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. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you.

Product Development 153

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 153

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers. Business customers were starting to ask for “office automation solutions” – word processing, spreadsheets, graphing software on a desktop. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

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. So who are your potential high-value Rock Star customers? Not necessarily.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ The old paradigm works like this: Your company produces goods and services that help customers get a job done. In return, the customers pay you money. An example is “Mr.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

So, if youre interested in helping avoid mistakes like that, here are the steps: Get a domain name. It doesnt have to be the worlds catchiest name, just pick something reasonably descriptive. If youre concerned about sullying your eventual brand name, dont use your "really good" name, pick a code name.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

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. Customer Development. Advantages.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Return the name of the hypothesis chosen or assigned.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. Not because they have a conversion problem but because they never really nail the product or how to market it. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? Extra Lucrative Conversion Advice.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now A great checklist of techniques and tools for making your development more agile, written from a Rail perspective.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

It’s easy to overestimate the impact of this kind of traffic because it just feels good to have your name and company featured. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. a is name, b is address, and c is tax percentage.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I want to thank Techstars for putting this event together and giving me a chance to experience the scene, even if it lacks a name. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Traveling to new startup hubs is one of my favorite things about being able to do this full-time.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Accept that many successful companies are going to want to be backed by big-name firms in other cities. And do your customer development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Instead, focus on getting them ready for that stage.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

The key to successful integration of customer feedback is to make each kind of collection part of the regular company discipline of building and releasing products. They assume that each person on the team is genuinely interested in testing their work and ideas against the reality of what customers want.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Where are the charitable foundations, business schools and hospitals named after him? Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1 « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1 – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40?

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Ive previously named his post Achieving Flow in a Lean Startup as one of my favorite blog posts of 2009. Things started to slip. Things started to slip.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 25, 2013

by Dan Adams , author of “ New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth “ As a B2B supplier, you can approach new product development one of two ways. You can ask your customers what they want. Or, you can find out what they need. Image Credit: Crown Audio ].

B2B 124

B2B Customer Product Development Audio 124

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

Here’s an example invitation email for existing customers: Hi [NAME], You’ve been a loyal customer of [COMPANY] for over two years now! We’re in the process of improving our product and are interested in how you use it and what you think we could do better. It could help us shape the future of [COMPANY/PRODUCT NAME].

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Much of what I have found effective is counter-intuitive, because it requires investing more effort in each hire - all in the name of efficiency. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

We're starting our new business, fanminder.com, to help small merchants instantly communicate with their customers, and I'm increasingly hearing your name and reading your keen insights. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 15, 2017

One of my clients discovered that his most demanding customers were consistently the ones who ended up recruiting many new customers and helping with product development. Are they finding their own Cheers hangout where everybody knows their name? What are your superusers getting in return for their generosity?

Community 124

Community LLC Customer Developer 124

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2015

As usual, I''m leaving out important details like company names in order to respect their privacy while the book is still in early draft form. They suspected that if they could do customer development throughout the development process, they could come up with a much better product.

Lean 60

Lean Technology Metrics Developer 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. There is a distinction between product and offering.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Another great way to test your idea is to create a minimum viable product, or MVP. This is the simplest version of your product minus the frills and frosting. It’s a particularly popular strategy in the world of product development and is used to quickly and quantitatively test a product or a product feature.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

If youre a startup investor, and you support the goals of the Startup Visa proposal, wed like you lend your name to our efforts. If youre a startup investor, and you support the goals of the Startup Visa proposal, wed like you lend your name to our efforts. You can read about the latest iteration of the proposal at StartupVisa.com.

San Francisco 118

San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

If you’re a startup raising money or just want to see your name online, there’s not a better blog on the web. Reading this TechCrunch post made me remember the first time I saw someone confront a worldview they didn’t expect. Discovering that your worldview is wrong or mistaken can be a life-changing event.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. In those cases, the product may stay mostly the same, but the positioning, marketing, and - most importantly - prioritization of features changes dramatically. This is an exciting kind of change, usually. I like this term.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Naturally, we already know the standard of quality that they will use to judge our product.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

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. Giving your personas names and faces are less important than ensuring they are based on real people, not stereotypes.

Customer 133

Customer Analytics Conversion Lead Generation 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

As Im pontificating about agile, I see the name Kent Beck in my peripheral vision. Eric Names matter. By pulling in a web of associations, names help people quickly assess ideas. There is a dark side to naming. The naming question has been raised about the "lean" in Lean Startups. Eric Names matter.

Lean 140

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140