Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Venture Capital. Valley-sized VC funds don’t work.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for. While I was consulting for them, I got a call from a recruiter for a company called SuperMac, which made add-on products for the Macintosh.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

It ultimately failed because she was focused on engineering the product, but didn’t validate the rest of her business model (product/market fit, distribution channel, customer acquisition, etc.). Instead, I went the Software as a Service route and tried to charge for what was a commodity product. . …

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. I am heavily indebted to earlier theorists, and highly recommend the books Lean Thinking and Lean Software Development. Labels: customer development , lean startup 8comments: Amy said.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 19, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health.

Lean 251

Lean Customer Development Video Distribution 251

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. ReadyTalk, a 15-year-old web conferencing software company, launched an internal startup. ReadyTalk became interested in Lean Startup principles to develop new lines of business.

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter – Customer Discovery in Digital Health. Part 7: Revenue Streams in Life Sciences.

Lean 251

Lean Customer Development Business Model Channel 251

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Doctors, researchers and Principal Investigators in this class got out of the lab and hospital talked to 2,355 customers, tested 947 hypotheses and invalidated 423 of them. We kept track of all this data by instrumenting the teams with LaunchPad Central software.). Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences.

Lean 241

Lean Customer Development IP Agile 241

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2013

The microcode is distributed by 1) Intel or by 2) Microsoft integrated into a BIOS or 3) as part of a Windows update. Typically someone trying to sneak malicious software on to a computer would try to install a rootkit (software that tries to conceal the malicious code.) Customer Development Secret History of Silicon Valley'

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley Russia Security Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Venture Capitalists on your board developed the expertise to get your firm public as soon as possible using whatever it took including hype, spin, expand, and grab market share because the sooner you got your billion dollar market cap, the sooner the VC firm could sell their shares and distribute their profits.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

We wanted an agile approach that would allow us to build our software architecture as we needed it, without downtime, but also without large amounts of up-front cost. After all, the worst kind of waste in software development is code to support a use case that never materializes. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. If you use software like LivePlan, you can create this initial “lean plan” in under an hour and then spend your time where it really matters—on validating your idea. Wireframes.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

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). Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

VC’s invested in things that ran on electrons: hardware, software and silicon. But these VC’s aren’t Lean because they fund startups with web-based distribution models. The advantage of commodity software stacks drops initial startup costs for Internet Commerce companies. Electron-based Venture Capital.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Startups needed millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product out the door to customers. Software companies had to buy specialized computers and license expensive software. VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Tools in the New Bubble.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 26, 2013

(We kept track of all this data by instrumenting the teams with LaunchPad Central software.). Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences.

Lean 237

Lean Customer Development Video Early Stage 237

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

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They tested this updated MVP with refugees and made some surprising discoveries.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They tested this updated MVP with refugees and made some surprising discoveries.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In fact, at the time (1996-1997) we offered both a downloadable product, that our customers could install on their own servers, and a “hosted-offering”, which came to be known as “On-Demand”, then the “ASP” (Application Service Provider) model, and today we call it “SaaS” (Software as a Service). Patrick is completely correct here.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 2, 2008 On deployment My favorite question to ask a software development team is "how do you do a release." How long does the software sit un-deployed? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How fast do they iterate?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. Were a software company, so what we do everyday is turn ideas into code. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch. A VC asked me to have lunch with the CEO of a startup building cloud-based enterprise software. Do we have a workable sales and distribution channel? Here’s an example in a direct sales channel.

Forecast 270

Forecast Sales Customer Customer Development 270

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.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,) Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. this may be a useful read. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If not, whos going to insist we switch to free and open source software? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? But along the way, something strange happened.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Raizlabs – Mobile Development. Intrepid – Mobile development. Extension Engine - Software engineering and design. Gridco Systems – Power Distribution Systems (backed by General Catalyst and Northbridge).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Instead, each potential customer has to go through a self-serve process of signing up and paying money. Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. But in the meantime, by iterating on their product with customers, they have a chance to get there on their own.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

It felt like software that grownups were supposed to use, and we didnt qualify. It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services. We just had our app support a few tens of thousands of customers, and it did well.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

His post is ostensibly about how often to release new work (whether youre a blog writer, movie star, software team.) I’ve been in the software industry for a long time. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Before she was an investor, Magdalena founded two electronic commerce companies, CyberCash – a pioneer in the secure electronic payment systems, and MarketPay , an embedded payments software company. I was always curious to find out what the next developments were. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 139

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.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Before she was an investor, Magdalena founded two electronic commerce companies, CyberCash – a pioneer in the secure electronic payment systems, and MarketPay , an embedded payments software company. I was always curious to find out what the next developments were. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Although Im not a developer, I am captivated by the lean and agile start-up model that you write about. I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. Hello Eric, Great talk at the fb developer garage. Would appreciate a sponsor.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76