Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Carpe Diem. Tools in the New Bubble.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

This is often a tough concept for engineering founders who believe that if we just tell customers about the features that make their product faster, cheaper, etc. Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Customer Discovery Never Stops. they’ll win.). The question is when ?”

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

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. Wondering how do I get in touch with you - I am founder of a company here in San jose, CA and would like to invite you to be part of our advisor team. I will come back for more.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . HOF Capital is currently developing a proprietary sourcing tool to automatically filter for potential deal prospects that fit our criteria. Pitchbot.vc is an AI bot which helps companies refine their sales pitch to VCs.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Back in 2016, I read a book called Sprint by Jake Knapp, founder of Google Ventures. And so, the concept for a digital PR service was born. Using my existing skills and resources (including an old domain name), I tested a productized digital PR offer. About 18 months later, we pivoted our messaging to evolve beyond digital PR.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Other companies accomplish this by hiring a large staff of content production experts - and get a very good result. Plus, we saw some of the intrinsic limitations of supporting such a large staff: slower cycle times, higher cost basis, and - most importantly - the ability to serve only a limited number of customer segments. Great post!

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Whats striking about these stories, if you get past the PR hype, are two very important themes: These prodigies were self-taught, and had a fundamental fascination with technology from a very young age. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo (and a call for he.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

It got bigger by inventing new test and measurement equipment and it hired people who knew how to execute that strategy. At HP the founders were still at the company and still running the business. Elephant Graveyard Reinvention of large companies, while making for great case studies are rare.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It helps companies with PR. It makes successful founders famous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

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 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

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 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

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

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. Founders should understand what the customer hopes to accomplish , or what their job to be done is.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

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. Spend your time with renewable sources of customers and iterate.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

San Francisco 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Successful pinball companies didn’t hire Hollywood talent. Meanwhile our company was pouring an enormous amount of dollars into building tools and video compression technology, while also hiring a lot of high-priced Hollywood talent like art directors, and script and story editors. I know what’s great and what’s not.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

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

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. After all, if you already have an all-male startup, you’re already at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring the very women that could fix that imbalance. Thats understandable - its embarrassing!

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

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). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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]. What to do when you hire someone better than yourself…. |

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

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. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

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. They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I first did it for the founder.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. A startup’s first hires: What to look for | Fortune - [link]. Google App Engine is ready for primetime says Reddit/Hipmunk co-founder – [link]. What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? ” - [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

When you read stories of successful startups in the popular and business press, you usually hear about how the founders anticipated several of these challenges in their initial vision. What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. (For and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

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. Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build. and Google.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. That’s what you pay PR firms for: to get an article written that is entirely factual and yet still provides positive spin for your company. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.)

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

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. Lastly, large companies that seek new talent will likely hire promising individuals through a small exit.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So you decide to try to reposition around a different value proposition, one that more closely matches what your product is best at.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Hire the absolute best and the brightest, true experts in their fields, who in turn can hire the smartest people possible to staff their departments. Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. Here are a few: We know what customers want. We can capitalize on new customers.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

I had 2 conversations with startup founders this week that are trying to decide on a name for their company and I felt their pain. She just missed "hire a name-nerd like @denvan" ;c{)} RT @aprildunford: How to Name A Startup [link]. Why Your Startup Shouldn't Hire a Marketer from Microsoft 139 comment(s).

Naming 41

Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

To wit: achieving product/market fit , getting customer validation , making something people want , things that matter , and of course the many excellent books on the topic, of which Ill mention just two of the best, Crossing the Chasm and The Innovators Dilemma. Is a market a set of paying customers? There are four: Existing market.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

In fact, I am convinced that if you could find some of IMVU’s earliest adopters, they would say something like this: “sure, those guys at IMVU HQ were helpful in writing code and stuff, but in the end they were just the hired help. It was really the community who built that product.&# " I couldn't agree more.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158