Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. It is written in a conversational tone, doesnt take itself too seriously, and avoids extraneous fluff.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers." I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." Customer Validation 101. " OR… "You’re wrong.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

In today’s hypercompetitive, customer-driven business world, you need to look at new ways to make your business stand out. By exploring customer service initiatives, new sales channels, and private label financing, to name a few, you can attract and keep new customers. Improve the Customer Experience.

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, effective communication is the key to successful customer engagement. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of Salesforce SMS integration and how it can revolutionize your customer communication strategies. Why does Salesforce SMS integration matter?

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SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 125

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. I asked some of the same questions I ask in my Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions and then I get to a very common conversation: Me : Do you have specs? Founder : Ummm. what do you mean? Founder : Umm.

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

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 16, 2014

I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. She started by sketching her business model canvas on a napkin, but somehow the conversation quickly shifted to what was really on her mind. Filed under: Customer Development.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 24, 2022

In these modern times, one of the most efficient ways to reach out to potential customers is through social media. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have a wide reach, and if you can use them effectively, you can significantly increase your customer base. Develop a Strong Online Presence. Consider Email Marketing.

Social Media 126

Social Media Startup Audience Web Development 126

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

“ I have too little traffic to test; hence, I can’t do conversion optimization. You can do conversion optimization on any website – even on sites that have so little traffic that a split test would take 2 years to run until statistical significance is reached. Ways to get useful data without traffic or many customers.

Conversion 124

Conversion Framework Technical Review Analytics 124

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. Get customers to the site. Test the “problem” with customer data. Use Skype or Google+ Hangouts for team conversations.

Lean 333

Lean Web Coder Business Model 333

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 9, 2013

by Tom Panaggio, author of “ The Risk Advantage: Embracing the Entrepreneur’s Unexpected Edge “ Here’s one of business’s dirty little secrets: Many business owners prefer to keep their customers at arm’s length. Nobody likes feeling unimportant, and with all of the choices out there today, customers don’t have to settle for it.

Customer 170

Customer Technical Review Florida Cofounder 170

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

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. Talented product developers. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. Your most powerful growth engine is your existing customer.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ The old paradigm works like this: Your company produces goods and services that help customers get a job done. In return, the customers pay you money. The new approach makes so much more sense.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2024

One of the most exciting things a startup CEO in a business-to-business market can hear from a potential customer is, “We’re excited. This can be the beginning of a profitable customer relationship or a disappointing sinkhole of wasted time, money, resources, and a demoralized engineering team. And it went great. What did I do wrong?

Founder 325

Founder Engineer Sales Conversion 325

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. A Five-sided Market. It’s Much Simpler.

Customer 323

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 323

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 3, 2014

When I started with Forward Partners I went out to speak with a bunch of our target customers, entrepreneurs, and I learned a bunch of stuff which helped shape our strategy of empowering great entrepreneurs with minority stake investments and real-world useful help – but I’d have learned much more if I’d read this book first.

Customer Development 94

Customer Development Developer Customer Hosting 94

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. Handspring’s customers understood what a Personal Digital Assistant was.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. He has been an entrepreneur since he was young, founding top conversion and marketing companies like Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics, Quick Sprout, and more. Custom development. Take Neil Patel, for example. Website builders.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

He’ll talk about making a profit and making a difference in a conversation with New Media Ventures’ Christie George. Ben Horowitz ’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things is driving the conversation around startup management this year. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. Todd Park convened the team that saved Obamacare.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. No, the conversation was about to get more interesting. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Over the last two months the 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. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

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 API Cofounder New Jersey 104

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2021

Over a Zoom call Suresh explained, “I’m trying to push the importance of running customer discovery and testing these hypotheses before we build our U.S. I could hear his frustration and concern when he asked, “How can I convince my boss to use customer discovery to test our hypotheses?”. Suresh understood that the U.S.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Conversion Business Model 435

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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

JANUARY 6, 2014

Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. And these changes may have unintended consequences leading to customer dissatisfaction and confusion. The Old Days – Waterfall Product Development.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Google Analytics shows 104 conversions. That includes how each one defines and measures sessions, users, conversions, etc. For example, “conversion rate” in Google Analytics is conversions/sessions, while in VWO and Optimizely it’s conversions/unique visitors. Issue: Google Analytics conversions are duplicated.

Analytics 88

Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? I care about the thought that you’ve given to the customer problem.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2021

The key to understanding value propositions is in building interviews that are based on a set of hypotheses (about the problem, the stakeholder and potential solutions to be explored) and data to be captured while using minimum viable products (just enough “product” to increase the efficacy of a conversation and increase the speed of learning).

Curation 344

Curation Technical Review Lean Australia 344

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.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

Second, this class – which is built on the idea of interviewing customers/beneficiaries and stakeholders in person – now had to do all their customer discovery via a computer screen. How on earth would customer interviews work via video? At first this seemed to be a fatal stake through the heart of the class.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

Here are the details of both of those customer development experiences. Recently at WP Engine I did some brand new customer development for a new project that we think will revolutionize WordPress blog management. But then as the conversations wore on, I felt a change. Way #2: Get ten paying customers.

Customer 252

Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. This is often B2C because the value is in quantity of customers, and there’s 100x more consumers than businesses. $1/mo simple enough to be self-service). Even bootstrapped businesses can make this work (e.g.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294