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 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

. — An experienced team made all the difference to 2U finding success, Jeremy said: We had a phenomenal early group of people that were brought together to try to address the problem. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product. is whether there is a customer and market for the product as spec’d. In these markets it’s all about customer/market risk. Based on this insight, I updated my earlier diagram to look like this. (The

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

. — An experienced team made all the difference to 2U finding success, Jeremy said: We had a phenomenal early group of people that were brought together to try to address the problem. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. To measure product usage and traction over time, we use tools like Alexa , AppAnnie and Google Analytics. are using AngelMob.co

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

That said, there are three types of advisors that I don’t see as commonly utilized by early stage startups — at least the ones we’re not advising. I’m a big proponent of startups hiring talented high-ceiling people who are earlier in their careers and haven’t necessarily yet done the job they’re being recruited for.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

A Phone Call After I left MIPS Computers I was in New York tagging along with a friend (a computer architect whose products at Apple a decade later would change the shape of personal computing) who was consulting for a voice recognition startup. It would be the company where I actually earned the title. We’re building a supercomputer.”

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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? What’s going on?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

I was glad to see him but it was clear over coffee that he was struggling with his first hiring failure. I’ve been running our company, cycling through Customer Discovery and Validation and the board suggested that I was running out of bandwidth and needed some help in closing our initial orders. selling a known product to.

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Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

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 Continuous Deployment 113

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. What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In? Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. Lean Startups ?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Send PDF versions of brochures and product sheets as soon as you get back to the office. Have enough dead-tree brochures and product sheets on hand before the show so you can snail-mail out the information after you emailed it. Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) What didn’t?

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

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. Many of them get hung up on understanding how to select the right minimal viable product. Your mission is your baby.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

In the very early days, the trick is to find anyone at all who can understand you when you are talking about your product. In our first year at IMVU, we thought we were building a 3D avatar chat product. As product people, we thought of competition in terms of features. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

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 event will include a talk from Eric on The Lean Startup over dinner, followed by moderated table discussion and then final Q&A with Eric.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Customer Development is the process of how you get out of the building and search for the model. Customer Development is designed so that you the founder(s) gather first hand experience about customer and market needs. Here’s why.

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Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

At IMVU, we were terrified by how early we shipped (and charged for) our first product. Despite that, we were able to establish credibility, because we used those early numbers to demonstrate that our customers were getting real value from our product and, more importantly, that we understood how to build more of it.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

If you don’t value your product neither will your customers. In the early days of building Qualtrics, Ryan tried giving the product away to entice customers to use it. — Finding early customers for Qualtrics was difficult, Ryan says. No one used it when we gave it away for free.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 145

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders! goap #ericries InvisibleGaijin : #goap #leanstartup Eric Ries talks about importance of "visionary customers" in startup success. Startups need to spend time with these customers.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2016

A tech entrepreneur and inventor, Brandon McNaughton was entrepreneur in residence for Detroit Innovate , an early-stage venture fund. what matters more is the … the customer’s problem. … I think the epiphany was when we closed down Life Magnetics …It was hard to find that right product-market fit.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Michigan Detroit 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

If you don’t value your product neither will your customers. In the early days of building Qualtrics, Ryan tried giving the product away to entice customers to use it. — Finding early customers for Qualtrics was difficult, Ryan says. No one used it when we gave it away for free.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

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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Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Changing Equity Structures for Early Startup Employees Tweet Recently someone asked me for advice on how much equity they should give to their early employees. His company had just closed an early round of funding and he wanted to cement the employee relationships. But I also told him that I though the numbers were wrong.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

Sometimes an early negative result from an experiment is a harbinger of doom for that product, and means it should be abandoned. She has a separate team, with its own culture and office, and a mandate straight from top management to innovate without regard to the company’s historic products, channels, or supply chain.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

— I just watched a very smart company try to manage innovation by hiring a global consulting firm to offload engineering from “distractions.” So, in response the company had hired a global consulting firm to help solve the problem. A shorter version of this post first appeared on the HBR blog. There’s a much better way.

Incubator 312

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 312

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.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2015

It is in need of innovation on many fronts and is also trying to embrace the amazing amount of innovation happening with early-stage companies. all in one role… The Startup Owner’s Manual clearly articulates the need to understand “how” a company buys a product. In wanting to do so, they overlooked.

Startup 120

Startup Early Stage Azure Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. But it has to come with one of your people to talk about the product. If you tell me we can’t find any established exhibitor whose products or services complement ours to let us in, I question why you are going to this show.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

It’s a great conference with about 150 attendees for the “Starter Edition” -- lots of online course creators, info product folks, SaaS people, and others. Without raising money, 1 of 2 situations would have fallen upon us: I would have had to dig deeper into my own pockets to continue to pay the contractor as well as hire others.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Every product ultimately is satisfying a need in the customers who buy it or use it. Products that dont solve satisfy any need for any customers tend to die out quickly. The more painful curse for startups is the product that satisfies a need or solves a problem - but that problem is not very important.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The Torch program created Innovation Clusters by creating national Science and Technology Industrial Parks (STIPs), Software Parks, and Productivity Promotion Centers. It did so by building a national network of a 1,000+ Productivity Promotion Centers. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. If we believe in founders enough, we should believe in their potential more than what they could be paying us to build the product.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Its latest product was an oscilloscope, the HP 150a. That year HP introduced its first computer, the HP 2116A , as an instrument controller for HP’s test and measurement products. The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. It was still a year away from its IPO.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164