Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. Set up the Lean LaunchLab or a WordPress blog to document your Customer Development progress. Size the market opportunity.

Lean 333

Lean Web Coder Business Model 333

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

Efficient Marketing Campaigns: SMS automation in Salesforce enables businesses to execute targeted marketing campaigns, delivering promotional messages and offers directly to customers’ fingertips for increased conversion rates.

SMS 124

SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 124

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2024

Now we were in discussions with the potential buyers who had the corporate checkbook, and they were ready to have a “next step” conversation. And the follow up from the potential customer? Crickets… Even our user advocates stopped responding to emails. Our conversions of demos into orders went through the roof.

Founder 321

Founder Engineer Sales Conversion 321

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

He has been an entrepreneur since he was young, founding top conversion and marketing companies like Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics, Quick Sprout, and more. These don’t require coding skills—they’re usually visual templates that are easy to use but don’t allow for great customization (that would require technical skills). Custom development.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

Lastly, sending a thank-you note via email or making an occasional follow-up phone call can go a long way in showing gratitude, which is essential in the business world. When growing your online presence, be sure to join in on the conversations that those in your industry are having. Introduce New Merchandise As It Becomes Available.

Customer 158

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 158

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

Today, I was fortunate enough to get Hunter Boyle – Senior Business Development Director of AWeber to talk with us about what exactly business development is, and the role it can play on conversions. In my interview with Hunter, we discuss: The key responsibilities of a business development professional.

Developer 104

Developer Cofounder API New Jersey 104

www.ashmaurya.com

AUGUST 29, 2012

There are many channels that can produce your first early customers and contacts, but the one I see most often is cold email. This post outlines the method I use to approach cold emailing. I’ve sent poorly targeted email far too often. We ‘re just applying that to cold emails. It must fit the audience.

Email 52

Email Customer Tennessee Software Review 52

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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. And the converse is true; Palm would have failed, burning through all their cash, using Handspring’s strategy.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Extra Lucrative Conversion Advice. Conversion Optimization Services. Conversion Research. It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. I feel like “conversion rate optimization” is in 2013 what “social media marketing” was in 2009.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 9, 2013

After all, if you get too chummy with customers — or even appear too interested in or sympathetic to their personal circumstances — they might start to want more from you: better pricing, extended credit, lengthier conversations, access to your services on nights and weekends, etc. Do you wait days before responding to emails?

Customer 155

Customer Technical Review Florida Cofounder 155

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Whether it’s managing your supply chain or automating customer service, look for ways to optimise every aspect of your operations. PDF to Word conversion tools can be a lifesaver for managing documents efficiently. It’s not just about a logo or a tagline; it’s the experience you promise your customers.

Intellectual Property 132

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 132

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Instead of email, they’ve grown up with QQ instant messages. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30. It’s clear why families try so hard to send their children abroad.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. If youre worried about disappointing some potential customers - dont be. Measure conversion rates. We finally settled on a $1.99

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

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. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

We’ve organized everything to best simulate a visitor’s experience on a landing page from first click to final conversion. note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Why You Should Focus On Clicks Before Conversions.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

That kicked off this long conversation about how you might try to leverage this evolution of education technology to create scalable impact in places where tuition couldn’t be the driver of growth. Send an email to terri@kandsranch.com describing your entrepreneurial journey. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

That kicked off this long conversation about how you might try to leverage this evolution of education technology to create scalable impact in places where tuition couldn’t be the driver of growth. Send an email to terri@kandsranch.com describing your entrepreneurial journey. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 29, 2014

In the table below the chart, you will see a list showing whether Social, Email or another channel is the primary source for your traffic. For example, you may learn 70% of mobile traffic is from Twitter but that the conversion rate is 0% from this platform. Perhaps then, you need to evaluate your site’s mobile conversion experience.

Analytics 65

Analytics Mobile Channel Conversion 65

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Instead of email, they’ve grown up with QQ instant messages. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30. It’s clear why families try so hard to send their children abroad.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It was also found that “Engaged” customers received 3-4 (or more) reviews of their portfolios and were taking part of on-going conversations where their advisor was soliciting feedback and asking for actual input. Understanding the conversions that come from referrals is only one half of the equation though.

Programming 107

Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

Street Smart Product Manager

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Many of my free product help calls are about ways to pursue customer development and gather VOC, bootstrap new product efforts, and apply lean principles to product management activities. I recently had an email Q&A with a fellow PMer in which I shared what’s worked for me. The post RIP PRDs.

Agile 46

Agile Conversion Lean Bootstrapping 46

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2013

This was intended as a personal observation, not an ageist statement, and we devolved into a conversation about brain plasticity. She wants to send email, not learn a new UI; but worse, she doesn’t really know that learning a new UI is what she is expected to do. The essay follows. What do you think?

Technology 168

Technology Coder Semantic Social Media 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Id be honored to have you join the conversation.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Steve Blank

APRIL 3, 2012

We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. We had a couple of minutes to catch up between sessions and the conversation got strangely awkward when I asked him how their startup was going. Epiphany e·piph·a·ny noun ?/i?pif?n?/.

Flash 313

Flash Customer Development Business Model Developer 313

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. We were painting a picture of hypertext on every desktop computer. The response from across the country? To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

I’ll email a brief review of it. The Trojan Horse “Well…” I said hesitantly, “I’m not sure we should share this with you but we have a set of benchmarks that we use to measure performance….” Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting. The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

ConversionXL

JULY 1, 2014

Conversions are mostly about being relevant to your customers. If what you offer and the way you present it is relevant to your visitors they will convert to buying customers. Then again if you don’t understand who your customer is or worse it’s “everybody” then you have very little change of being successful at it.

Customer 76

Customer Design Software Review Lead Generation 76

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2015

Customer Development for us meant a lot of hard-won learnings. But in her own family, at the dinner table, she would read a book while everybody else was conversing. Because following the conversation when multiple people were talking around her was impossible. There was no going back. This was a big opportunity.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Lean Customer Development Startup 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

If you look at the top 3 online retailers by conversion rate, none of these are award-winning designs : [link] [link] [link] However, they convert ~25% of visitors to customers. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) That’s 10x what many websites convert.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. My aspiration with the Lean Startup methodology has always been to provide such a framework, so that we have more intelligent conversations about what works and what doesnt for startups. Thats what this conference is for.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Unfortunately, the video of our sllconf conversation is not online (due to technical problems), but we have a physical tape backup which we are endeavoring to get online soon.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133