Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2021

The key to understanding value propositions is in building interviews that are based on a set of hypotheses (about the problem, the stakeholder and potential solutions to be explored) and data to be captured while using minimum viable products (just enough “product” to increase the efficacy of a conversation and increase the speed of learning).

Curation 344

Curation Technical Review Lean Australia 344

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Editor’s note: At a recent team meeting at NextView, we looked at the high number of startups we invested in which were pre-product at the time. The question arose: What is a seed VC’s process like when a company is pre-product? A big chunk of our investments at NextView have been made pre-product.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. Set up the Lean LaunchLab or a WordPress blog to document your Customer Development progress. Size the market opportunity.

Lean 333

Lean Web Coder Business Model 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. Eric Ries, who took my first Customer Development class at Berkeley, had the insight that Customer Development should be paired with Agile Development.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development. Here’s how.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? Companies in cosmetics and perfume production pivoted their production lines as well. The Market Opportunity Navigator is a framework for this identification process.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

SVPG

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Much has been written about how to do product discovery in startups, by me and many other people. But one of the real advantages from a product point of view is that there’s no legacy to drag along, there’s no revenue to preserve, and there’s no reputation to safeguard. See Product Discovery with Live-Data Prototypes.

Product 67

Product NDA Continuous Deployment Reputation 67

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

But until now I haven’t been able to articulate a framework of why or had a concrete suggestion of what to replace them with. A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. initial business model hypotheses).

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

– while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products. Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “Here’s how smart I am, and isn’t this a great product, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the story of a team’s 10-week journey and hard-won learning and discovery.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

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.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Entrenched Innovation Model Issues : Qualcomm’s existing innovation model – wireless products were created in the R&D lab and then handed over to existing business units for commercialization – was wildly successful in the existing wireless and mobile space. Developing a program to generate new ideas is the easy part.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. Here’s what the product development diagram looks like from a sales perspective.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

To create great entrepreneurs, we had to give our students the experience of navigating the chaos and uncertainty of running a lean startup while providing the same kind of rigorous framework the business plan did in its day. It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I propose here a framework for prioritizing your platform buildout. 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. Customer Development. VCplatform.com.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Since I began incorporating the Investment Readiness Level framework I’ve made three observations. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

In my last article I discussed the role of the leader of the product organization. I want every product leader to feel considerable urgency and importance around this need. ” This note discusses the technique that I use and advocate for providing a framework for ongoing skills assessment and development.

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2020

The first 5-day class will be aimed at “Finding New Business Models” for businesses to adapt and pivot to find new customers, new markets, new products and new services to win in the recovery. Our goal, within the constraints of a virtual classroom and a limited amount of time, is to give you a framework to test a business model.

Lean 436

Lean Business Model Affiliate Incubator 436

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

32 students were scattered across the globe and given a seemingly impossible assignment- they had 10 weeks to understand and then solve a real Dept of Defense problem – by interviewing 100 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, et al while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products – all while never leaving their room.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. My imagination ran 24/7 and to me every problem was a challenge to solve and new product to create. whether a product, service, or work of art?—?results

Entrepreneur 335

Entrepreneur Framework Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

To be honest I built the class out of frustration watching schools teach aspiring entrepreneurs that all they need to know is how to write a business plan or how to sit in an incubator building a product. using the business model canvas as the framework. Quotes from customers that illustrated learnings and insights.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Understanding the left-side of the mission model canvas ( activities, resources , partners , and costs) forces all teams to ask, “Are we building a product for a DOD/IC customer only or do we have a “dual-use” product that could be sold commercially and get funded by venture capital?”. This post is a continuation of the series.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. Were startups failing because of product failures or was there some other failure mode? a customer before you try and build a business. Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.]

Product Development 143

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 143

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

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’ve been puzzling out what they would need to do to deploy their value proposition (a product, service or both).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’ve been puzzling out what they would need to do to deploy their value proposition (a product, service or both).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime , the first multimedia framework for a computer. And they were right. We knew something our CEO didn’t.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

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 ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

The company teams they work with are usually highly motivated entrepreneurs trying to engage in extensive product and customer development efforts for a product they don’t typically have a full vision of, for a customer whose needs are opaque, and for a use case which is ambiguous.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

There are several frameworks for heuristic analysis that I’ve covered in this post - they structure and focus the process. Gather your team (include some customers and experts, if you can), and tear your website apart. Talk to your customers or prospects. You have only 10 customers? No customers at all?

Conversion 124

Conversion Framework Technical Review Analytics 124

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. Many of them get hung up on understanding how to select the right minimal viable product. Your mission is your baby.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Where to Play

MAY 28, 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.

Lean 74

Lean Marketing Framework Business Model 74

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

At NextView we invest across the spectrum of seed stage companies so roughly 1/3rd of the companies we invest in are pre-product, roughly 1/3rd are post-product but pre-revenue, and perhaps 1/3rd have some very early revenue. But here’s some examples or frameworks to consider. A) Pre-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates. My Obsession With The Product - Feld Thoughts , May 3, 2010 For some reason I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Here’s why.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248