Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

How do you figure out what’s the right mix of skills for the co-founders of your startup? I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. I told Radhika this is a perennial question for startups. ——-.

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Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Startups are the search to find order in chaos. At a board meeting last week I watched as the young startup CEO delivered bad news. Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Steve Blank.

Business Model 333

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 333

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. With a few more questions I learned that the code base, which had now grown large, still had vestiges of the original exploratory code written back in the early days when the company was in the discovery phase of Customer Development.

Part-Time VPE 319

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 319

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Stay tuned.

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Lean Security Asia SBIR 394

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) They went to work gathering deep knowledege of what makes successful Internet startups. Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. better user growth.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 324

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 324

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. As a startup owner, what can you do to improve your chances? Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

At the same time every computer company was writing its own operating system. Soon standard operating systems (e.g. It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” x86 , ARM.)

Customer Development 330

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 330

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Founders and entrepreneurial employees prefer operating in a chaotic environment with multiple unknowns.

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Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive. We get it! I Be specific. Stay Tuned.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 216

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 216

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

This integral element of most businesses is woven through every aspect of operations. For manufacturing startups, here are several ways to achieve effective supply chain management: Understand Your Supply Chain Elements. Too many startups mistakenly believe that their “widget” comes from one source.

Management 145

Management Forecast Los Angeles San Francisco 145

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Filed under: Customer Development.

San Jose 257

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 257

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation.

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Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 The lean startup Ive been thinking for some time about a term that could encapsulate trends that are changing the startup landscape. After some trial and error, Ive settled on the Lean Startup. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

You think startups are hard? The key was the realization that start-ups are not simply smaller versions of large companies, which execute/ exploit known business models, and whose customers, problems, and necessary product features are all “knowns.” There were no standard tools, methods, or playbooks for start-ups.

Incubator 408

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 408

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. What I found in Finland was: a whole lot of smart, passionate entrepreneurs who want to build a startup hub in Helsinki. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

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Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 325

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. The CEO was right.

Business Model 315

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 315

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 283

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 283

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Optimising Your Operations Efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to operations. Whether it’s managing your supply chain or automating customer service, look for ways to optimise every aspect of your operations. Develop a marketing strategy that leverages both digital and traditional channels.

Intellectual Property 133

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 133

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

A Proof of Concept center, which is not the same as a full-fledged incubator, would also be responsible to develop a companywide core competence in business model and open innovation design and a VC-like, staged-risk funding decision criteria for new market opportunities.

Programming 267

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 267

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

Salesforce, renowned for its robust customer relationship management (CRM) platform, serves as the nerve center for many businesses’ sales, marketing, and customer service operations. The post A Deep Dive into Salesforce SMS Integration Strategies for Enhanced Customer Engagement appeared first on The Startup Magazine.

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SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 125

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

The following is a guest post by Kirsten Cluthe and Ritika Puri from The Lean Startup Conference team Wondering what’s new in the Lean Startup community? Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. Here are some of our favorites: 1.

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Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 3, 2014

When I started with Forward Partners I went out to speak with a bunch of our target customers, entrepreneurs, and I learned a bunch of stuff which helped shape our strategy of empowering great entrepreneurs with minority stake investments and real-world useful help – but I’d have learned much more if I’d read this book first.

Customer Development 94

Customer Development Developer Customer Hosting 94

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. What’s Next for These Teams?

Oakland 306

Oakland Asia Lean Video 306

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

This change has presented a challenge for the news and media companies to adopt digital technologies for their business operations. However, these technological developments have also presented a special opportunity for companies to understand what their customers need and how they interact with their businesses.

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API Media Agile Technical Review 108

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Image via Wikimedia Commons. Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century entrepreneurship education fell into two categories: 1) starting small businesses and 2) starting high-growth, high-risk scalable startups. The case method and business plans are the antithesis of how entrepreneurs create startups. Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. And by product, I mean the creation of new hardware, services, software, tools, operations, tradecraft, etc. Companies Run on Process.

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Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 317

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more.

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Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments Image via Wikipedia Steve Blank and I had the opportunity to create a presentation about lean startups for Maples Investments. Agile software development. Customer development. you get the idea.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

The founder of this 1964 Silicon Valley startup was Bill Perry. Each week the teams marched through another box of the canvas, testing their hypotheses in front of beneficiaries using the customer development methodology, all while building and updating their minimal viable product. It’s a ton of work. Team Dynamics.

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Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120