Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

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

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. But other critical hypotheses such as activities, resources, partners, channels needed testing offshore. With 317 million people the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. End result?

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 212

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Here’s what happened: We got the product out; we got paying customers. Our revenue model was wrong. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies. We thought we figured it out.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 145

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Here’s what happened: We got the product out; we got paying customers. Our revenue model was wrong. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies. We thought we figured it out.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. VC’s invested in things that ran on electrons: hardware, software and silicon. Quickly iterate the product in front of customers. Here’s why.

Lean 262

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 262

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

At Stanford, Ann Miura-Ko and I have been working on a simplified Silicon Valley version of this model. As a founder you start out with: 1) a vision of a product with a set of features, 2) a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

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 267

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 267

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

JULY 11, 2016

We were depending on investor funding, but with $60,000 in revenue no one would fund it. . When Peggy first arrived in Silicon Valley, she worked for Boole & Babbage , before founding her own firm. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. . I was really fricking scared. No one was interested.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Cofounder Customer Development 120

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Lets see why.

Lean 257

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 257

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). Test-marketing is now easier than ever before, thanks to leveraged distribution channels like AdWords and Facebook. What is the right revenue model? If not, there are plenty of alternatives.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

In today’s language of Customer Development , RIM positioned the Blackberry as a segment of an existing market – pager users who needed two-way communication. In today’s language of Customer Development , a TiVo positioned as a segment of an existing market (VCR’s) was a no brainer. New Market Revenue Curve.

Hockey Stick 275

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 275

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

What that meant was that until the test results came back the food can’t ship and that’s lost revenue for them. 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 , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 195

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 195

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

There’s a Death Valley of startups trying to do business with schools and teachers. Well, here we are with $5 million in annual revenues and we’re a consumer company that starts with teachers first, and we don’t charge them a dime. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Brazil 162

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 162

Steve Blank

MAY 5, 2016

There’s a Death Valley of startups trying to do business with schools and teachers. Well, here we are with $5 million in annual revenues and we’re a consumer company that starts with teachers first, and we don’t charge them a dime. Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Brazil 120

Brazil Entrepreneur Cleveland Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

In companies this would be product line extensions, more efficient supply chain, new distribution channels. In a company you know you’ve been successful when you generate revenue and profit. In those case revenue will become an additional metric. Note that they plan a trip to San Diego to visit the customer.

San Diego 145

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 145

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

What that meant was that until the test results came back the food can’t ship and that’s lost revenue for them. 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 , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 120

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

OrangeScape positions itself as an Application Platform As A Service (APaaS) provider, and has some marquee customers in India including Unilever, Citibank, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sterlite. They will now be leveraging the 1M/1M-Persistent channel to go to market in the United States. Building new apps is also not as simple.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products. Usually, this is via storefronts, online, or via distributors.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

The term “Growth Hacking”, invented by Sean Ellis , and made popular by Andrew Chen , a Silicon valley marketer and entrepreneur, is a combination of two disciplines – marketing and coding: Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of “How do I get customers for my product?”

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

I would focus on one product and set a goal to generate $1M in yearly revenue from it. Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing. Outsourcing is something a big company, with a known customer / problem (that has revenue & traction) does to save cost.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 129

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Especially if you aren’t from around Silicon Valley. pretty much sums everything up well, but – let’s be honest here – if you live outside Silicon Valley, you are going to be at odds, because the rest of the world hasn’t yet caught up with this tech start-up thing.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Because the book is chock-full of examples of how to do this in older industries, I will focus on my experience integrating NPS into an online service, although it should be noted that it works equally well if your primary contact with customers is through a different channel, such as the telephone. Even just 10 might be enough.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 235

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 235

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads. Where did the other $57 billion come from?

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

This single decision wound up costing the company significant revenue and over the course of several months sent its customer growth into decline. Most normal customers – even among early adopters - do not pay attention to the trolls. I don't run my business with that lack of respect for my customers that IMVU does.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158