Customer Development, Email, Lean and Metrics

Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development

Customer Development Web Developer Customer

Raising Money Using Customer Development

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Customer Development is Not a Focus Group

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Lean Startup at Scale

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. As Lean Startup methods have been used now for a number of years, we’ve become increasingly interested in how companies use them to sustain growth. But we couldn''t have identified this without having clear metrics (that high bug count) to assess our development process.

Lean

Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Still, I thought Id share this email that happened to arrive during class.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the minus side, that has made it a wee bit hard to understand.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

This is a customer development problem. By the end of this article, you should have a better understanding of how to develop new products or tweak your existing offerings by working with existing or prospective customers to incorporate their feedback to create viable solutions to their problems, and clearly communicate their value.

Customer Development

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 Lessons Learned.

Early Stage

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 The lean startup Ive been thinking for some time about a term that could encapsulate trends that are changing the startup landscape. After some trial and error, Ive settled on the Lean Startup. I like the term because of two connotations: Lean in the sense of low-burn.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco

What is Lean about the Lean Startup?

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 16, 2009 What is Lean about the Lean Startup? The first step in a lean transformation is learning to tell the difference between value-added activities and waste. I was giving my first-ever webcast on the lean startup. This value is evident in Lean Startups.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup

Five case studies you'll see at the Lean Startup Conference 2015

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

The following is a guest post by Kirsten Cluthe and Ritika Puri from The Lean Startup Conference team Wondering what’s new in the Lean Startup community? Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. Here are some of our favorites: 1.

Lean

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup

Amazing lean startup resources

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Amazing lean startup resources A year ago, there was no lean startup movement. I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. If you are attempting to apply lean startup ideas in your own business - you are not alone.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer

Which Fundraising Round Should You Skip?

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reason is that b2b fundraising is largely driven by data and metrics, and pre-seed dollars usually don’t get you to many meaningful data points. Some very early dollars may be required to assemble the early team, in which case I’d lean towards bringing on some angels who are willing to invest in a company at a very favorable price.

Dilution

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments Image via Wikipedia Steve Blank and I had the opportunity to create a presentation about lean startups for Maples Investments. Customer development. you get the idea. you get the idea.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Lean hiring tips

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. Fundamentally, lean startups do more with less, because they systematically find and eliminate waste that slows down value creation. Another terrific post, Eric.

Lean

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lean Startup fbFund slides and video

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 6, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund slides and video As a follow-up to my previous post on my talk for fbFund at Facebook , there was enough interest in watching video of the talk that I have finally uploaded it using Apples MobileMe. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. .

Lean

Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment

The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. This should not be news to you. Online, offline or nonline.

Metrics

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate

Techstars brings The Lean Startup to Boulder

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 30, 2009 Techstars brings The Lean Startup to Boulder Im very excited to announce a pair of events that will kick off a very busy fall speaking tour. 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

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. A few days ago, I received a great email from Warhammer Online. Thoughts?

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco. Thanks Eric.

San Francisco

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment

Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 17, 2009 Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free Im honored to announce that my Lean Startup session at the Web 2.0 Everyone else can register to come to both sessions for free, including the Lean Startup talk in the main conference. What does this mean for you?

Lean

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment

Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 3, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up Last week I had a real blast meeting with the companies at the fbFund incubator at Palo Alto. The Lean Startup fbFund Edition View more documents from Eric Ries. See Validated learning about customers for more info. Without further ado.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder

The Lean Startup at Agile Vancouver April 21st

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Lean Startup at Agile Vancouver April 21st A surprising number of respondents in the latest Lessons Learned survey hail from one of the flourishing startup hubs in Canada. This workshop brings together leading thinkers from Lean Production and Lean software.

Agile

Agile Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment

The lean startup @ Web 2.0 Expo (and a call for help)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 9, 2009 The lean startup @ Web 2.0 Expo to explain the lean startup concept to a larger audience. The Lean Startup: a Disciplined Approach to Imagining, Designing, and Building New Products.: It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0,

Lean

Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board

Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

Lean

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire

The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. You can click here to learn more.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. Thanks for writing this article.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

The Entrepreneurial Enterprise

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. How can established companies benefit from implementing Lean Startup? Of course, you can also continue the conversation by attending The Lean Startup Conference. What can Lean Startup do about this? They’ll jump in to answer in the coming days. (Of

Lean

Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

blog comments powered by Disqus Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe via email Blog Archive ▼ 2010 (48) ► October (3) Case Study: Rapid iteration with hardware The Lean Startup Bundle Stop lying on stage ► September (4) Good enough never is (or is it?) The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

Agile

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, June 2, 2010 The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review) I continue my series for Harvard Business Review with the Lean Startup technique called Five Whys. Techniques from lean manufacturing can be part of a startups innovation culture. Speed up or slow down? Speed up or slow down?

Technical Review

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

The Lean Startup Tokyo edition

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, June 9, 2009 The Lean Startup Tokyo edition I had a blast speaking at Startonomics Tokyo , which was organized to foster ties between the startup cultures in Japan and Silicon Valley. Since I learned much of what I know about lean from studying Toyota, you can imagine how great a shock this was.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The lean startup comes to Stanford

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 28, 2008 The lean startup comes to Stanford Im going to be talking about lean startups (and the IMVU case in particular) three times in the next two weeks at Stanford. Labels: events , lean startup 5comments: Hitchens said. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Finally the day came, we unleashed the landing page, emailed our existing customers, and started advertising online. If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Expo SF (May.

Demand

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Departments were built and were even metrics-driven. But there was no feedback loop to help the company find the right metrics to focus on. As we move into a new economic climate, its my hope that our industry will stop this expensive kind of learning and start building lean startups instead. Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem) Lean startups don’t optimize. At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. With case studies like this, we aim to illustrate specific Lean Startup techniques through the stories of current practitioners. kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May. .

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Once that responsibility has been assigned, have that new person email the whole company with the results of the analysis. Each five whys email is a teaching document. Great related post by John Shook at the Lean Enterprise Institute about technical vs. social sides of problems. Five whys should read like plain English.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development

Raising Money Using Customer Development

Trending Sources

Customer Development is Not a Focus Group

Lean Startup at Scale

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

What is Lean about the Lean Startup?

Five case studies you'll see at the Lean Startup Conference 2015

Amazing lean startup resources

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem

Which Fundraising Round Should You Skip?

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Lessons Learned: Lean hiring tips

Lean Startup fbFund slides and video

The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act

Techstars brings The Lean Startup to Boulder

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free

Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up

The Lean Startup at Agile Vancouver April 21st

The lean startup @ Web 2.0 Expo (and a call for help)

Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

The Lean Startup Workshop - now an O'Reilly Master Class

Pivot, don't jump to a new vision

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

The Entrepreneurial Enterprise

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

The Lean Startup Tokyo edition

Lessons Learned: The lean startup comes to Stanford

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Lessons Learned: Achieving a failure

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

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