to succeed. Let me know what you think.

Founder 308

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 308

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

The premise of the class is that startups, are not about executing a plan where the product, customers, channel are known. We trying to teach students a methodology that combines customer development, agile development, business models and pivots. Only in California! Yet this isn’t an incubator.

Lean 260

Lean Business Model Agile United States 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

— When Michael and his father started the Robert Mondavi Winery, few people were drinking California wines. ” The majority of the time people preferred drinking our California and Napa wines over the Bordeaux or Burgundy ones. Before that, restaurateurs would never compare California with France.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2012

Principal Investigator: Ellis Meng University of Southern California. Artificial Membrane-based Ion Channel Screening. Principal Investigator: Jacob Schmidt University of California-Los Angeles. Principal Investigator: Karen McDonald University of California-Davis. Principal Investigator: Yu Lei University of Connecticut.

America 244

America Rhode Island Southern California Illinois 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

Before OpenGov, he built California Common Sense , the open data and government watchdog non-profit. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111 to hear these upcoming guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere : Sept. Filed under: Customer Development. And download any of the past shows here.).

Cofounder 279

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 279

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

Before OpenGov, he built California Common Sense , the open data and government watchdog non-profit. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111 to hear these upcoming guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere : Sept. Filed under: Customer Development. And download any of the past shows here.).

Cofounder 279

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 279

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Employ customer development.

Silicon Valley 231

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 231

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 124

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 124

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

from University of California, Davis in Biomedical Engineering. Sunny’s startup idea emerged from a diagnostic tool he’d developed in his lab to detect pathogens. He’s a co-founder and CEO of HB Risk , and a Professor and Department Chair in Civil Engineering at California State University, Chico. Sunny received his Ph.D.

Cofounder 195

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 195

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 28, 2020

Not only the theorists but constituents for customer development, or with Main Street businesses and local constituents. We need to know what sweet spots for customer development work best with zoom and that don’t work best with zoom. Join our educators slack channel here. Minimal Viable Products.

Lean 422

Lean Community San Jose Africa 422

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 268

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 268

Steve Blank

JULY 19, 2016

Jim lectures at University of California Santa Barbara and elsewhere on the process of discovering successful business models. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. . Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Want to be a guest on the show?

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Sweden 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Me – “Have you used Company x’s product? Do you know have they distribute their product?

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 203

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

from University of California, Davis in Biomedical Engineering. Sunny’s startup idea emerged from a diagnostic tool he’d developed in his lab to detect pathogens. He’s a co-founder and CEO of HB Risk , and a Professor and Department Chair in Civil Engineering at California State University, Chico. Sunny received his Ph.D.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 120

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners. Don’t confuse your passion for your tools with why your customers will buy your product.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 151

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

How this research is transferred outside the university, and why this “tech transfer” process is important was the focus of an interview with two of the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Want to be a guest on the show?

Government 120

Government Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2016

She left high school at 15 to attend Simon’s Rock Early College, then studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. . Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. She has been featured in the Forbes and Inc.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Cofounder Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

We were going to do that by turning marketing into a machine to generate end user demand, drive the that demand into our sales channels, and educate our sales channels. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 130