Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2023

However, the competitor’s headquarters was based in New York, and their VP of Sales and CEO were now meeting face-to-face with customers, most of whom had returned to their offices. We lingered over coffee as I suggested it was time for her to take stock of what’s next. Covid let me do that for a few years.

New York 345

New York Miami Silicon Valley Sales 345

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Thor Ernstsson is the founder of Alpha UX , a product validation company serving real-time user insights to Fortune 500 product managers. Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.) And in the tradition of great startups, on the way out Perry took 6 of his best managers with him.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 179

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

As the conversation began to get down to how much stock and salary we could offer van Dam, we left the barber to finish his work and went to a payphone to call our CEO to confirm the deal. I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e.

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Message Match] Project Management Software. Do This: Use customer development techniques found in this post to build a profile of your ideal buyer personas. image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 10, 2014

by Francois Bondiguel , Online Marketing Manager at VendHQ.com. Today, you need ways to keep customers coming in the door. Few companies will go to these lengths to please customers. Professionalisms customer development customer relationship management customer retention Francois Bondiguel'

Customer 244

Customer Retention Programming Customer Development 244

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

And when you look at the tools that we use, I mean we’ve made so many technological advances, but really to manage a meeting there’s not a practical tool available. We use email; we use Word; we use task manager; we use a file sharing tool. They are so happy that they finally have a tool to manage their business.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. This changed their interest from managing your board for their liquidity to managing the board for all shareholders. The system worked in predictable and profitable ways. Success Means That You’re Acquired.

Venture Capital 302

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 302

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Sure I can build a stock chart, like this one , that shows that eBays stock price went into a four-year decline immediately after "eBay Inc Acquires Dutch Company Marktplaats.nl." The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Youve just experienced vanity metrics hell.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

He’d wasted a year of his life and had a pile of stock options that weren’t very interesting. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , May 21, 2010 I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.) Tesla is not.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Do they “get&# Customer Development ? Do They Get Customer Development? Have they heard about Customer Development ? Can they tell you what you should be doing in Customer Discovery and Customer Validation ? Is Your VC Founder Friendly? How do you figure out which VC firm is best for you?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

But the investor is already being compensated for that risk in the low price of the stock, so it is unfair to delay. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? more data about their trajectory.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. And do your customer development. When they could hear the customers complaints in their own voice, it became clear when it was time to up the quality level. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Message Match] Project Management Software. Do This: Use customer development techniques found in this post to build a profile of your ideal buyer personas. image source.

Analytics 98

Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Task Management. Project Management Tools. Subscription Payments / Management. Managing APIs. Customer Relationship Management. Contractor Management. Private beta invitations & management: Prefinery. Scanning / Document Management.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Assessing fit with the Wisdom of Crowds When I wrote earlier about how to conduct a good technical interview , I had only a few things to say about how to assess if the candidate fits in with the team, including this: This responsibility falls squarely to the hiring manager.

San Francisco 83

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

And it’s a combined product management and technical function, to boost an already positive growth curve into something even bigger.” (via ’ From the point of view of a SaaS consultant: before employing growth marketing strategies, you need to have: Identified your ideal customer. Conducted Customer Development.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Contrast this with other high-risk situations, like buying a high-risk stock. Although the specific payoff of a specific risky stock is not known, investing in many such stocks can be modeled accurately. Thus a decent financial advisor can give you a reasonably accurate long-term expected return for a set of risky stocks.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

He raised the money by selling stock to prominent Boston families who – seeing the benefit of the joint stock company – went on to found, railroads, banks, and insurance companies based on this new model. Several wealthy families in the U.S. play in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Silicon Valley 166

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 166

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

My way of explaining our support and service role to the marketing department was that: Sales is the sharp end of the stick, and marketing at best, is the stick. But while the sales team works for commission, the rest of the employees have equity (stock) in the company. Very useful way to think about “Management By Objectives.&#

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 127

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Policy makers need to know: regulations designed to manage big-companies actually protect those companies by stifling innovation (and competition) from startups. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Good human resource management practice can see you motivate your staff to give their very best without necessarily turning them into intrapreneurs, because when all is said and done, most people looking and taking up jobs do so because the don't to get into the intricacies of company ownership. stockexplosion I completely agree with you.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

Your challenge will be incentivizing your developers to create, and managing the volume of their output. How do you help customers find the best of the best? You may have to staff up a large customer service department to review and approve all of the items. And what do you do with the rest?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price. Just remember ethics and values are about what you practice when the going gets tough. Do the right thing. It pays off in the end. According to his widow, “he just sat on the side of the bed telling me how good it will be.&#

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 124

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Instead of giving me a valuation that I now have to negotiate, why not just issue me debt and let me buy stock at the seed round valuation (maybe with a risk premium) with that debt. I already own stock in two companies which own no intellectual property. Which corporate entity do the founders own stock in? Management (1).

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

VC Cafe

JANUARY 22, 2012

I found they all apply to tech startups and below is my effort to apply the theory to the practice of customer development. Offline, companies like Zara thrive on this, as customers know that a product that fits and is in stock probably won’t be there tomorrow. Online, examples of scarcity as a persuader are many.

Startup 121

Startup Oauth Chicago Product 121

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

I used a freelance web designer and I only created the core functions to create, send, and manage invoices. Further functions such as expense tracking, recurring invoicing, and quoting were on my development list but I waited with the implementation until I was able to prove that my customers were interested in these additions.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

VC Cafe

JANUARY 22, 2012

I found they all apply to tech startups and below is my effort to apply the theory to the practice of customer development. Offline, companies like Zara thrive on this, as customers know that a product that fits and is in stock probably won’t be there tomorrow. Online, examples of scarcity as a persuader are many.

Startup 111

Startup Oauth Chicago Product 111

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Just ensure you understand your numbers and manage them well. $50 Hi Dan, Can you share on what is your strategy in getting customers ? How did you get your first customer and what works/didn’t work along the process? Entrepreneurs always struggle with competing priorities and manage expenses very closely.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Maybe you can be the project manager and team up with someone else who is a prgrammer. We’ve managed to launch our service and are hustling to gain traction and trying to retain users from the blog spike. how did you guys manage through that? Its all about your own individual situation. have a great day! yeah great points.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84