David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

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. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

It’s a really big idea because what you build needs to match the hypothesis you want to test. The minimum viable product you’ll need to build to find the right customers is different from the minimum viable product you need for testing pricing, which is different from an MVP you would build to test specific product features.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

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 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … whether that’s partners or employees that you bring on. Nayeem : (Nods.)

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The Agora team started the week wondering whether they were 1) a true marketplace for cloud computing, where they provide both matching and exchange capabilities for real-time trading. Or were they 2) an information exchange, providing matching services for cloud computing buyers and sellers, providing matching services.

Customer 236

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 236

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2014

It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses and agile engineering to build minimum viable products. Teaches you how to use Customer Development to test it. Integration with Customer Development and Lean Startup.

Business Model 335

Business Model Design Customer Development Lean 335

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. 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. Fire might be a strong word.

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Having a teaching partner makes life a lot easier and the class improves. But it wasn’t until Ann Miura-Ko joined me as a teaching partner that this “teach the model not the plan” idea jelled. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner. Teaching Team.

Business Model 230

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

A decade later, I began to teach the foundations of Lean, first at UC Berkeley (Customer Development) and then at Stanford using cases and business plans. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). One of the goals of the class is to talk to 100 customers and partners.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) I find the same still going on with a few firms and partners.&#

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

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 322

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 322

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. But for startups, business plans fail to match the chaotic reality they encounter in the real world. Yet year after year, decade after decade, VC’s would watch as no startup business plan survived first contact with customers. XoomPark , BYU.

Business Model 264

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 264

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

In fact, their affiliate partners dissuaded them from doing so. They want to monetize the Twitter stream via contextual search matching. My take was that this follows three trends: a) customer involvement in product design, b) mass customization [e.g. That said I worry that V1 of the strategy isn’t a home run.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. I offered that at Epiphany, my partner Ben’s office was the first place I would go when I thought I had new “insights.” And that’s where the problem was.

Founder 317

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 317

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

My partner David has also written about this a bunch. In short, I find that authenticity helps a founder more quickly find product/market fit, recruit and inspire teams, and resonate more deeply with customers. I’ll dig into this a bit further… Founder/Market Fit. For many software products, this can happen relatively quickly.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2019

The goal would be six-fold: Integrate adjuncts as partners with their entrepreneurship centers . I knew I wanted to write a book about a (then) radically new entrepreneurship idea called Customer Development (later the foundation of the Lean Startup movement). Create repeatable and scalable processes for onboarding adjuncts.

Cofounder 144

Cofounder Lean Reputation Programming 144

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

And, not surprisingly, I frequently get asked what to look for or what to think about when starting the process of finding a cofounder – a true partner to start your next company with. You’re looking for an employee, not a partner. But if it were just about complimentary skill set matching it wouldn’t be very hard.

Cofounder 330

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 330

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money. Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. Pivots By Firing Executives. No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 248

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. The teams come back into the class and present what they found, and then they get out and talk to more customers. Repeat for 5 days. What was critical?

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Business Model Agile 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Lets Try to Make the World Match Our Spreadsheet. Revenue Plan Needs to Match Market Type. But no one (founders, management, investors) bothered to really dig deep into whether that sales and marketing strategy matched the technical founder’s vision or implementation. Filed under: Customer Development , Market Types.

Revenue 231

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 231

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. They’ve learned the best distribution channel to get the product from their company to the customer.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. Some of the old-line venture firms have changed their strategy, but some are still locked into last decade’s model while the partners are living off of their management fees and go through cargo cult like rituals.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

developed a new strategy in the late 1970’s to counter the Warsaw Pact. Instead of matching the U.S.S.R. When I first started teaching customer development (searching, validating and executing a business model), one of my students pointed out that customer development was similar to the theory of a military strategist, John Boyd.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

This week they were testing their hypotheses about Partners. Partners are the external companies whose product or service combines with your Value Proposition to create a complete customer solution or “whole product&# to satisfy customers. They worked on understanding their partners. The Nine Teams Present.

South Dakota 223

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 223

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2011

Week 3 of the class and our teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad class were hard at work using Customer Development to get out of the classroom and test the first key hypotheses of their business model: The Value Proposition. Is a buying guide/matching service a superior value proposition to marketplace? This post is part three.

Cloud 232

Cloud Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 232

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Recently, my friend Harjeet Taggar, partner at US seed fund YCombinator, tweeted that, increasingly, the problems faced by start-ups they fund are being addressed by other start-ups. Is there a junior or senior developer from a previous gig who will respect you for a previous role and be ready to build their own baby with you?

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

For instance, when Robin Chase and her partner, Antje, founded the car-sharing startup Zipcar, they agreed with a quick handshake to split the equity 50–50. Robin wondered when her partner would be able to become more involved, but, in the end, Antje never joined full-time.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 27, 2017

It’s a hard thing to do because what makes word press so powerful is just being able to use any plug-in, any theme, mix and match, put it together your own way. The right kind of audience has to match what your actual goal is. We weren’t trying to have a client type business.

Community 40

Community SEO Technical Review Audience 40

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model. Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies. And learned how to pivot their model as reality intruded.).

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 127

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Partners Booths While your booth may be small, some of your potential or existing partners may have much larger ones, in much more visible locations. If there aren’t any that match your company, create some. For a small company this is like throwing your tradeshow money on the floor. Leading or speaking at any?

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Each of the teams is assigned a mentor to match their domainv(Head of device R&D of Phillips, Genetech, Crescendo, CTO of UCSF, venture capitalists from Sofinnova, Burrill, Lightstone, M34, etc.). Filed under: Customer Development , Life Sciences , Teaching. Filed under: Customer Development , Life Sciences , Teaching.

Lean 260

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 260

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Clips from their interviews are below: Wayne Sutton is a partner and co-founder of BUILDUP VC , a Bay Area non-profit that connects, mentors, and educates underrepresented technology entrepreneurs. The features didn’t match what ultimately the customers would buy or wanted. And download any of the past shows here.).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

Create awareness of our company and brand for potential customers. Create awareness for fundraising (VC, angels, corporate partners). Craft messages to match what your audience has already told you. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing. Create awareness for potential acquirers of our company.

Marketing 312

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 312

Life Beyond Code

JULY 16, 2013

How do you know that the problem is real if you have never talked to the target customer? This is where you build your team, your extended team, your advisory board, your board, designers, developers, your partner network and your influence network and more. Amplify means to extend the reach of your offering.

Startup 151

Startup Advisory Board Audience Framework 151

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The ultimate goal of Innofund is to get the startups far enough along in technology and market validation so other sources of financial capital (banks, VC’s, corporate partners) will invest. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Programming 280

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 280

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

The positive effect of the tidal wave of press was as a door opener for us to raise money from corporate partners. Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to listen to customers.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Because we wanted to document every aspect of the process before partnering with new freelance writers. A safe approach is to partner with contractors and freelancers to fulfill new business. This way, you can focus on business development, communications, and awareness to build a sales pipeline and “validate” early demand.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120