A Crowded Space

AUGUST 12, 2011

By this, I really just mean what I look for in entrepreneurs and companies at early stages. Read up on the customer effort study from HBS. · Unique solution – there are a lot of successful companies that are following in the wakes of Groupon. Social media / word-of-mouth will dwarf every other channel of acquisition.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Vertical Social Media Acquisition 60

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

The chicken-egg issue of getting customers to your platform while you don’t have any money to spare is a puzzle that many companies are unable to figure out at all. Then, in 2015, this is who we added to the team: Jan-15: Head of Customer Success (growth team). 1x hacker in charge of product/development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. In the case of J.J's business, the customer is the Network. Mava Consulting.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

But ultimately great people drive the ideas and Highland Capital is proactive in reaching out to entrepreneurs even at early stages. ESPN, Forbes, AOL were customers. He is starting to see this occur in sites that are verticalizing content. He does think there are opportunities in vertical search. 37:00-40:30).

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. Strong pre-show promotion will let your customers and prospects know about your exhibit.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

View from Seed

JUNE 23, 2022

Automating their end-to-end eCommerce operations (from managing inventory to order fulfillment to customer service). RH: Who are your customers? Long-term: Influencers across the world with 10K+ followers and across all major verticals (e.g. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder?

DC 156

DC Cambodia eCommerce Social Media 156

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. 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. A few successful ones do all these things.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

In other cases, they may come from your channel partners or elsewhere. This is useful for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is to help you navigate the right channels in your vertical and open doors to potential customers. The more disruptive an idea, the harder it is the evaluate at an early stage.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. No building, no money, no customers, no market? Who are the customers? These customer and market risks need to be translated into facts as soon as possible. Great, sign me up.

Silicon Valley 219

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 219

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 26, 2013

It promises increased efficiency in the marketplace as worthy startups may be able to raise money faster and simpler than through traditional channels. Consider an early stage company - and assume they have 2 choices, pursue crowd-funding or raise VC money. Their customers are thrilled with the service and highly engaged.

Later Stage 87

Later Stage Liquidity Event Equity Vertical 87

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The premium lounge includes an online curriculum addressing the common topics specific to very early stage entrepreneurship; private roundtables that many of you have requested; customer, channel partners, and investor introductions; media and analyst access; and a variety of other value-added services to make our entrepreneurs successful.

Startup 113

Startup India Silicon Valley Incubator 113

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

StoredIQ has rapidly gained traction with customers across several vertical industries, including financial services, healthcare and oil and gas. “Buddy has substantial channel and business development experience working with a range of companies, from early stage to multinational corporations.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

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. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me –“That’s a great hypothesis, do customers tell you that they’d buy your version if it was cheaper or on the web?

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. Next, who will the customers be and where will they be found? None of mine did.) (None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

A tool like Quuu identifies relevant, shareable content to keep your social media channels active. . This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

So I got out out of the building to meet and understand our customers and distribution partners. I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners.

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 142

View from Seed

OCTOBER 18, 2017

When describing the Everyday Economy, it is helpful to talk about some of the verticals that are seeing wholesale redesign and the opportunities within those verticals. We have blogged about a few of the verticals so far, including housing , food , entertainment , and others. WeWork also falls into this category.

Vertical 166

Vertical Seed Stage Viral Portfolio 166

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. 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

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 25, 2023

And I think you're right, you touched on the advent of technology surrounding publishing, as well as all the different things you can do now as a self-published author, as it relates to, you know, distribution channels. People wanna get on the speaking circuits for whatever, you know, industry or vertical they're in. I'm fine with 15%.

Audience 88

Audience Revenue Distribution Differentiation 88

BeyondVC

APRIL 14, 2005

I can’t tell you how many early stage companies I talk to tout their great list of partners. Yeah, you know the "I love you, you love me" kind of partnership that sucks precious resources from a startup and yields no value and no customers. So how do you make a real partnership work?

Partner 60

Partner Early Stage Vertical Sales 60

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

To a Hammer Everything Looks Like a Nail In hindsight my failure was that I executed to my strength – telling a compelling story – without actually listening to customer feedback. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to listen to customers. I had outsourced customer feedback and ignored the input.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

In the real world, most business plans don’t survive the first few months of customer contact. And even if they did – customers don’t ask to see your business plan. MootCorp in particular has an impressive track record of putting early stage tech companies on the right path towards funding.

Business Plan 143

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 143

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

You can be an Independent studio or do “work for hire&# (either a revenue share or buy-out model) - If you’re an independent studio you have a set of choices for distribution channel and marketing models. - We understood none of this. More detail in future posts. steve Twitted by altgate , on July 2, 2009 at 5:22 pm Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone – investors, customers, friends, etc. Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And that’s just to get started. Let me know what you think.

Founder 302

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 302

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

But underlying the company’s existence was a fundamental hypothesis we refused to see or test - customers would care if we did. In the game business of the early 1990’s video was at best a brief narrative, a distraction you maybe watched once, not the core of the game. Our customers wanted to kill, shoot or hunt for something.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 212

mashable.com

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Not to mention, early-stage startups usually only employ a few people focused on product and development. Then research which journalists at that publication cover the vertical in which your startup or its news would fall. Customize Your Pitches. Instead, stick with custom emails. Subscribe to the Business channel.

PR 103

PR Startup Social Media Technical Review 103

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

We were going to do that by turning marketing into a machine to generate end user demand, drive the that demand into our sales channels, and educate our sales channels. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 127

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

He is the founder of Premium Growth Solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for early-stage consumer packaged goods brands. He's the founder of premium growth solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for early stage consumer packaged goods brands. This is John Jansen. My guest today is Dr. James Richardson.

Networking 90

Networking Early Stage Distribution Hosting 90

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

janryan (@janryan) | Twitter Kerry Rupp Kerry is a Capital Factory Mentor and founding partner of True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in women-led companies in the sustainable consumer and consumer health verticals. SXSW Panel: Return on Inclusion: Investing in Diverse Startups Arlan ????

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Lessons to Learn By the time I joined Ardent I thought I was an experienced marketer, but I’ll never forget my first real lesson in what it meant to understand customers and product/market fit. Get Out of My Company At the top of his lungs he screamed, “You don’t know a damn thing about what these customers need!

Silicon Valley 275

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 275

mashable.com

OCTOBER 5, 2012

Naming can be one of the most difficult challenges in the early stages of a startup. ” The name is important for discoverability , whether in Google searches (10% to 50%+ of site traffic, depending on the category), the App Store (especially painful in iOS6) and other text-based discovery channels. Contributors.

Naming 84

Naming Startup Social Media RSS 84