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

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 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

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

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. They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

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

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. Financial progress is tracked using metrics like income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow.

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Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

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. Startup Metrics. Customer Acquisition. Web Metrics.

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Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 304

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. 4) Manage deal flow. Pitchbot.vc 3) Originate investments.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

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

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 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

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.

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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

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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.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

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

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

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 297

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Is that a lot?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

That’s because many of our reports feed us vanity metrics: numbers that make us look good but don’t really help make decisions. Yet even among those who have access to good actionable metrics, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that prevents taking maximum advantage of data. Too much of this data is non- actionable.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 270

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

It provides a basic introduction to analytics as they apply to Lean Startup, including sections on what metrics to use and how to interpret them. For instance, Ben lists out the worst of the “vanity metrics,” a term that describes appealing but meaningless or misleading numbers. Alistair: There are plenty. Consider a restaurant.

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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.

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Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

Its even more critical in lean startups when they need to manage growth. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

Consider a failed experiment by Google''s Larry Page, who got rid of all the company''s middle managers and then had to reinstate the old system after trouble erupted. Alistair Croll, Eric Ries and Danielle Morrill take an in-depth look at the hardest metrics question. What’s customer development?) October 2, 10a PT.

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Lean San Francisco Cofounder Hosting 165

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

It has to be found and managed. In that same spirit, here are some suggestions for tactics you can use to increase the leverage of your product development efforts: Free and open source software (and even hardware ). For example, I recently created a customer validation exercise around the Lean Startup Workshop.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

As in many scalability decisions, we’d have been much better off investing in agility, so that we could change the architecture in response to actual customer demand, rather than trying to predict the future. Leverage product development with open source and third parties. July 29, 2009 6:57 AM Heiner Wolf said.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

As a consumer internet company with millions of customers, it may seem to have little relevancy for an enterprise software company with only a handful of potential customers, or a computer security company whose customers demand a rigorous audit before accepting a new release. It’s really a lot of fun.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology that helps startups optimize their chances for success while reducing risk. An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

You can view previous entries: Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics Im a little late on the cross-post, but hope youll enjoy it nonetheless. You can view previous entries: Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Many journalists and conference organizers attempt to fill this demand by giving successful entrepreneurs the opportunity to tell their stories: in magazines, on blogs, and on stage. Similarly, journalists print vanity metrics because that’s all companies will release. Where you put your attention and what you do with it matters.

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San Francisco Lean PR Metrics 167

andrewchenblog.com

MARCH 10, 2010

Coupled with A/B testing, customer development, and thinking through business problems in a scientific, hypothesis-driven way, you end up with a powerful cocktail of techniques to build a modern startup in the most iterative way possible. Ideas for when and how to pay down product design debt? Please comment! Thanks for the refresher.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). Should you focus on brand managers or agency buyers? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. I do this as a core part of the Product Management process I use at all startups. Iterate quickly to uncover true market demands.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Especially in teams that are managing by objectives (or OKRs), the pressure to deliver is intense.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

Im Community Manager at VenCorps, co-host of commandN. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Balancing competing objectives is a recurring theme on this blog - its the central challenge of all management decisions. The technical interview is at the heart of these challenges when building a product development team, and so I thought it deserved an entire post on its own. This responsibility falls squarely to the hiring manager.

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