Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

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Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. They’re a match for the “How to write a business plan” classes that are offered. Without much thought it has been used ever since.

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Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

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. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

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PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. And know that just because a venture failed doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. 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. …

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Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

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.

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

When venture capital teamed up with technology entrepreneurs in the 1960’s they brought with them the canonical MBA planning tool – the business plan. This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. Business Plan vs. Business Model + Customer Development.

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Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Ann who had been my Teaching Assistant while she had finished her PhD at Stanford felt the same frustration about teaching entrepreneurs to assemble a business plan that we knew in the real world wouldn’t survive first contact with customers. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

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Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to listen to customers. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a smart VP of Marketing who was getting early feedback from customers and screaming that the games didn’t match the hype. I had outsourced customer feedback and ignored the input.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

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Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Generate end user demand (to match our revenue goals) Drive that demand into our sales channels Value price our products to achieve our revenue and margin goals (create high-value) Educate our sales channel(s) Help engineering understand customer needs That was it. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

If we tried to match them on their playing field we’d never catch up. Reply steveblank , on March 28, 2009 at 7:27 am Said: Denis, Over time the blogs tagged under the “customer development&# category will build up a narrative of illustrative stories of how customer development evolved in practice.

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Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. dumped Détente and embraced a new strategy to counter the Warsaw Pact by not matching them tank for tank or solider to solider. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. Yet while the U.S.

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Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

The quintessential California couple, they stood out in our crowd as the engineer (in his late 20′s, respected by his peers and the customer) had hair down to his shoulders, sharply contrasting with the military crewcuts of the customers and most of the other contractors.

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Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Does any of this match your experience or people you know? Yet I am surprised given how much is written about the attributes of a startup founder, how little has been written about what “makes” a founder. Let me know what you think. Comments and brickbats welcomed.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

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? So, while you’re slaving away on your customer development while keeping an eye out for your technical match, you could do worse than read Paul Graham’s 2007 essay, How not to die.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Then, I needed to determine who is the right match for me. FounderDating successfully made me a match with my co-founder. However, I needed to actually build it!

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2009

Since we were the hip, new, edgy, “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” video game company (more about “ big hat, no cattle ” startups in subsequent posts,) our office obviously had to match the image. Our receptionists’ desk was built on the wing of a WWII P-51 fighter plane, and the rest of the office décor matched.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco RSS Vertical 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

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Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. Another idea would be to say matching up. the sort of pain solution match-up process can work. Edwin: No, I do think, and I realize that very much, that if I were to take venture capital, the whole game changes.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If there aren’t any that match your company, create some. Tradeshow Seminars Almost all tradeshows have conferences and seminar sessions; is your company keynoting any? Leading or speaking at any? No is the wrong answer. I can’t imagine your company going to a tradeshow to create awareness and not being a speaker.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Each of my competitors each had 5-10 graphics boards covering a range of prices with performance to match. This requires deep customer and competitive knowledge. I went home to think about this. Instead of a product family, we had a single point product. Even our current product line had four graphics boards in it. What could we do?

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Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134