California Engineer Product Development Sales 
Steve Blank
AUGUST 31, 2009
After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?
Steve Blank
JUNE 25, 2009
Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.
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Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 1, 2009
Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g. and product management worked with me to decide what to build & when. They taped people using existing products.
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.
Steve Blank
MAY 28, 2009
Market Risk vs. 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.
Steve Blank
JULY 30, 2009
As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. What happened?
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 3, 2009
This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. What kind of objectives would a startup want or need for sales and marketing?
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