YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Talented product developers. Customer content and engagement built rapid growth in the success of Intel ’s social media and Web-based marketing efforts, increasing “customer contacts” by a factor of tenfold and overall page views by 100x. This has resulted in dramatic increases in sales. Highly trained salespeople.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

When a startup finds a repeatable sales process and steadily increasing revenue, its investors wants to harvest the rewards and build a culture of “execution.” 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. 2) They don’t care about your profitibility and ultimately, your staying power.

Customer 214

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 214

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

So the departments either didn’t have the capacity to pay or it would be an endless sales-cycle, where we would spend lots of time on the sales, but it still wouldn’t close. I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. In a nutshell, Product Development is about building something.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

You can almost set your watch to six months or so after first customer ship, when Sales starts missing its “numbers,” the board gets concerned and Marketing tries to “make up a better story.” Having failed to deliver the promised revenue, the VP of Sales in a startup who does not make the “numbers” becomes an ex-VP of Sales.

Burn Rate 250

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 250

ConversionXL

JULY 3, 2014

Fueled by data driven research that map out the who behind the buying decisions of your products or services, customer personas can help inform everything from more effective copy to product development. JC Penney’s went from a sales model based on constant coupons and markdowns to “everyday low prices.”

Customer 133

Customer Analytics Conversion Lead Generation 133

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

And the only way to make B2B customers happy is to deliver significant, measurable, economic value to them. All suppliers say they want to deliver value to their customers. But no customer will pay more for a product that matches existing value, only for one that exceeds it. Call this VOO: Voice of Ourselves.)

Product 251

Product B2B Product Development Developer 251

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

how they describe the type of services they offer, you can word the copy on your site to match the conversation in their head (very important!). how they choose and compare products in your category, you know how to structure and prioritize content on your site. Relevancy leads to sales. … and so on and so forth.

Audience 122

Audience Analytics B2B eCommerce 122

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 figured out the revenue model (subscription, license, direct sale, etc.)

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. Another idea would be to say matching up. Edwin: There are a million others.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

I wrote about this challenge for iPhone developers, in an essay on retention competition : the battle over what icon the user will click when they go to the home screen. At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140