Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand. Or by a VP of Marketing who talks “branding&# , SEO/SEM, PR agency, etc.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. Thanks to Suns amazing PR blitz, there was tremendous demand for experts on Java, and I did my best to convince people that I was one of that mythical breed.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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. For VC’s and entrepreneurs the gold rush to liquidity was on. 1970 – 1995: The Golden Age. Tools in the New Bubble.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Well, it turns out that to port long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. The long tail apps can easily be ported to or developed on Google App Engine in a third of the time and cost using OrangeScape as an application platform. Enter OrangeScape.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

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 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Chris Dixon, Partner, A16Z, observes , “ Success in VC is probably 10% about picking, and 90% about sourcing the right deals and having entrepreneurs choose your firm as a partner”. Pitchbot.vc 3) Originate investments.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Heres what I do know: The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs. (If If you are somehow not convinced of this point, Ill let Fareed Zakaria explain ) We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. Nerds are not entrepreneurs. They are nerds.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 4, 2010 Stop lying on stage Entrepreneurs crave information about successful startups, and they should. Many journalists and conference organizers attempt to fill this demand by giving successful entrepreneurs the opportunity to tell their stories: in magazines, on blogs, and on stage.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean PR Metrics 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Cultural Revolution at Large Corporations – the Founders Return Of the companies that do reinvent themselves it’s interesting that often its the founder or an outsider that has the insight and makes the radical changes. At HP the founders were still at the company and still running the business.

Silicon Valley 186

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

While I love TechCrunch, the post and the quote about the PR agency (“one PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy, throw ethics out the window&# ) left me wondering; how do PR agencies interact with TechCrunch and other blog and review sites? Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry?

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

The Message Sitting around a conference room table brainstorming messages that might resonate with customers, or worse having a PR agency doing that for you, is a firing offense in a small company. You should be brainstorming messages with current and potential customers. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy.

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 203

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

In the meantime, I think we have a good explanation for what all those PR dollars are being spent trying to obscure. Labels: product development 2comments: Anonymoussaid. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Any entrepreneur with a decent reality distortion field can find metrics that make it look like theyre being successful. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple.

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Do some Customer Development instead. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Having just retired from a career as an entrepreneur I had started thinking about why startups were different from large companies. 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.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

Our sponsors continue to support the conference as well as deserving entrepreneurs. Our sponsors continue to support the conference as well as deserving entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

And Red Room founder/CEO Ivory Madison on popular metrics that everyone should stop using. And Sincerely’s Matt Brezina on the secrets of developing mobile apps quickly. Fifteen entrepreneurs will give short, fast-paced presentations. And Tendai Charisika on creative ways to get out of the building.

Lean 159

Lean San Francisco Houston Engineer 159

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

To give you a better idea of what entrepreneurs in this industry are thinking about during each phase of the startup process, I interviewed SaaS entrepreneurs from all over the world, including our own COO Noah Parsons. Practical Market Research Resources for Entrepreneurs. Solve a problem you can relate to.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

One of the things I found most valuable from participating in the Founder Institute was a lesson about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. Up until today, I consider all four a must-read for any entrepreneur or anyone looking into entrepreneurship. Pursue your passions: Start with the why. For me, these books were great guides.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We Don’t Need Domain Experts When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. His point was that it was in the VC’s interest in having entrepreneurs swing for the fences. However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 222

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Believing Your Own BS is Toxic Lots of noise and smoke before a product ships seems to be a toxic byproduct of enthusiastic entrepreneurs. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

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. What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As entrepreneurs, more than any other industry, we’re in the meritocracy business. If women face structural barriers to becoming entrepreneurs, then those few who are able to overcome those barriers are probably exceptional to begin with. Or, maybe it is true that women make better entrepreneurs than men.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, July 9, 2009 10 years of entrepreneurship I recently passed my ten-year anniversary of becoming an entrepreneur. In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. Great post!

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Good, in-depth look at the economics of food trucks – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Customers can only tell you want they think they want, and tend to have a very near-term perspective. Our job as entrepreneurs is to invent the future, and any optimization technique – including split-testing, many design techniques, or even usability testing – can lead us astray. and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. 10 Must-See Documentaries for Entrepreneurs | CNBC – [link]. Google App Engine is ready for primetime says Reddit/Hipmunk co-founder – [link]. Seth Godin is only partially correct – [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

It is the first in a series of posts he’s writing about the decisions a young entrepreneur needs to make when she/he is first starting a business. 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. and Google.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

Bill Perry the founder of ESL, is now acknowledged as one of the founders of the entire field of National Reconnaissance , working the NSA and the CIA in programs to intercept and evaluate Soviet missile telemetry and communications intelligence. It had no PR agency. ESL had no marketing people. It shunned publicity.

Silicon Valley 278

Silicon Valley RSS California Washington 278

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Since I first started writing about vanity metrics , I’ve met more and more entrepreneurs who are struggling with a simple question: how can I tell a vanity metric when I see it? Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2011

Fast-paced, thought-provoking and social, this Ignite features presentations from in-the-trenches entrepreneurs ready to share their lessons learned. Product management and customer development, KISSmetrics. Co-founder, Backblaze. Founder, House of Mikko. Co-founder and CTO, Sharethrough. Founder, BlueSpark.

Czech Republic 114

Czech Republic Costa Rica Brazil Romania 114

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

The idea is to build a hit that would make the founder(s) an appealing and quick talent acquisition (sometimes referred to as an acq-hire). This is lean development without any customer development. Every startup needs PR, but this is even more true of flips. The focus is on building. Create Buzz.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144