Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

While it doesn’t eliminate great investor judgment, pattern recognition skills and mentoring, we’ve developed an Investment Readiness Level tool that fills in these missing pieces. Entrepreneurs should always communicate their business’ very latest stage of customer development as part of their investor presentation.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. Analytics spark more questions and discussion than almost any other aspect of the Lean Startup method. Alistair and Ben, co-authors of the book Lean Analytics, will help you sort it out in our next webcast, Lean Analytics for Non-tech Companies.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

We were sitting in our conference room in our first “system-planning meeting” trying to define the specifications of our new supercomputer and make the trade-offs between what was possible to build, and what customers in this new market would actually want and need. The conversation that day would become one of my professional watermarks.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. And Jennifer is now my co-instructor in the Stanford Lean LaunchPad class.). The MVP Tree. The MVP Tree.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

As the conversation began to get down to how much stock and salary we could offer van Dam, we left the barber to finish his work and went to a payphone to call our CEO to confirm the deal. Reply Karma in the Lean Startup Era , on January 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm Said: [.] The response from across the country?

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The Customer is a Genius Then instead of talking about our products he segued the conversation into their products. And soon the conversation were about architectural tradeoffs and then how customers didn’t appreciate the elegant designs and how the world was going to hell in a handbasket because of these commodity microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

This thought was in my mind as I was reading Lean Analytics a new book by my friend Alistair Croll and his collaborator Benjamin Yoskovitz. In this post, we’ll look at each of the four steps in the Lean Analytics Cycle in more detail. If it's the number of people buying, the metric is conversion rate. But it is not routine.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

Here are the details of both of those customer development experiences. ” Food on the Table — a now-famous lean juggernaut in Austin run by IMVU alum Manuel Rosso — talked to 120. But then as the conversations wore on, I felt a change. But there’s no one “number.”

Customer 252

Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

When it becomes possible to build products "live" with customers, the cycle time changes and design becomes a much more dynamic process. We still struggle to create Firm software that is defect-free, and it still requires customer insight (and maybe some customer development) to discover what will Delight.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. Introducing Lean Planning: How to Plan Less and Grow Faster. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Filed under: Marketing , Technology , Venture Capital | Tagged: Steve Blank , Venture Capital , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « Customer Analytics – From Those Who Should Know SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot » 14 Responses Michael F. You’ll learn a lot.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. on top of that often results in conversations and incentives that are difficult to overcome, especially early on in a company. Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2012

through the Lean Launchpad class. He wanted to fly out to Stanford and sit in the Lean LaunchPad class about to start in the engineering school. If we’re correct, we can compress the time for commercializing scientific breakthroughs and reduce the early stage risks of these new ventures.

America 241

America Rhode Island Southern California Illinois 241

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Just like the low conversion rate from going to bars (unless it’s for that one night interaction), this is the same for finding a co-founder. In Conversation.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

The lunch conversation was an interesting data point to add to a hypothesis I’ve had. Great founders live for these moments. Creating the Entrepreneurial Personality – A Thought Experiment Fast forward three decades back to today. Let me know what you think. Does any of this match your experience or people you know?

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

He is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School , and an angel investor hailed as one of New York City’s top 100 early-stage investors. What’s more, as the Lean Startup revolution has gone mainstream, Dave said, it has started to change the trajectory of our economy. It’s a conversation.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that. However, for the Web 2.0

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources. Lean Startup Circle â?? Customer Support. Lean project management.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I replied: “This is really important for our success as company and I’m really at a loss why customers didn’t respond the way we expected. From there, the conversation took a different trajectory. Anybody else got some other ideas?&# It was definitely a “Zen moment&# for me in terms of my career. True? .&#

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

What all these teachers had in common were two things: they were technology early adopters that were willing to take a chance on a new software product, and they all had similar problems organizing their classes and students. So how do you get started with customer segmentation? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team?

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? When it comes to early stage investing – it’s all gut. Warning: Typos, run-on sentences, and crappy formatting. 2) Do less and iterate.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. if you have some thoughts on this you could add to the conversation and provide some advice. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build. it is always product first.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84