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.

Silicon Valley 125

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Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. He decided that our largest customers would be involved in the setting of our priority lists (we did some of this internally in the early years but we saw it mostly as a sales process). The Outside In organization had a one-way flow.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

A month or two before the QuickTime public announcement in May, the SuperMac hardware engineers (who had a great relationship with the QuickTime team at Apple) started a “ skunk works ” project. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. The software was idiot proof.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

He is also a Consulting Professor at Stanford in the Electrical Engineering Department and Editor-in-Chief of the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems. Prior to his investing and advisory career, Evangelos spent 20+ years in high-technology industries, in executive roles spanning operations, marketing, sales and engineering.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. Some sales guy who was too busy to take the meeting was probably retired in Maui on the commissions. Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story.

Silicon Valley 131

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Since no benchmarks existed, we enlisted our engineering department in a serious software development effort and wrote our own. We listed the editors, writers, what they had previously had written, deadlines, what the competitive products were, how our benchmarks stacked up, what “upgrades” our boards needed from engineering to win, etc.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

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. I walked into the VP of Sales’ office and with my knees trembling, I politely asked for the job. And I understood engineering since I interacted with them almost daily.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup.

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Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

A recent job posting by zlien , a construction industry software company, frames the product manager’s mindset this way: Do you find yourself staring at a complex world and identifying problems to engineer away? Are you passionate about creating great user experiences within a product? Don’t get trapped inside four walls?—?invest

Management 85

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Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Discover the secrets and strategies of how your business can achieve the frictionless sale. Zak (11:46): But I think it's the same thing in, in, you know, direct sales, right? If I, if you've used my service before or have your IP address, I could say, Hey, welcome Paul from I'm in Loma Linda Paul from Loma Linda, California.

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Framework Technical Review Software Review Naming 78

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

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. 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.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. In talking to their sales channel (farm equipment dealers) and customers (organic farmers) they realize they have an opportunity to come up with a unique revenue stream. Parts one through six are here , Syllabus is here. .

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Revenue West Virginia Oklahoma Oklahoma City 213

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. The absolute number depends on your channel and industry.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

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? Waterfall, Agile, Lean?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

I am also a pilot, and computer engineer, and love to read stories about sigint and black aircraft programs. 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.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 170

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 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We decided to work with our engineering department to create the Potreo benchmarks because we really wanted to see how our boards performed with the four applications customers told us that they used; Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator and PageMaker. It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price.

Silicon Valley 124

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Luckily while I was teaching classes at headquarters, Zilog’s field application engineers (the technical engineers working alongside our salesmen) would work side-by-side with our large customers as they designed their systems with our chips. It was a Friday (about ¾’s through my work week) and I was in a sales department meeting.

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Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

www.usatoday.com

JULY 16, 2012

"Were helping the second-largest city in the United States become a veritable tech center," Google says on its website, in trying to attract employees for sales and engineering positions. He has hired engineers from Loyola Marymount University , CalTech, University of Southern California and UCLA , he says. Google says.

Los Angeles 87

Los Angeles San Francisco Southern California Silicon Valley 87

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, is you move from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek to jowl. This happened to us at SuperMac when our sales skyrocketed. Engineers were packed in cubicles or desks right on top of each other?

Silicon Valley 205

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 205

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Just like catching a bug in development is cheaper than fixing it once it has been released, confirming lack of customer demand prior to ramping up a sales engine is cheaper than finding out once you have a paid sales team.

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Little Indians and Big Indians At MIPS Computers , my second semiconductor company, I was the VP of Marketing and defacto head of Sales. As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. What a great idea. No, not really.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

If you believed the opinions in the marketing department, the customers were in science, engineering, color desktop publishing, and a variety of applications with no single industry or application dominating the list. I knew we were selling through a multi-level indirect sales channel. The obvious one’s were who were they?

Silicon Valley 185

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. Since there was very little documentation my time was split between the design engineers who built the system and the test and deployment team getting the system ready to go overseas. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. Similarly, government purchasing is a frustrating series of hoops, even compared to enterprise sales. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

Carl was also worldwide head of stores at Home Depot when Hurricane Katrina hit, running sales out of the backs of trucks and accepting IOUs for payment. And half our clubs were in the state of California in 2008, so was a very interesting time to be a CEO and learned a lot. You're usually your own worst critic. Carl Liebert : Yeah.

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 28, 2013

The suggestions engine they have. Then they match it back to their rules engine that serves me the best options. ", and the page is exactly the same for me in California or someone in London? They also make it clear they only serve California, rather than telling you after you click the Submit button! I really do.

Web 164

Web Design Marketing Security 164

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Search engine marketing is a tactic that is perfect for a lean, iterative approach to marketing. To generate sales and revenue? Or does it have to be an actual sale for you to consider it a conversion? Related posts: Lean Marketing: Public Relations strategies for small businesses and startups. Graphic: Sam Michel.

Advertising 103

Advertising Lean Marketing Campaign 103

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

October 2012 – Erin Turner and Gagan Biyani host the first Growth Hackers Conference in Menlo Park, California. Ads drive awareness…to drive sales. PR and publicity drive attention…to drive sales. Social media drives communication…to drive sales. Ensured that sales reflects your value-based pricing strategy.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

Do you know of any similar studies showing correlation between sales success and founder success? The three dropouts above were each, in their own way, some pretty slick sales guys. Reply Harvey , on April 11, 2009 at 7:05 pm Said: Some of the best engineers I hired out of school were not 3.5+ And even not-so-new engineers.

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Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

I recruited a top-flight engineer and serial entrepreneur to build our MVP, on equity?—?and As a boot-strapped founder aka our biggest investor, one of the things I leaned into uncovering was the unknown. Lean into it. in a huge $77b market. and every other team member the same way. What did our customers think? Of course I do.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 11, 2016

Gone are the days of advertising to everyone in San Francisco, California. The problem (which advertisers and engines alike recognize), is this method greatly undervalues the offline influence some of these search ads can have. As a result, targeting options are becoming more and more advanced. Needs to be persuaded. submit an email).

PPC 48

PPC Matching Campaign San Francisco 48

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Now we were faced with the fact that even though we were gaining market share daily, there was nothing coming out of Engineering. Instead of eight boards, Engineering was going to be able to deliver one new graphics board. One of the reasons I had joined the company was seeing these boards as hope for the future. What could we do?

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. While this may seem obvious to anyone not in sales and marketing, trust me, in a technology company this is a conceptual breakthrough. But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company.

Silicon Valley 126

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online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

"When youve bootstrapped a business where youre not drawing a salary and depleting whatever savings you have, thats one of the very difficult things to do," says Toby Stuart, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Harley Goes Lean to Build Hogs. Businesses For Sale |. California.

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