Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. She posted her notes from the talk here.)

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 270

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

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2021

Then last night I watched the final presentations from the inaugural Hacking for National Security course in Australia before jumping over to teach Stanford’s Hacking for Defense® (H4D) class. Innovation happens because of people and it takes a village.

Curation 344

Curation Technical Review Lean Australia 344

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

No, the conversation was about to get more interesting. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. billion U.S.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Given Stanford’s 10 week quarters, we planned for eight weeks of lecture and the last two weeks for team final presentations.

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

When you look through the list , you’ll see big names that we’re very pleased we landed, epic companies we really want to hear from, and people we’re particularly excited to present because they have incredible stories to share--and you won’t hear them anyplace else. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

When growing your online presence, be sure to join in on the conversations that those in your industry are having. Reach out to your loyal customers and offer incentives for them to write reviews and rank services. Professionalisms business financing business growth customer development Jake Dacillo sales'

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Understanding the left-side of the mission model canvas ( activities, resources , partners , and costs) forces all teams to ask, “Are we building a product for a DOD/IC customer only or do we have a “dual-use” product that could be sold commercially and get funded by venture capital?”. Team Presentations: Weeks 8 and 9.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

That died with waterfall software development. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small?

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

As in the first part of this series, I’m in good company – I’m joined in Founders School by Noam Wasserman of Harvard teaching Founder’s Dilemmas , Craig Wortmann University of Chicago covering Entrepreneurial Selling , Peter McDermott helping understand Intellectual Property , and Nathan Gold offering how to give Powerful Presentations.

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 328

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

I use the Investment Readiness Level as part of my sessions to help the students understand that being ready for investment means that besides having a pretty PowerPoint, they need to do real work and show Customer Development progress. Since I began incorporating the Investment Readiness Level framework I’ve made three observations.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

This being presented to another company’s proud engineering team who was being forced to buy product from us because they couldn’t build their own in time.) After I sat down I was convinced the only logical conclusion was for the customer to tell us how many they wanted to buy. The result wasn’t what I expected. Help them?!!

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

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. What is customer development?

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. Presentations: Why I Hate Them | by Mike Samson – crowdspring.co/1nCq2nz. A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend? 1ms5aj1.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

At the end of each class we have each team give a Lessons Learned presentation. Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are “here’s how smart I am, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells a story of a journey of hard-won learning and discovery. Presentation Format. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

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. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

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. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. the Customer Life Time (CLT)).

Customer 323

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 323

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

MARCH 29, 2010

Heres a tiny sample: "Case studies, case studies, case studies presented by real people. The way forward requires getting everyone together in a room, and having a conversation about where were headed. Then, well talk case studies in each area, presented by practicing entrepreneurs who have actually grappled with the topic at hand.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

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

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

“I’ve been running our company, cycling through Customer Discovery and Validation and the board suggested that I was running out of bandwidth and needed some help in closing our initial orders. I knew where this conversation was going. When we change the company presentation it takes him days to get up to speed to the smallest change.

Startup 312

Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

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

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. Customer Development. A well-developed model is Andreessen Horowitz’s Executive Briefing Center.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

And a special thanks is due to all of our presenters, panelists, and mentors. When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. And a special thanks is due to all of our presenters, panelists, and mentors. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2013

This team got my attention when they said, “Let us tell you about our conversations with potential customers.” They concluded that the only way to get a delighted early customer was to build a minimum viable product (MVP). Filed under: Customer Development. Customer Development'

Product 335

Product Customer Development Forecast Engineer 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

You can imagine the rest of the conversation; my sounding reluctant to let our own tests outside our building, the magazines begging us to let them have them, and finally a deal gets struck where we let the benchmarks out to the test labs of these magazines under their own name “The Potrero Benchmark Suite” without attribution to us.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

However, they knew that defecting customers might listen to what other SAS customers had to say. Why would customers make such an effort? Girls from around the world were eager to get into the conversation — and P&G was able to market its products more subtly and effectively than before. Finally, the site took off.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

ConversionXL

JUNE 12, 2014

When you think about optimizing your website to increase conversions, what are some of the first things that come to mind? Like Ott had mentioned in the Mastering The Call To Action a study of Visual Website Optimizer’s customers shows most people are testing: CTA Buttons – 30%. How Microcopy Can Improve UX & Conversions.

Conversion 112

Conversion eCommerce Software Review Green 112

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

(For more on how this plays into the process of scaling up, see the Customer Creation stage of the customer development model.) But in the meantime, by iterating on their product with customers, they have a chance to get there on their own. Labels: agile , customer development 15comments: Scott Shapiro said.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

You’ve likely already heard that explainer videos can boost conversions anywhere between ten and ten bazillion percent. With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high. The question is… Can you make it any good? image source.

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

ConversionXL

JUNE 12, 2014

When you think about optimizing your website to increase conversions, what are some of the first things that come to mind? Like Ott had mentioned in the Mastering The Call To Action a study of Visual Website Optimizer’s customers shows most people are testing: CTA Buttons – 30%. How Microcopy Can Improve UX & Conversions.

Conversion 105

Conversion eCommerce Software Review Green 105