Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. I’m going to save that for a future blog post.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

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 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique.

Lean 394

Lean Security Asia SBIR 394

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

Kauffman launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers.

Intellectual Property 329

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 329

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. The case method and business plans are the antithesis of how entrepreneurs create startups. But the case method is the antithesis of how entrepreneurs create a startup. Here’s why and what we did about it.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But at times it’s why entrepreneurs can sink their own companies. More on this in later posts.)

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique.

Oakland 306

Oakland Asia Lean Video 306

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 322

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 322

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

The idea of a Business Model competition first emerged when I realized that Business Plan writing ought to be taught in English Departments – as they’re the best example of creative writing entrepreneurs will ever do. This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. The Business Plan ?-

Business Model 264

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 264

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

What it’s like to go from the comfort of the lab bench to the chaos of a startup was the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. We decided as a team that there was no match between what we’d learned in customer interviews about where the need was and what we were providing.

Cofounder 192

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 192

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Ann who had been my Teaching Assistant while she had finished her PhD at Stanford felt the same frustration about teaching entrepreneurs to assemble a business plan that we knew in the real world wouldn’t survive first contact with customers. Ann and I recruited VC’s and entrepreneurs to be mentors for each team.

Business Model 230

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The Golden Age for Entrepreneurs and VC’s. The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. What Does it Mean to an Entrepreneur? Here’s why. are example of this class of firm.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Steve Blank

APRIL 3, 2012

We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. I’m feeling guilty because I was using Customer Development and the Startup Owners Manual until I had that insight. Epiphany e·piph·a·ny noun ?/i?pif?n?/.

Flash 315

Flash Customer Development Business Model Developer 315

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Generate end user demand (to match our revenue goals) Drive that demand into our sales channels Value price our products to achieve our revenue and margin goals (create high-value) Educate our sales channel(s) Help engineering understand customer needs That was it. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

If we tried to match them on their playing field we’d never catch up. A key lesson is that as an entrepreneur, you get to choose your segment. But with a little bit of thought it struck us that if we attempted to do that, our competitors had a pretty substantial advantage, since they held nearly 90% of combined market share.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 144

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

What it’s like to go from the comfort of the lab bench to the chaos of a startup was the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. We decided as a team that there was no match between what we’d learned in customer interviews about where the need was and what we were providing.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

These topics 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.) The features didn’t match what ultimately the customers would buy or wanted. Wayne Sutton. And it’s a culture issue. .

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. dumped Détente and embraced a new strategy to counter the Warsaw Pact by not matching them tank for tank or solider to solider.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 176

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Silicon Valley 307

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 307

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.

Revenue 231

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 231

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Colleges and universities that offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to teach innovation and entrepreneurship classes may benefit from a more formal onboarding process. I knew I wanted to write a book about a (then) radically new entrepreneurship idea called Customer Development (later the foundation of the Lean Startup movement).

Cofounder 144

Cofounder Lean Reputation Programming 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 271

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 271

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. They were busily testing their hypotheses about customer segments and value proposition, seeing if they could find product/market fit. What was critical?

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Business Model Agile 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. April 15, 2009 4:06 PM Eric said.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

But if it were just about complimentary skill set matching it wouldn’t be very hard. We don’t care if entrepreneurs want to build lifestyle businesses or go for IPOs, if they are tethered to their email or check out at 7pm – that’s a personal decision. Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture.

Cofounder 330

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 330

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. We’re all familiar with Product Development, and thanks to the amazing Steve Blank and Eric Ries , Customer Development has become the mantra for so many startups. In a nutshell, Product Development is about building something.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Gathering real-world feedback from customers is a core concept of Customer Development as well as the Lean Startup. When I asked him if he actually had personally left the building and talked to these potential customers, or even had gotten them on the phone, he sounded confused. Customer needs are non-deterministic.

Metrics 240

Metrics Customer Customer Development Lean 240

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

developed a new strategy in the late 1970’s to counter the Warsaw Pact. Instead of matching the U.S.S.R. When I first started teaching customer development (searching, validating and executing a business model), one of my students pointed out that customer development was similar to the theory of a military strategist, John Boyd.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

But if tools are plentiful and costs resemble rounding errors, what stands in the way of the would-be entrepreneur of 2012? Until then, most first-time – and many experienced – entrepreneurs will still struggle to find someone with the necessary technical skills to get their bright ideas off the ground. The Talent Squeeze.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Ill do my best to match deserving people up with appropriate sponsors, and Ill be glad to recognize those that give on the blog and at the conference itself. I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

leanstartup #goap It was great to be in an audience of entrepreneurs who recognized the value of iteration and speed. benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders! The idea is that great product visionaries dont need to listen to customers or test their ideas against reality.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60