Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools. 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.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

She had so much insight to share that we broke the interview into two parts, 1) Corporate Venture Capital and more broadly, 2) How the Fortune 500 Can Buy, Invest and Partner with the Innovation Economy (coming soon). . It can help develop applications for the startup’s technology in its early days.

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Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building.

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. 19 of the 21 teams are moving forward in commercializing their technology. We’ve been reading your blog about your Lean Launchpad class.” No, the conversation was about to get more interesting.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 212

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Electron-based Venture Capital. Here’s why.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. ” Lean Business Planning: Get What You Want From Your Business. Why David Rose recommends it: “This guide takes the lean theories and shows you how to put them into practice.”. B y Eric Ries. B y Tim Berry.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. Yet two smart VC firms, Sigma and Matrix Partners, realized that somewhere in this mess there was value. Their guess was that they would find value in the high margin graphics business.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. ” Steve Blank, “Is the lean startup dead?” ” The Lean Startup movement started out of necessity. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended.

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Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. If you’ve never seen Eric’s Lean Startup presentation, take a few minutes to at least watch his part. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking. steve Customer Development is Hard.

Customer Development 139

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 139

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

They knew the technology trendsetters in their fields and got us in front of them. In short order they learned how to transition from being customers on the receiving end of a sales pitch to giving one.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2015

On April 27 th , on my next program, my guest will be Eric Ries the author of the Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences (NIH) , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital.

Channel 120

Channel Venture Capital Lean Business Model 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. This is the pivot, a crucial tactical maneuver for the lean startup [.]

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? government is the leading payer for most of health care, and under ObamaCare the government’s role in reimbursing for medical technology will increase. Venture Capital Issues.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. Alex, vice provost for Innovation & Economic Development at Weber State University in Utah and completing his first year of teaching entrepreneurship.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 137

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 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.) It was my ex boss from Convergent Technologies, “Steve we’ve all just resigned from Convergent and we’re starting a new company.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.” Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile. You’re not joining a big company.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? ) He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. Eventually, I came to summarize these themes with the phrase " the lean startup." Looking forward for your future posts.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs. And they’ll do this using the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The landscape for how to turn life science and health care technologies into viable companies has changed more in the last 3 years than in the last 30. Our Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences is one of them. Yet they share values and hopefully some synergy around topics of mutual interest (same customers, or technologies).

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2014

In this post, I want to share some new thoughts that build on Steve’s post, and connect them to Lean Startup methods. However, I will then argue that while these methods are necessary to managing new ventures inside a company, they are insufficient. This suggests a further modification to Lean Startup: Get Upstairs in the Building.

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Startup Business Model Lean Russia 327