Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. In short order they learned how to transition from being customers on the receiving end of a sales pitch to giving one. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. At the time this was a pretty controversial decision. Blog at WordPress.com.

Engineer 221

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 221

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

From Lean Startup Machine , Lean LA and San Diego Tech Founders , to countless speeches and workshops, I have seen the impact that their leadership has had first hand. Or will you need to staff and finance a whaling ship to be out at sea for months at a time to catch two or three whales (enterprise sales model)?

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. Two paragraphs, Five bullets. It didn’t take more.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. We talked about some simple design rules and I remember him thanking me for coming, saying we were the only chip company who cared enough to call on him (little did he know.) I thought nothing about the meeting until years later. What happened?

Silicon Valley 143

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. We four instructors would grumble and complain to one another about our lack of leadership. I had been teaching Z8000 design to customers for the last year and a half.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 131

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Hearpreneur

APRIL 9, 2017

The Carson, California company employs about 800 people in its 4 Southern California plants. I started a business when the salon where I was going to rent as a young esthetician wanted to charge me a percentage of my retail sales. Thanks to Stacy Roberts, SMR Leadership Solutions, LLC ! #8 Image Credit: Nancy Reagan.

San Diego 114

San Diego Entrepreneur Software Review Southern California 114

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Vertical 162

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

We knew from back-of-the-envelope calculations that I would need 3 times the combined marketing and sales budgets of the incumbents for a head-on assault. (I The 3:1 Lanchester Laws said I would need $60M in marketing and sales spending to win. You need to hire the right type of sales people for the type of [.]

Silicon Valley 157

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 157

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. This is worthy of an open and honest discussion with sales up front. And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 136

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. We had seen the reactions of people playing with the prototypes in our lab and when we demo’d it to our sales force. We knew something our CEO didn’t. But you probably never heard of ReelTime.

Video 184

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales. » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. , AKPC_IDS += "1128,"; (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Posted in Leadership | Tagged [.] Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Reply Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40?

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

When a startup finds a repeatable sales process and steadily increasing revenue, its investors wants to harvest the rewards and build a culture of “execution.” Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. However, if the founder is still running the company, the last thing he wants is a company complacent with day-to-day execution.

Customer 216

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Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 6, 2023

Frank Cowell is a speaker, best-selling author, and entrepreneur in the San Diego, California area. With over 20 years of sales, marketing, and leadership experience, Frank serves as Chief Revenue Boss at his latest venture, Revenue Ranch. So what is our number one blocker towards True North? One is True.

Revenue 80

Revenue Campaign Audience Technical Review 80

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

Hard skills such as data analytics are essential to being successful as a product manager, but equally-valued are soft skills such as communication, collaboration and leadership. Use frameworks in interviews to explain your qualifications and show your thought-processes. A PM basically sits at the center of UX, technology and business.

Management 85

Management Product Technical Review Software Review 85

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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. We were constantly creating metrics [.]

Silicon Valley 127

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

The initial hypothesis for Epiphany (from my much smarter partner Ben ) was that as departments in the enterprise (manufacturing, finance, customer support sales) became automated, the marketing department would eventually get its turn. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 253

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 253

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Market Type affects your spending and sales ramp after you reach product/market fit. You say, “Market Type affects your spending and sales ramp after you reach product/market fit.&# Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Are you entering an existing market, resegmenting an existing market, or creating an entirely new market?”

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

We so like to talk about fonts, logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, economics and other interesting stuff! Is Your Office Design Is Bumming Everyone Out? 30 Simple Tools For Data Visualization | Co.Design | business + design crowdspring.co/1Dge1wy.

Small Business 48

Small Business Design Social Media Silicon Valley 48

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

The Customer Development Model Customer Development is designed to solve the problems of the Product Development model I described in the four previous posts. Market Type Integral to the Customer Development model is the notion that Market Type choices affect the way the company will deploy its sales, marketing and financial resources.

Customer Development 253

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Shortly after launching my consulting practice, I took on a leadership position with several professional women’s organizations, Women’s Global Network and Ladies Who Launch, San Diego. Coworking spaces were designed to bring together the growing market of independent workers – currently 37% of the knowledge-based workforce.

San Diego 48

San Diego Entrepreneur Marketing Technical Review 48

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

However, in catching up with the VP of Sales of Ardent last night, I was reminded one of the few times I did return for closure. Nuclear Weapons Laboratories used supercomputers to run their hydrodynamics codes for nuclear weapon design and the National Security Agency used them to decrypt codes. It was for sale on Ebay.

Silicon Valley 210

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 22, 2020

Digital Response (USDR) CalFresh Onward California Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1935-1944" SF New Deal donation/volunteer page Transcript for Out of the Crisis #15: SF New Deal Eric Ries : This is Out of the Crisis, I'm Eric Ries.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Government Technical Review Community 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Scalable Startup

MAY 29, 2012

C++ and Object Oriented design were invented at AT&T, and there are many more examples. To do this you need human resources beyond techo-nerds – sales, marketing, strategy, bus dev. Again, New York blows California away here. (3) Again, New York blows California away here. (3) These people abound in New York.

Silicon Valley 22

Silicon Valley New York Startup Software Engineering 22

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

As the company gets larger and a large professional sales organization kicks in, its second priority is to generate qualified leads. Before you go to a trade show sales and marketing need to agree to measurable goals. Then offer those budget dollars to the VP of Sales.

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 203

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Rule 1: In an existing market Customer Development means not only understanding potential customers, but your competitors in detail – their product features, their sales channels, their demand creation strategy, their business model, etc. Me – “So what’s the problem?” We only have 20 customers, and Large Company x has millions.”

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

With that implicit assumption, startups hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies while marketing creates a brand and buzz to create demand and drive it into the sales channel (web, direct salesforce, etc.) They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. Everyone was using a road map that was designed for a very different location, yet they are surprised when they end up lost.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

corporation, and by extension Sloan laid the foundation for America’s economic leadership in the 20th century. 2) Provide corporate management with near real-time divisional sales reports and budgets that indicated when they deviated from plan. billion in sales in today’s dollars.) One guy really did all of this.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Reply Ray Debs , on April 29, 2009 at 6:55 pm Said: Hi Steve, I am thoroughly enjoying reading your blog posts, and looking forward to more. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 185

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

But I wrote a post about an iterative, process-oriented approach to high-tech sales and marketing on 2.9.9. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Reply Customer Development and Start-up Models « Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on March 26, 2009 at 3:06 am Said: [.] Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Sales – What Channel to reach the customer? Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

If it was a very big mistake, I blamed the VP of Sales. “This marketing campaign didn’t work? It was a brilliant strategy but Sales screwed it up.&# (My own lame defense here for this behavior is that sales and marketing are always cats and dogs in startups. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Customer Development 154

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 154

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

While the story about the Potereo benchmarks was about relentless execution, its glib description of designing the benchmarks could be read as we cheated. These were applications we had never seen or ran before when the boards were designed. It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price.

Silicon Valley 127

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