Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It was an educational mission to tell the story of who our customers were (and by inference who all the graphics board customers were) and why the current reviews of these graphics boards weren’t adequately measuring what was important to this large market. Theoretically, that’s why I hired them.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

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

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. Even when moving to video, consumers had the choice between a stand-alone box or a smaller plug-in stick. Sales channels.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

These are just a few of the powerful, growth-fostering impacts “Rock Star” customers are creating for a variety of companies. And engaging customers in such ways is generally much less expensive than hiring costly employees or agencies. Community marketing is the best way to leverage Rock Star customers.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

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. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

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

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! ” – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! ” - [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. You’ll never have to do it again.) Trade Show Post Mortem Evaluate the experience.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

This video should be the gold standard in explaining contract terms. It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. 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.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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. These were primitive open-ended video games created by the players themselves , using simple programming languages. Expo SF (May.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Journalists, PR firms, investors, and the public at large love a scrappy come-from-behind story about two guys in a garage who figured out how to take down Goliath. Customer Development : a disciplined approach to finding out if there is a market for your product before its too late. Expo SF (May. Want to learn more about me?

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Including software prototypes, MVPs come in many flavors, including: Explainer videos.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

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

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

APRIL 7, 2010

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 more on how to figure out which question applies in which context, see Business ecology and the four customer currencies.) and for which customer? and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 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

APRIL 17, 2010

Conference updates continue to pour in: Want to see more preview videos? Conference updates continue to pour in: Want to see more preview videos? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Take a look at our new sneak-preview site , sponsored by KISSmetrics. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

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.&# September 13, 2009 11:57 AM Anonymoussaid.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158

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

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

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

In a startup, these channels of communication are critical to understand for advertising, launch and PR purposes. But beyond the obvious, its also important to know where customers go to get answers to pressing questions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

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? Expo SF (May. Want to learn more about me?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. And companies crave positive PR and control over their message – all for rational reasons. The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. It sells newspapers and magazines.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

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. However, the CEO as the “Rock Star&# always reminded me of why I fired any PR agency that was getting more press than the company it represented. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

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

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I haven’t looked at the video yet, but I should be able to understand from the headline and get some kind of emotional reaction to the headline. I’m going to hire another engineer. Edwin: There are a million others.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

It takes advantage of the idea, which I owe to Clayton Christensen , that customers buying a product are really "hiring" it to do a specific "job" for them. Its as if every customer, whether they are an enterprise, a small business, or an individual consumer, is actually an employer who wants to get things done. Remember Java?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? a guide for hackers) You buy virtual goods The free software hiring advantage Continuous deployment and continuous learning The lean startup @ Web 2.0

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Thats exactly what the worlds best video games do. 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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. recently hired Daniel Clemens as COO.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We go to mixers, buy fancy offices, focus on PR, and try to one-up each other. Instead, lets focus on building companies that matter , on creating real value for customers, and learning. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? I think its wasteful. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

You will either get references to whatever video game is rockin, or some unintelligible string of letters and numbers. 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). customer retention.

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Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41