Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Here’s how that happened.

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Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

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. What kind of objectives would a startup want or need for sales and marketing?

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

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.

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Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

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 242

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. When it comes to making money online, business and personal branding are huge drivers of sales and influence. Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

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?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

It worked like a charm since we could create a more interactive experience on the Web. What started out as a generic web-based chat solution morphed into a full-fledged product for a distance education that we called iClass. (We We were a tiny web-conferencing startup in Pittsburgh called iMeet. This time we’d gotten it right.

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Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

Filed under: Air Force , Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture. Unless you’ve had a ton of experience (which includes failing) in a broad range of areas you’re only guessing. Great careers start by peeling potatoes.

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Thailand Engineer Customer Development SEO 331

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. Corporate elephants can dance.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Defense and Intelligence organizations drove the pace of innovation in Silicon Valley by providing research and development dollars to universities, and defense companies built weapons systems that used the Valley’s first microwave devices and semiconductor components. and there were no books, blogs or YouTube videos about entrepreneurship.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Categories and indexes on the web pages aren’t quite the right metaphor or substitute for random access. After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. Raising Money Using Customer Development……… 47.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process. Learn to Develop an iPhone or iPad App in 4 Weeks.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0 There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 Unfortunately this was reinforced by the many conferences that rushed to espouse the benefits of Web 2.0 Cisco and others went out to fill out their Web 2.0 portfolios.

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Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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! Customer] Retention is King (good insights on measurement) – crowdspring.co/1haiyJt. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD. – crowdspring.co/T7KSBE.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Software Review 94

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Freshman Salesman writes: I’ve read somewhere in your blog about how you had a very large organisation as the first customer for your software. I’m putting myself in the same boat now with the solution I’m developing so could you tell me: 1. How did you reach out to your first customer? I had a $39.95

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Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Open APIs and data-oriented architecture (aka "web 2.0").

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. Your results may vary.

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups. We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Delivery platforms are the vehicles through which customers come to interact with your product. Sales channels.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Now you can do it for free, or a few hundred dollars, with one of the many web building tools available, like Shopify or Weebly.

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Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

If people aren’t coming into your physical store, consider whether you can refocus sales online. A lot of independent stores have started creating their own app to help with online sales. Developing an app has become a lot cheaper in recent years and there are many easy ways to build an app yourself without any programming knowledge.

Marketing 246

Marketing Social Media PPC SEO 246

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

In short order they learned how to transition from being customers on the receiving end of a sales pitch to giving one. Reply Fred H Schlegel , on October 20, 2009 at 1:20 pm Said: I believe the MBA was originally developed with the idea of helping functional experts move more smoothly into upper management ranks.

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Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

I put together a one-page website, a list of 100 people to reach out to, and a cold email script that would make seasoned sales professionals cringe. Conduct client development interviews. I know this language sounds formal and stuffy, but high-ticket service sales cycles are long. Another three came on board 45 days later.

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PR B2B Lean Audience 120

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

You take that money and invest a good portion of it in traditional sales and marketing efforts — including product developers, creative people, and salespeople, all of whom are paid to figure out what buyers want and to say good things about your company — in a quest to get even more customers. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Talented product developers. If you can harness the knowledge, natural enthusiasm, and peer influence of your very best customers — I call them “Rock Star” customers — they’ll market, sell, and help develop breakthrough products for your firm better than your internal resources can do, and often at a fraction of the cost.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

talk to more customers? cold calls, in-person interviews, and a web survey. (We Sales process: buyer/ user/ influencer etc.? The Agora team decided to formalize the customer discovery process by coming up with a set of Customer Discovery principles and questions that were as good as any I’ve seen.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. I couldn’t care less about those.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Ignore This Post The same caveat applies as in the first post; If you’re selling via the web, and trade shows seem hopelessly anachronistic, ignore this post. Marketing may be physically “staging&# the booth, and may even it “man it,&# but don’t be confused, this is the VP of Sales party.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. It is web-based, fast and easy and soon to may be available on the iPhone.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes. The Customer Validation lesson of, “no formal launch until you have early sales validating the product and sales process&# was also born here.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. I walked into the VP of Sales’ office and with my knees trembling, I politely asked for the job. It is a skill you need to either have or develop. What’s Marketing?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110