A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 2, 2013

Another thing they have in common: I find most high-tech startup founders are software engineers enamored with the idea of waking late, sidling up to a coffeeshop table, pecking away at an IDE, getting into the zone for hours at a stretch, and doing what they love – coding something of their own invention.

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Cofounder Startup Founder Engineer 312

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

As seed rounds have atomized, it’s not uncommon for founders to raise 3 or even 4 rounds prior to a series A. The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. Founders with limited experience. should be avoided.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Lets see why.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Now that you’ve gotten to know your potential channel and customers, regardless of how much money you’re going to make, will you enjoy working with these customers for the next 3 or 4 years? It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. It never goes well.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 325

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Yet time after time, after the product shipped, startups would find that customers didn’t use or want most of the features. The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term “visionary founder” was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating. Where is it going?

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

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.

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Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. If not your co-founders, someone outside the company.”.

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Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

In my last post I described what happened when a company prematurely scales sales and marketing before adequately testing its hypotheses in Customer Discovery. You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan.

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Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. Personal branding helps founders and executives establish credibility, which is crucial for launching successful businesses, especially if they start multiple companies. Custom development. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up 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). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 23, 2015

Knowing your customers is the single biggest driver of startup success, and there’s no substitute for getting out of the building to learn about their problems and needs. Jason Young , co-founder of MindBlown Labs , which makes mobile social games to teach young adults about personal finance. And download any of the past shows here.).

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

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Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? Reminder: What’s the Point of Talking to Customers ?

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Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Would you mind sharing them?

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Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

We also cavalierly lampoon the “suits” that get brought in to run startups after the founders are fired by callous VC’s. They have the ultimate responsibility in a venture-backed company of deciding whether to fire the founders and bring in “professional management.” I also frequently see the reverse. (In

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

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. What are the terms of their relationship with the founder? They’re typically pursuing a foundry/studio model. The discounts?

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Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

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San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

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. In these markets it’s all about customer/market risk.

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need. The “I know what features to build” flaw.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2010

The company had innovated, found a business model, grown successfully but now even as revenues continued to grow, the company was slowly but surely dying. The company’s two co-founders had created a new technology and an innovative business strategy. Over time the co-founder responsible for the original business innovations departed.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Cofounder Acquisition Kansas 267

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 7: Revenue Streams in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health. Basil Ayish , MBA, Business Development.

Lean 241

Lean Customer Development IP Agile 241

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Curt Haselton , co-founder and CEO of Haselton Baker Risk Group. In addition he conducts research with Dr. Hsueh Chia Chang in Chemical Engineering.

Cofounder 190

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 190

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? Trying to answer that question at IMVU led me to discover Google AdWords and the world of search engine marketing. SEM is a simple idea.

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SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

The class was designed to teach educators (and the adjunct entrepreneurs that support them) the Lean LaunchPad approach (Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) for teaching entrepreneurship. He’s the Founder of Vision Creations & Founders Films. Take the Money First?

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Delaware Lean Entrepreneur Advisory Board 297

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. While these acquisitions have teams of great researchers, they rarely contribute actual revenue generating products (because most never reached that stage when they were acquired.)

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Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 318

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

They are the co-authors of The Lean Entrepreneur , and the co-founders of the Moves the Needle Group , which advises the innovation practices of Fortune 100 companies. You have to go find your own customers to experiment with, you have your own brand, so you have to think like a Lean Startup. But you’re not going to your core business.

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Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2016

How founders find the determination to push through tough times was the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jacqueline Ros. Christina Stembel.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Cofounder San Francisco Campaign 260

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

For startups that are tempted to mimic this behavior, I suggest reading the great account of the early Apple in Founders at Work.) Not even if its generating revenue. The only efforts a new product team should be expending are those that lead to validated learning about customers.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Curt Haselton , co-founder and CEO of Haselton Baker Risk Group. In addition he conducts research with Dr. Hsueh Chia Chang in Chemical Engineering.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

My colleagues Sebastian Soler , Steven Greenberg and I recently launched a new online community, PEVCTech.com , exclusively for PE/VC investors; engineers who work at PE/VC funds; and other technologists who specialize in working on this problem. VC Firm. $ Tech % of workforce. Google Ventures (GV). 17% (13 / 80). Pitchbot.vc

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Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. 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.

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Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208