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. You say it is “enabling customers to do something they never could before.&# What do you think?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

0:45: The definition of a startup. 2:21: Accounting Metrics in a Large Company vs. Metrics that Matter in a Startup. 6:07: Engineering: Waterfall Development in a Large Company vs. Minimum Viable Product in a Startup. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 1:53: Types of Startups.

Founder 327

Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 327

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

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Don’t choose metrics that are similar but not the same. Otherwise, it’s easy to turn a small discrepancy into a massive issue—one that torches year-over-year data comparisons and just about all of your quarterly (even annual) metrics. Every tool has its own methods for various metrics. Why does it happen? Image source ).

Analytics 88

Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products. As hokey as it is, when confronted with uncertainty or unknowns, human beings like to be reassured by comparative metrics.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. Their pitch was unpolished, product vision unclear, they had little understanding of their metrics, and traction didn’t stand out from competitors.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Stories like these are what has led me to this definition of progress for a startup: validated learning about customers.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

In fact, you could say that all that remains from my last book are the four steps of Customer Development. Integrates Alexander Osterwalders “Business Model Canvas” as the front-end and “scorecard” for the customer discovery process. Briefly, the new book.

Entrepreneur 289

Entrepreneur Lean Business Model Customer Development 289

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Financial progress is tracked using metrics like income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. Start-ups by definition have few, if any, of these.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. There are financial metrics (Return on Investment, Hurdle Rate, etc.) Lessons Learned.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. All I have to say it WOW!

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. Inspiring ideas: real-time biz metrics; safe continuous deployment; A/B split testing. Really enjoyed your speech, but Boulder's startup community is definitely older than 5 years. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Continuous Deployment 113

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Or depending on your metrics for success, get users, grow traffic, etc.). Most of the time the darn customers don’t behave as you predicted. Winston Churchill.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on. What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. Use some customer development to find out. Split-testing is great for linear optimization; making our landing pages, conversion rates, and retention metrics incrementally better day-in day-out. Definitely like to see video of the full talk.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Unfortunately, most decisions that confront startups lack a definitive right answer. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics. Luckily, we also discovered that certain other metrics, like LTV and CPA were much better than we initially projected.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

So let’s turn our attention from what may happen in the future to what is definitely happening in the present. Despite all the energy invested in talking to authors about the size of their platform, very few gatekeepers have a rigorous set of metrics for measuring it. My blog has over 14000 subscribers, for example.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

It definitely can be useful to judiciously take on small amounts of debt. For more examples, see the "-ilities" section here: [link] Design is definitely dynamic, and definitely benefits from feedback, so I'm also in favor of shipping early and often. That said, I agree with a lot of your more detailed points.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? They even included a slide with The Transformers on it.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For now, Id like to ask a favor.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly. Related articles.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

They have to change the metrics across the entire organization. If not, then the effectiveness of the Horizon 3 effort will be graded using Horizon 1 metrics. But in the military success has different metrics. In those case revenue will become an additional metric. Now back to the class. . Team Presentations: Week 7.

San Diego 142

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 142

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Managing weekly releases got a lot harder once I started doing customer development. Things started to slip. I am not advocating adding no features at all.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Continuous deployment is another such technique, one with a unique power to change development team dynamics for the better. First, continuous deployment separates out two different definitions of the terms “release.&# Another is used by marketing to refer to what customers see. Why does it work?

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

We then formulate what we’ve learned into a problem definition, which we issue to our communities as a provocation, rather than specification. Depending on the specifics of the process we’re employing, we make the underlying research available to them as well, and bring the stakeholders in for user testing of the work as it’s being developed.

Lean 164

Lean New York City Startup San Francisco 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

So let’s begin with a definition of a startup that captures its essential nature, and tries to leave behind the specific associations of the most famous startups. Isn’t the word human redundant in this definition? And yet the newness of a startup’s product or service is also a key part of the definition.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

How many employees would a medium-sized business have in your definition? Some people have different definitions of that. I mean they have these definitions. Meetings are definitely one of those places, but email is another primary way that that comes in. Jason: Okay. I’m just clarifying. Edwin: Yes.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Anything that doesnt contribute to figuring out what customers want is waste, even if its a cool feature. I think where we get into trouble is we have many definitions of quality. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? October 21, 2008 8:40 PM Eric said.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The Definitive Guide to Building a Brand. Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers. Develop a landing page, do some lightweight advertising, and generally reach out to as many potential customers as you can.”. Step 8: Track your metrics.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

The theory predicts this, of course, because the definition of a startup as “a human institution creating a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty&# says nothing about sector, size of company, or industry. The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

By definition these 10,000 founders wouldnt be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldnt work for existing companies, only new ones theyd founded. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150