Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product. This is the magic of sales: by learning about each customer in-depth, they can convince each of them that this product would solve serious problems. They are closing orders.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

In 1980 Genentech became the first IPO of a venture funded biotech company. Previous experience of investing in software companies that hire direct sales organizations and take years to build the product using waterfall development doesn’t translate to expertise in Consumer Internet startups.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

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. None of mine did.)

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Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

China has essentially closed its internal search, media and social network software market to foreign companies who wouldn’t play with the government rules on the Great Firewall. This closed but very large market means that greater than 90% of Chinese software startups focus exclusively on the Chinese market.

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Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

It wasn’t pure research, but rather a culture of taking sufficient risks to get to market. So the engineers taught themselves how to become marketers, sales people and CEO’s. This all changed in 1980 with the Genentech IPO. In 1980 Genentech became the first IPO of a venture funded biotech company.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

In the early fall of 2009, as kaChing prepared for its marketplace launch, the management team showed the app—which included real time market data, SEC-grade accounting, analytics, compliance and customer management tools—to a number of investment pros to get feedback and endorsements. says Rachleff. says Rachleff.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

We set sales targets from day one, $300 the first month. As the experiments progressed, day-in-day-out we werent making sales. We started to put in simple data probes at each of these key stages in our customers usage of the product. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year.

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San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. blader : @ericries my #1 takeaway from #leanstartup : "No marketing team. No engineering team.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? ScienceDaily: Corporate culture is most important.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

Because of the extreme unknowns inherent in startup situations, we are all blind – to the realities of what customers what, market dynamics, and competitive threats. I suddenly lose my ability to judge if our marketing programs are being effective. I wonder if their internal marketing folks are as datablind as I feel.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

China has essentially closed its internal search, media and social network software market to foreign companies who wouldn’t play with the government rules on the Great Firewall. This closed but very large market means that greater than 90% of Chinese software startups focus exclusively on the Chinese market.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

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. This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do your customers really read TechCrunch?

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

We were using it to get features to market faster, and that was working well. But we were cutting corners in the development methodology as well as in the code, in the name of increased speed. Keeping in mind that caveat, in our world the biggest factor in total project ROI was time to market. Top managements #1 was usually ROI.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Although customers didnt flock to this offering at first, we had enough of a developer program active to start recruiting early adopters to start creating 3D objects for sale in our catalog. That engine of creativity has led to a catalog of something like 2 million virtual goods authored by a hundred thousand developers.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Just as a business incurs some debt to take advantage of a market opportunity developers may incur technical debt to hit an important deadline. This was a huge win (and we were delighted to give credit where it was due), because it allowed our initial products to get to market much faster. Eric, great post.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, February 12, 2009 What is a market? (a 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.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 16, 2010 Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium (Normally, I do not write about companies that are doing a marketing launch. I was an early adopter of this feature, and participated in the last marketing launch, as you can see here. The idea seemed to SlideShare to be a natural direction.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I started my last company with 100% off-shore resources because I could never have completed Customer Development at a reasonable cost of money or regulatory burden had I employed US Citizens. Similarly, government purchasing is a frustrating series of hoops, even compared to enterprise sales.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Even if, in a previous life, you were a world expert in some functional specialty, like in-depth market research or scalable systems design, the compressed timeline of a startup makes it irrelevant. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Every day counts, every minute counts.

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Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Eric - There is definitely a business/marketing analog to exactly this situation that happens a lot too. The long refactor of business model and market research (as opposed to more organic iteration) is just as bad. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. It was still a year away from its IPO. However, no markets last forever. Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

These IPOs meant that technology companies didn’t have to get acquired to raise money or get their founders and investors liquid. Interestingly enough, Fred Terman, Dean of Stanford Engineering was tied to all three companies. The McMicking’s bought 50% of Ampex for $365,000 (some liken this to the first VC investment in the valley.)

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Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 125

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Whether you’re wondering what site search you should use or what is the best email marketing tool, knowledge is power. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Inbound Marketing vs Interruption marketing. Email marketing. Market Research. Promotions/Marketing. Lean Methodology Sources.

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

You do get the beneift of total control of your content, so you can guarantee your customers a quality experience. However, virtual goods is a hits-driven business, which means you must constantly figure out what kind of content your customers want. In other words, a marketing department.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? One of my favorite gadgets at home is the Harmony Universal Remote.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

This is especially useful in situations, like most B2B businesses, where the total number of customers is likely to be small. This case study illustrates one company’s attempt to do customer development by testing their vision with customers before writing a single line of code. Oh, this is just a Photoshop file?

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San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Unfortunately, after months or even years of development, many companies discover that customers arent willing to buy their new wares. Thats why some entrepreneurs are trying another approach to product launches: marketing a product online before spending much on research and development or inventory.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

This can take the form of a traditional sales pipeline or a registration-activation-revenue chart. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

What can you do to your product and marketing message to increase engagement? The most blunt instrument is to simply reach out and contact your customers on a regular basis. For example, IMVU runs frequent promotional campaigns that offer discounts, special events, and other goodies to its customers. Synthetic notifications.

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Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

For months, we made constant product and policy changes, trying to end the controversy without simply undoing our original decision and abandoning the mainstream market. Nothing worked, until we finally had one of our community managers start talking to real customers on the phone. But silence was the worst possible strategy.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why. 10 Blogging Tips.

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Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217