Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

AUGUST 23, 2010

At times I’ll do what I consider an extension of teaching; a two-day Customer Discovery/Validation intensive session with a large corporation serious about Customer Development at my ranch on the California Coast. It reminded me of the differences in Customer Discovery between a scalable startup and a big company.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer South America 238

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

VC’s were no longer insisting that startups spend faster, and “swing for the fences”. It was a nuclear winter for startup capital.” ” Steve Blank, “Is the lean startup dead?” ” The Lean Startup movement started out of necessity. Agile Development: launch an MVP early and iterate quickly.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

We realized that past K-12 Entrepreneurial classes taught students “the lemonade stand” version of how to start a company: 1) come up with an idea, 2) execute the idea, 3) do the accounting (revenue, costs, etc.). Customer Discovery in the Real World. Hawken students practicing Customer Discovery in a mall.

Lean 334

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? —— When I wrote Four Steps to the Epiphany and the Startup Owners Manual , I believed that Life Sciences startups didn’t need Customer Discovery.

SBIR 319

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 319

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? When we build products, we use a methodology. But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." a roadmap for how to get to Product/Market Fit."

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. How To Build a Web Startup – The Lean LaunchPad Edition. List key features/ Minimal Viable product plan.

Lean 334

Lean Web Coder Business Model 334

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 few investors suggested he add new product features, others suggested firing the VP of Sales. Steve Blank.

Business Model 334

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest.

Early Stage 292

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 292

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 2, 2013

Of the 100,000 people who will read this post, how many have made more money, and more consistent money, with less stress, with their startup than with their day jobs?) But the real life of a startup founder isn’t that at all. Startup founders want to say that, though. Even if it’s not really true day-to-day.

Cofounder 312

Cofounder Startup Founder Engineer 312

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

SneakerLabs’ first product was a Java-based chat server and client. Since I had good connections with the University, we got a lot of feedback on how the product could be improved to meet their needs. We listened to their feedback and started adding features to the product accordingly. The product worked. Not so fast.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

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. ——-.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

Re-architect and re-write” the product. As we’ve grown we’ve become less and less responsive to changing market and customer needs. While our revenue is looking good, we can be out of business in two years if we can’t keep up with our customer’s rapid shifts in platforms. Who Wants to Work on The Old Product.

Part-Time VPE 323

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 323

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. If they were a commercial company, they figured out product/market fit; or if a government organization, it focused on solution/mission fit. Process Versus Product.

Government 320

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 320

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 287

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 287

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

The class was unique in that it was 1) team-based, 2) experiential, 3) lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). When we started this class, the concept of Lean (business models, customer development, agile, pivots, mvp’s) was new to everyone. Class Velocity/Depth.

Lean 254

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 254

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Paul Graham’s Startup Curve – avoid the “through of sorrow”! Growth Hacking comes to solve a very common problem in consumer startups: getting to the first x thousand/million users quickly once the product has launched and the hype has passed. First Steps in Growth Hacking for Startups.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We’ve been a startup for the past two years or so and we’ve come to a critical point on this crazy roller coaster ride. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. So how did Customer Development fail us?

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. In all of these new product and cost-focused new trends, a big problem has emerged that all of these movements have not addressed.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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.

Burn Rate 251

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 251

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

The pandemic has upended the business models of most startups and existing companies. As the economy reopens companies are finding that customers may have disappeared or that their spending behavior has changed. Revenue models and forecasts are no longer valid. Although the large firms made the headlines, startups also pivoted.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

SVPG

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Much has been written about how to do product discovery in startups, by me and many other people. There are many challenges for startups, most importantly, survival. However, once your product develops to the point that it can sustain a viable business (congratulations!), Protect Revenue and Brand.

Product 67

Product NDA Continuous Deployment Reputation 67

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

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Waterfall Development.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

The company loses customers, then revenues and profits decline and it eventually gets acquired or goes out of business. He believed that large companies handle sustaining innovation – evolutionary changes in their markets, products, etc. valued by their existing customers – fairly well. Just like a startup.

Search 249

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 249

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. What kind of objectives would a startup want or need for sales and marketing? For example, some startup sales execs believe hiring the core sales team is a key objective.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

It turns out that for commercialization, the business model (Customers, Channel, Revenue Model, etc.) You can get a feel for how different by looking at the first two weeks of lectures – covering value proposition and customer segment – from each of the therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health cohorts.

Lean 264

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 264

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 304

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 304

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

For most companies to succeed, the goal is to deliver a quality product at a reasonable profit. 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

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it. And to today, when its major product is simply innovation. We’re standing 15 air miles away from the epicenter of technology innovation. The home of some of the most valuable and fastest growing companies in the world.

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

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

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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. With a little help from a friend, you can handle expenses, revenue, and payroll, with QuickBooks or a similar package.

Cost 405

Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan. It had taken the company almost twice as long as planned to get their product out the door. All discussion focused on “missing the revenue plan.”.

Revenue 232

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 232

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. Later entrants who miss that wave have to build real products that people want to buy. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.

Artificial Inteligence 323

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 323

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all startups. Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs.

Vertical 156

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 156