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. It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

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.

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 216

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 147

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Since I wasn’t an engineer, my contribution was around the team-building and fund raising. Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 185

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

The companies I spoke to all agreed that the community there was extremely supportive, especially in the critical ulta-early-stage. Then, create an encouraging environment for early-stage companies. Provide early seed capital, and be the ones to make those introductions. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

1) It all starts from the Growth Hacking Funnel - in the early stages, startups should not just focus on top/bottom line metric like unique users and revenue. accessible to search engines, sitemap.xml), fresh (i.e. First Steps in Growth Hacking for Startups. Measure where you see the higher number of sign ups. Rinse and repeat.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

(from his blog post ) …some civil engineers think the world of project management in their field is ripe for revolution, but do I know enough of them? I talked to 30 people before I realized that a certain idea of mine was a crappy idea, and about 40 people before starting WP Engine. How many should I talk to?

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Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business. Later, when the company was much larger, we had everyone on our engineering team agree to sit in on one usability test every month. Dont confuse passion with volume.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

I thought a good place to start was with the origins of the idea that "software design" should be considered a discipline in its own right, on par with computer science, software engineering, and computer programming. Great engineers see it and smile. This is called set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE). [1]

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Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Amazon Web Services. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Web Tools: Hereâ??s We have an iOS SDK as well, for web-web, mobile-mobile, web-mobile video chat and video messaging. VC & Startup Resources.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do some Customer Development instead.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2012

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made ~ 2,000 customer calls in 10 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. And to help teach these many teams, the NSF will recruit other universities that have engineering entrepreneurship programs to become part of the Innovation Corps network.

America 242

America Rhode Island Southern California Illinois 242

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Expo SF (May. .

Lean 68

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

” Introduced a few months ago as an Austin event, I’m now doing this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Why don’t we have standards for what metrics VC’s want to see from their early stage startup teams? Data from the Startup Genome project shows that startups that have helpful mentors, listen to customers, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x Angels In America. better user growth.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Why don’t we have standards for what metrics VC’s want to see from their early stage startup teams? Data from the Startup Genome project shows that startups that have helpful mentors, listen to customers, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x Angels In America. better user growth.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

Unfortunately, they are disinterested in doing the hard work to help early stage entrepreneurs and companies. My startup business (web development) is being shunned by virtually every other potential investor I approached thus far. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Many founders dont like to hear that visionary customers are as smart, maybe even more so, than they are. Startups need to spend time with these customers. In fact, early stage companies shouldnt be able to get time from anyone else - who else would be crazy enough to try an truly innovative new product? Expo SF (May. .

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

I think this idea is particularly appealing to those of us from an engineering background. In other words, we want to use the spreadsheet to quantify our progress using the most important unit: validated learning about customers. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Telecom O2 learning to move at the speed of the internet 500 Startups and their accelerated feedback loops on what works, and what doesn't work in early-stage investing. PayPal, under the leadership of David Marcus and Bill Scott, re-defining and re-engineering itself by embracing Lean Startup to improve the product experience.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 4, 2013

And that’s not to mention the advice for very early-stage companies on topics like getting your first users, or choosing metrics. Our sponsors include companies like Intuit, O’Reilly Media and Amazon Web Services. You’ll also see the afternoon breakout sessions in the Masonic Theater, including Laura Klein on testing ideas.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Conversion Startup 167

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Prior to that, she spent 12 years at Stanford; worked at Monsanto and Sigma Chemical as a research scientist; administered a dialysis clinical trial at University of California; and taught chemistry and basic engineering courses. We put (these inventions and patents) out on the web or we contact companies etc.

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Government Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Silicon Valley 120

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

It is right that Google and Facebook pride themselves on being engineering organizations (note - so did Microsoft). It is interesting to see the emphasis that both Twitter and Quora have put on product design, not just engineering. are just emerging for business people (customer development, business model generation,).

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea. Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life? " => I have not bothered to put up a landing page, survey to test customer demand, or done any customer development whatsoever. Rockstar v.

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that. However, for the Web 2.0

Vertical 130

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 130

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. The best composition is probably one engineer whose passion lies in the pixels on the screen and another engineer whose passion is making bits fly really fast through servers.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

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. Why don't we have standards for what metrics VCs want to see from their early stage startup teams? Here's how.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Ill mention one last thing about knowing what channels of communication your customers engage with. This is important, especially if you are a very early stage company. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

It’s a particularly popular strategy in the world of product development and is used to quickly and quantitatively test a product or a product feature. Eric Ries, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, popularized this strategy for web applications. The Definitive Guide to Building a Brand.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you think you are going to offend your customers or embarrass your engineering organization, get out of the marketing department. If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, medical devices, etc.,) you know they’re expensive in time, dollars and resources.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

Three premier early-stage venture investors have joined forces to sponsor the event: Baseline , Floodgate , and First Round Capital. Three premier early-stage venture investors have joined forces to sponsor the event: Baseline , Floodgate , and First Round Capital. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I liked the flattering Venture Hacks commentary so much Ill just quote it: Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. The customer is known, the product is known, and all we have to do is act. He believes that many early stage startups are labors of learning. Expo SF (May. .

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to. With that live, you’ll be able to show other smart engineers and advisors that you’re willing to take some risk and build something. When it comes to early stage investing – it’s all gut.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 12, 2009

I believe this is part of what made the first workshop such a success - the people in the room were visionary customers who therefore came ready to work, not just to be entertained (by contrast with what I see at some of my speaking engagements). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60