Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. Back then, an entrepreneur used a serial product development process that proceeded step-by-step with little if any customer feedback.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Why they were looking to me to run marketing wasn’t clear. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. The company was the laughing stock of the Mac market. The two other players in the add-on graphics business, Radius and RasterOps, had a combined 90% market share. Why I was interested was equally obscure.

Silicon Valley 165

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 165

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Here the company executes a known business model (known customers, product features, competitors, pricing, distribution channel, supply chain, etc.)

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. There’s lots of lore, emotion, and misconceptions of what VC’s do or don’t do for entrepreneurs. While there was an occasional bad apple, the public markets rewarded companies with revenue growth and sustainable profits.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. By the early 1920s a new dean changed the curriculum – shifting it from an industry orientation (steel, railroads, etc.) – to a functional one (marketing, factory and employment management (HR), etc.).

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. Entrepreneur Ryan Hoover transformed an email list experiment into a venture-funded startup community with tens of thousands of active members. Here are some of our favorites: 1.

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Scalable startups are on a trajectory for a billion dollar market cap. But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. has a large enough market that most U.S. ———-.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

If you spent some time studying either the baby boomers or the millennials, you will begin to see trends forming across this customer segment and into several industries. For an entrepreneur, there is always opportunity. These are times when customer developments and industry changes coincide. Enter Netflix.

San Diego 100

San Diego United States Technical Review Lean 100

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Balancing business and family, and ensuring demand for your product were key lessons shared by two veteran entrepreneurs on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Europe had the market cornered. Steve : It seems like there was a multisided market. Steve : Why? What did you miss? Magdalena : I always did.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 141

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,) ———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. .

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 136

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

Yet there’s a lot of mystery around pivots, and entrepreneurs ask all the time how you know it’s time to commit to a new direction. They were interested in the tools and new distribution medium kaChing provided. One of those pros was John Powers , head of the Stanford endowment. Thus far the results are encouraging.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Balancing business and family, and ensuring demand for your product were key lessons shared by two veteran entrepreneurs on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Europe had the market cornered. Steve : It seems like there was a multisided market. Steve : Why? What did you miss? Magdalena : I always did.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

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. Maybe It’s Me When I got to the SuperMac, our Marketing Communications group told me about our “award-winning&# retail packaging for our graphics boards.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

These topics were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern.) You have to realize that you may be too early, the market may not be ready, but also … there’s benefit in sticking it out. Wayne Sutton.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Either way, you can use any marketing channel thats available to bring in new customers, including word of traditional advertising, SEO, SEM - wherever you can find prospects who are going to find your product addicting. All three probably make attempts at world-of-mouth marketing - its just that for Viral, its life-or-death.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

MITX : Non-profit trade association hosting many events focused on digital marketing and internet business. Babson Entrepreneur Resource Center. Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Next major event? Future M on Oct 16. University Resources: MIT 100K.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. They were busily testing their hypotheses about customer segments and value proposition, seeing if they could find product/market fit. Lessons Learned. What was critical?

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Business Model Agile 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

What motivates all these entrepreneurs? What do entrepreneurs look like? And second, what attributes make someone likely to be a successful entrepreneur? The difficulty lies in this paradox: many of the attributes that increase the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur actually impede startup success.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

Within six months of launch, we quickly figured out that though we had a product built, and the product was exactly what our customers wanted, we still had another problem on our hands — our customers didn’t want to pay! I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development.

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Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships. Customer Discovery. Each case study was a real world example of an issue an entrepreneur might encounter as they were building a company. Lessons Taught.

Intellectual Property 257

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 257

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

But these VC’s aren’t Lean because they fund startups with web-based distribution models. It’s because the startups are doing something very new that make them “Lean&# : These startups embrace customer and agile development that Eric Ries has been evangelizing. Lessons Learned.

Lean 263

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. Leveraged distribution channels.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. What’s the total available market?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel? Here’s why. Managing the Business.

Balance Sheet 304

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 304

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.” An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know have they distribute their product?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. No building, no money, no customers, no market? These customer and market risks need to be translated into facts as soon as possible. Great, sign me up.

Silicon Valley 234

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 234