Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

“My engineers say our website is old school, and we need to be on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, my VP of Sales says we’re wasting our marketing dollars not targeting the right people and my board keeps giving me their opinions of how we should describe our product and company. Who’s the user of product? with a strategy.

Marketing 315

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 315

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The Torch program created Innovation Clusters by creating national Science and Technology Industrial Parks (STIPs), Software Parks, and Productivity Promotion Centers. It did so by building a national network of a 1,000+ Productivity Promotion Centers. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Programming 283

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 283

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. Here’s what the product development diagram looks like from a sales perspective.

Customer Development 227

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 227

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 303

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 303

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

By exploring customer service initiatives, new sales channels, and private label financing, to name a few, you can attract and keep new customers. Improve the Customer Experience. Without quality customer service, people won’t want to buy your products or use your services.

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

And I couldn’t have been put in a better place: testing the Air Force’s newest network security acquisitions. We were modernizing datacenters, buying vulnerability-scanning software, and adding intrusion detection appliances – all things typical of anyone running an enterprise-scale network. Up the hill!

Lean 267

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 267

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

He was part of the Sandbox network - a group of incredibly smart under 30 year olds.). more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups. more likely to successfully scale with product-centric startups with no network effects than with product-centric startups that have network effects.

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. And the whole site was developed in just 9 weeks. Ben Horowitz ’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things is driving the conversation around startup management this year. Eric Ries will interview him.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. The traditional business plan is an essential organizing and planning document to launch new products in existing companies with known customers and markets. Business Model Versus Business Plan.

Business Model 281

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 281

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. It’s a San Francisco Bay Area forum for networking, jobs and education for over 500 Product Management professionals. product managers in a startup can either be an asset or an albatross. Filed under: Customer Development.

Silicon Valley 264

Silicon Valley Management San Francisco Product 264

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

– while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products. Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “Here’s how smart I am, and isn’t this a great product, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the story of a team’s 10-week journey and hard-won learning and discovery.

Lean 410

Lean Security Asia SBIR 410

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The Torch program created Innovation Clusters by creating national Science and Technology Industrial Parks (STIPs), Software Parks, and Productivity Promotion Centers. It did so by building a national network of a 1,000+ Productivity Promotion Centers. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Programming 175

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 175

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Before setting out on his own, Dan held various product, research, and operations roles at Salesforce , SurveyMonkey , Forrester Research , and The Ladders. Additionally, he has an extensive background in building and launching consumer products at Seen, Clearwish (founder), and Woods Industries. Where did this company miss?

Columbus 248

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 248

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Everybody and their mom uses the internet to discover new brands, influencers and ultimately to buy new products and services. If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. Even if you have cheaper pricing or a better product, branding can make or break your success.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

It’s past the “napkin-sketch” stage with a rough minimum viable product and about 100 users. If they are correct, they’ve found a unique combination of customers and value proposition that made these customers want to immediately pay and repeatably engage. So what was the problem? Both of these are required reading.

Bandwidth 296

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 296

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

product that barely worked, no sales organization (except tech support, which often works better anyway ), and I just hoped they’d run a credit card. The contract says you retain the IP and are allowed to sell a product like this to other companies. You build the product, then you have your banner customer and go get others.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

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.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

Qualcomm’s visionary CEO, Paul Jacobs , wanted to use internal Qualcomm ideas to find breakthrough innovation that could be turned into products, (not simply a suggestion box for creative thoughts or improving sustaining innovation.) He gave my innovation team free reign on designing a new employee innovation program.

Programming 297

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 297

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Small startups act the same way, simply cloning each other’s products. business models.

China 326

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 326

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

Qualcomm’s visionary CEO, Paul Jacobs , wanted to use internal Qualcomm ideas to find breakthrough innovation that could be turned into products, (not simply a suggestion box for creative thoughts or improving sustaining innovation.) He gave my innovation team free reign on designing a new employee innovation program.

Programming 289

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 289

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

Instead, buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, their social network, or just plain word-of-mouth or customer reviews. It’s a myth that social networks and their technologies are creating new approaches to marketing. One is known as ‘Mr.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

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. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. I felt the same way.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2015

all in one role… The Startup Owner’s Manual clearly articulates the need to understand “how” a company buys a product. Be curious about workflow and how large IDN s (integrated delivery network) like Intermountain Healthcare are thinking about the integration of patient data into a workflow. of multiple hospitals?

Startup 120

Startup Early Stage Azure Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

And to today, when its major product is simply innovation. When the product and channel are bits, adoption by 10’s and 100’s of millions and even billions of users can happen in years versus decades. The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle.

Restful 238

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 238

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Talented product developers. If you can harness the knowledge, natural enthusiasm, and peer influence of your very best customers — I call them “Rock Star” customers — they’ll market, sell, and help develop breakthrough products for your firm better than your internal resources can do, and often at a fraction of the cost.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

Founders innately believe they understand a customers problem and just need to spend their time building a solution. To build products that people want and will really use, founders first need to validate the problem/need, then understand whether their solution solves that problem (i.e. finding product/market fit).

Customer 418

Customer Business Model Restful Video 418

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 19, 2017

Go ahead to include how-to-videos on the website that demonstrate proper use of products. Any issues with products should be responded to in less than a week. Also, provide a physical location where the products can be found. Most people would prefer to view a product physically prior to an online purchase.

Software Review 133

Software Review Technical Review Retention Channel 133

The Next Web

MAY 4, 2013

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Stefano Bernardi, who is on the founding team of Betable , where he heads Customer Development. He is a part-time hacker, angel investor, and product advisor, and was selected from more than 300 people to “shadow” Dave McClure at 500 Startups. It’s all about the network.

San Francisco 159

San Francisco Europe Technical Review Due Diligence 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Small startups act the same way, simply cloning each other’s products. business models.

China 218

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 218

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

If your last company was Apple, Blackberry, AdMob or JAMDAT and you have some experience in the sector then I know that your product will have your experiences baked into it. He’s built two ad network companies – he knows what he’s doing. version of their product was. Another example.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

It’s Not A Conversion Problem, It’s A Customer Development Problem. Think About Customer Experience, Not Just Conversion Optimization. Yet, it’s equally important that a business development person is able to communicate the value of your product to each, in order to truly tap into their customer base.

Developer 104

Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I think the best solution for the social networking era is “in-stream&# advertising. Golden rule of branding for me: 1) name your company or product your URL and 2) don’t paint yourself into a corner. &# Tweet&# = corner. This is a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Zazzle] and c) artisan products [etsy, foodzie].

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Before setting out on his own, Dan held various product, research, and operations roles at Salesforce , SurveyMonkey , Forrester Research , and The Ladders. Additionally, he has an extensive background in building and launching consumer products at Seen, Clearwish (founder), and Woods Industries. Where did this company miss?

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

One of the groups I spoke to was the Australian Sports Technology Network. They realized if they could develop and promote a well-coordinated sports technologies industry, they could capture their unfair share of the $300 billon sports consumer market. while building their products in China. Test product/market fit in the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

32 students were scattered across the globe and given a seemingly impossible assignment- they had 10 weeks to understand and then solve a real Dept of Defense problem – by interviewing 100 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, et al while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products – all while never leaving their room.

Oakland 312

Oakland Asia Lean Video 312

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. Growth rates for Apple’s four major hardware product lines – pic.twitter.com/apLp6PsiHX. A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend?

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92