Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 251

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. In 1996 no potential customer had even heard of a Personal Digital Assistant.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 212

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The news from customers was not good. This week, our first team up was PersonalLibraries (the team that had software to help researchers manage, share and reference the thousands of papers in their personal libraries.) Demand generation? Let the real learning begin. The Nine Teams Present.

Customer 239

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 239

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 266

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

This Stanford class will introduce management tools for entrepreneurs. We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Finally, you’ll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate your product to build something customers will use and buy.

Wiki 315

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 315

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

National Instruments used an especially creative approach with its customer influencers, who were mid-level IT managers at the companies they did business with. NI engaged them by providing powerful research and financial proof points they could take to senior management, showing that NI solutions were creating strategic benefits.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 267

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

The Rise of Business Schools – Management as an Occupation. These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. Its purpose was to educate management on best practices to run existing companies. Here’s why and what we did about it. First Case Study-General Shoe.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Management 101. But the differences are worth noting – it’s a young ecosystem, so startup management tools are nearly non-existent. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

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China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 326

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

When you find a qualified development team with a diverse background, you can benefit from a long-term relationship that gives you peace of mind when it comes to your IT projects. How to Hire Remote Developers. When you outsource your IT projects or hire an offshore development team, it comes with many benefits.

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Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 107

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

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Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 334

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 1, 2022

Time Management Skills. Anyone who has tried to manage a busy schedule knows how difficult it can be to stay on top of everything. Neil Parsont says with so many demands on our time, it is essential to have good time management skills. One way to improve your time management skills is to keep a daily planner.

Florida 158

Florida Leadership Networking Management 158

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Management 101. But the differences are worth noting – it’s a young ecosystem, so startup management tools are nearly non-existent. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

China 218

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 218

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

When the panicked manager of the magazine test lab would call under a last minute deadline, we would apologize profusely as we sent the cables over – with beer, pizza, and our product manager to help them through any testing “issues”. press and use it to generate end user demand and then drive that demand into our sales channel.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

They operated this way because their existing business models didn’t allow them to initially profit from those opportunities – so they ignored them – and continued to chase higher profitability in more-demanding segments. He had introduced the idea that customers don’t buy a product, rather than they hire it for a “job to be done.”

Lean 430

Lean Business Model Government Agile 430

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. Neither management nor investors tolerate “wrong turns” that result in delays. Management by crisis, which leads to a death spiral. where they can “launch” the product.

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Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

” We were big practitioners of what we now call Customer Development, and our customer was typically the IT organization of large companies. I remember being immediately struck by how different we designed and built technology, versus how our customers did. 5) Funding. 9) Accountability. 10) Leadership.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 16, 2012

A week ahead of the visit my client’s relationship manager for IBM called his counterpart to discuss the upcoming CEO summit between their companies. But as this story illustrates, even well-managed firms can dramatically misread the health of a key client relationship! IBM’s then-CEO Sam Palmisano decided to visit my client’s CEO.

Management 159

Management Partner Channel Demand 159

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Product management tools like Stage-Gate ® emerged to systematically manage Waterfall product development.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody. Being a manager didnt sound fun - deep down, who really wants to be held accountable for other peoples actions? So I wound up learning the discipline of managing other people.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Demand creation for subsequent iPods can be about the features not about the new idea of iTunes+sync+iPod. Fast forward to today.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 137

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

In circumstances like this, most firms call their legal departments and start issuing cease and desist demands. When toy maker LEGO launched its robotics building-block kits, Mindstorms, a few years ago, hackers almost immediately started altering the code to allow the robots to do more. But LEGO took a smarter approach.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

And, as you can see in my previous post on “ The cardinal sin of community management &# the feedback could be all over the map. But we had some super-active customers who would act as editors, collecting feedback from all over the community and synthesizing it into a report of the top issues. It was absolutely worth it.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

A major angel group used Influitive , an advocate management tool, to track, activate and motivate their members. 4) Manage deal flow. For example, we created a pipeline management tool that automatically adds deals along with relevant information (such as attachments received) to our funnel. Pitchbot.vc 5) Due diligence.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

You see, the demand for “startup advisors” were going through a little bit of a boomlet. Ask her if there’s someone senior in her career that’s been a great manager, and if so, bring them on as an equity-compensated advisor to your company. You don’t even need to do anything and we’ll give you equity.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 151

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Managing the Business. As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? How do we create end user demand? If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy. Filed under: Customer Development , Durant versus Sloan.

Balance Sheet 303

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 303

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? What is customer development? Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online. So launches become an emergent property of the system.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 132

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

What those sites have in common (despite their very different audiences) is that something is causing their customers to become addicted to their product, and so no matter how they acquire a new customer, they tend to keep them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Id like to talk about a technique Ive used to help manage this growth without slowing down. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. Managers in this area have to take a portfolio approach, promoting ideas that work and might make good candidates for further investment. What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Thanks to Suns amazing PR blitz, there was tremendous demand for experts on Java, and I did my best to convince people that I was one of that mythical breed. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A scalable startup typically requires external “risk&# capital to create market demand and scale. And the founders must have a reality distortion field to convince investors their vision is not a hallucination and to hire employees and acquire early customers. Not All Startups are Scalable. The Web and Startups.

Hockey Stick 293

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 293

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2013

It’s OK because in an era where you can much more rapidly prototype and build products it is far more beneficial to launch your first version, get initial customer traction and then talk to your customer base to understand how well it meets their needs.

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Sales Startup Framework Search 393