Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.)

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

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. Ultimately you want to see if you can find customers and a market for the product as specified – as early as possible.

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

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. They looked at their watches, gave our sales guy a quizzical look and left.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

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?

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

At the same time we were educating the press , we began to educate our own marketing department about what exactly we were supposed to be doing inside the company. During the first few weeks I asked each of my department heads what they did for marketing and the company. Titles are not the same as what your job is. This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

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?

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

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 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,) ———— 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. .

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

During today's roundtable, we had some excellent discussions of product marketing for a couple of different concepts. The first of these discussions was about a new social media marketing platform called Stanzr, from San Francisco-based Voluble, that we are using at 1M/1M. The 1M/1M Channel on Stanzr. MapWide.com. Next, Dr. S.

Entrepreneur 116

Entrepreneur San Francisco Technical Review New Jersey 116

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” The first question to ask is: “Does your startup have market risk or is it dominated by technical risk?” Lean Startup /Customer Development is used to find answers to the unknowns about customers and markets.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. Over the years marketers have found that using numbers to compare yourself to other products works well. Now as VP of Marketing, I could have sat back and let my PR agency handle the press.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. Are These Your Slides?

Silicon Valley 232

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

techcrunch.com

AUGUST 12, 2012

She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Media industry. The top layer of applications and services that use the innovations of the first two layers to transform vertical markets (e.g, Alexia Tsotsis.

Early Stage 70

Early Stage San Francisco Los Angeles Southern California 70

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. For me this was one of the joys of entrepreneurship – constant learning and new insights.

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

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. What’s Marketing? For entrepreneurs good things come to those who ask.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

To do this they have to accomplish five things; 1) get deal flow – via networking and legwork, they identify likely industries, companies and teams with the potential for rapid growth (less than 10 years), 2) evaluate those companies and teams on the basis of technology, market opportunity, and team.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

This is the first way to get video into a computer, we’re going to sell and market this board like there’s no tomorrow. We had seen the reactions of people playing with the prototypes in our lab and when we demo’d it to our sales force. That’s every marketeers excuse for putting their kids in an ad.)

Video 168

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

The product development model treats all startups like they are in an Existing Market – an established market with known customers. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter? Other companies in the 1999 PDA market were Palm, the original innovator, as well Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

billion dollar business this year to $5 billion by 2012, taking market share away from DVD retailers and intensifying the carriers' ambition to bid for the best (and first run) titles. What is the future for good-old fashioned DVD rentals and sales? He is a current member of the California State Bar, and the Hollywood Writers Guild.

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Technical Review Distribution 85

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In contrast, sales and marketing activities before first customer ship are adhoc, fuzzy, and don’t have measurable, concrete objectives. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

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. In my career I’ve been involved with lots of sales deals, and for some reason losing this was the one deal I never forgot. It was for sale on Ebay. I liked to fail fast, move on, and not look back.

Silicon Valley 191

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 191

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Most startups lack a process for discovering their markets, locating their first customers, validating their assumptions, and growing their business. 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 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Ironically, the model is a good fit when launching a new product into an existing , well-defined market where the basis of competition is understood, and its customers are known. We had no clue what our market was when we first started. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

« Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on May 5, 2009 at 3:55 pm Said: [.] If you’ve never seen Eric’s Lean Startup presentation, take a few minutes to at least watch his part. It starts at ~40:30 in the video. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking.

Customer Development 142

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 142

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, medical devices, etc.,) As the company gets larger and a large professional sales organization kicks in, its second priority is to generate qualified leads. you know they’re expensive in time, dollars and resources.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

ReadWriteStart

MAY 12, 2011

Next, Dan Stewart from Safety Harbor, Florida, pitched Happy Grasshopper , an email-based referral marketing service. Today, he has over a thousand, and he has chosen to focus on the realtor vertical. and a systematic affiliate marketing program. He is seeing excellent results. In February, he had about 200 customers.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Entrepreneur Silicon Valley India 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

It didn’t make my marketing skills any worse or better, but moved me to play forever on a different field. If it was a very big mistake, I blamed the VP of Sales. “This marketing campaign didn’t work? But a series of Zen-like moments helped me move to a different level that changed how I operated.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

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

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.” An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. This is easy to test. Me – “How are you positioning your product?”

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

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 173

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 173

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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phrase “Speaking to the Big Dogs” might end up as his corporate brand. We were happily brainstorming when one of his managers spoke up and said, “Well, the phrase ‘Big Dogs’ might not work because it might not translate well in our Mexican and Spanish markets.”

Silicon Valley 182

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 182

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.) car market.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 161

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It would have been easy for marketing to skip all of this and just write a set of benchmarks that made us look good. It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price. The goal was to make our boards run really fast on customer applications – the benchmarks just reflected that.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 124

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

No mainframe or minicomputer company saw any market for these small machines. Since the training department was part of sales no one really paid attention to the four of us. It was a Friday (about ¾’s through my work week) and I was in a sales department meeting. VP of Sales? Repeat every day, six or seven days a week.

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 181

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. However, no markets last forever. I’ll show you the memo in a second. But first some background.) It was still a year away from its IPO. Its latest product was an oscilloscope, the HP 150a.

Silicon Valley 169

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 169

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

While I was waiting in the lobby to pick up my offer letter, the head of marketing communications (who was to be one of my direct reports) came up to me as I held my just signed employment agreement. OK, let’s start with the basics, who does marketing think our customers are?”

Silicon Valley 192

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 192