Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Unfortunately, positioning our product as an "IM add-on" was a complete mistake.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

In 2006, as a new employee of the Fortune 100 provider of wireless technology and services, San Diego’s Qualcomm , I volunteered to salvage a fledging idea management system (fancy term for an online suggestion box) by turning into a comprehensive corporate entrepreneurship program. The design challenge. ———-.

Programming 293

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 293

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

In 2006, as a new employee of the Fortune 100 provider of wireless technology and services, San Diego’s Qualcomm , I volunteered to salvage a fledging idea management system (fancy term for an online suggestion box) by turning into a comprehensive corporate entrepreneurship program. The design challenge. ———-.

Programming 285

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 285

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

While our teams have mentors, socialize a lot and give great demos, the goal of our class final presentations is “ Lessons Learned ” – about product/market fit, pricing, acquisition/activation costs, pricing, partners, etc. Given something tangible, customers were able to start gauging their willingness to use and pay.

Lean 316

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 316

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

The role of the product organization is to consistently deliver significant new value to the business through continuous product innovation. At a startup, the product team either innovates and provides real value or the startup dies. They just make minor optimizations to existing products.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. Process Versus Product.

Government 317

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 317

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? Quite a few of the teams were building biotech, devices or digital health products. used to serve those customers. Some of these teams made even more radical changes.

SBIR 316

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 316

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. ” It defined a startup as a “temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

Technical Review 328

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 328

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2014

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! The embedded presentation above is filled with valuable data on the state of the Internet and trends in technology around the world. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Software Review 94

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

In 2007, I graduated United States Air Force Academy as a computer engineer and entered the Air Force’s acquisition corps , excited and confident about my ability to bring technology to bear for our airmen. In the first year, they had developed a proof of concept around the Xbox Kinect – and Ryan had high hopes for the future.

Lean 264

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 264

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. And the whole site was developed in just 9 weeks. Eric Ries will interview him.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. ” It defined a startup as a “temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 220

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

Over the last two and a half years the National Science Foundation I-Corps has taught over 300 teams of scientists how to commercialize their technology and how to fail less, increasing their odds for commercial success. assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build. They cannot be done by proxies.

Lean 271

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 271

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. The interesting part is when you get a couple months into your product cycle.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 17, 2021

Additionally, technological innovations are surging in response to world events , creating swathes of headlines online. Finding your voice as a software developer in the middle of all this can be tough, and so can making sure that others hear it. Curate Developer Profiles. Showcase your brilliant thinkers and designers proudly.

Software Developers 141

Software Developers Software Development Reputation Software Review 141

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? Companies in cosmetics and perfume production pivoted their production lines as well. What tools and methods can a C-suite team use to do so? Here’s how.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

Re-architect and re-write” the product. As we’ve grown we’ve become less and less responsive to changing market and customer needs. While our revenue is looking good, we can be out of business in two years if we can’t keep up with our customer’s rapid shifts in platforms. The customers aren’t asking for new code.

Part-Time VPE 319

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 319

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Entrenched Innovation Model Issues : Qualcomm’s existing innovation model – wireless products were created in the R&D lab and then handed over to existing business units for commercialization – was wildly successful in the existing wireless and mobile space. Part 1 outlining the program is here. Read it first.

Programming 267

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 267

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.

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 217

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 217

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 324

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 324

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers. Me – “How’s that?”

Burn Rate 249

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 249

The Next Web

JUNE 8, 2014

Developing an enterprise-grade SaaS product is not easy. The keys are maintaining capital efficiency, launching early versions to the SMB market and constantly applying customer development methods. Design & Dev Entrepreneur Analysis and Opinion' Yoav Leitersdorf and Ofer Schreiber of are partners at YL Ventures.

B2C 132

B2C B2B IP Technical Review 132

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 300

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

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.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. Here’s what the product development diagram looks like from a sales perspective.

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Everybody and their mom uses the internet to discover new brands, influencers and ultimately to buy new products and services. Big brands have the advantage of a strong reputation and a crew of professional designers behind their sites. Even if you have cheaper pricing or a better product, branding can make or break your success.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

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. Price is as important as any other feature to determine product/market “fit.” ” How many times have you seen someone struggle with an inferior product because they cannot afford the better one? .”

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

The most visible step was the first International Business Model Competition , hosted by the BYU Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.) What’s A Startup? Business Model Versus Business Plan.

Business Model 278

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 278

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. 19 of the 21 teams are moving forward in commercializing their technology. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. billion U.S.

Incubator 303

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 303

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

In my last article I discussed the role of the leader of the product organization. I want every product leader to feel considerable urgency and importance around this need. I want every product leader to feel considerable urgency and importance around this need. How current is his technology knowledge?

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

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. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter? End result?

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2013

A minimum viable product (MVP) is not always a smaller/cheaper version of your final product. And now they were out raising money to build a prototype minimum viable product (MVP.) What they wanted was a happy early customer who recognized the value of their data and is willing to be an evangelist. Customer Development'

Product 335

Product Customer Development Forecast Engineer 335

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Designing Your Business Model Crafting a business model is like building a blueprint for your venture. This will not only enhance productivity but also help retain top talent. It’s not just about a logo or a tagline; it’s the experience you promise your customers.

Intellectual Property 128

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 128