Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? Reminder: What’s the Point of Talking to Customers ?

Customer 413

Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, November 7, 2008 Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online service, step-by-step If you want to build an online service, and you dont test it with a fake AdWords campaign ahead of time, youre crazy. If youre worried about disappointing some potential customers - dont be.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 212

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Finally, I’ll write about 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.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Either way, the “hurdle” for successful, scalable startups is high, and it gets higher every day as customer acquisition challenges continue to increase. There’s just no other way but, as Steve Blank has said for a decade, to “get out of the building” and talk to the only folks who matter—your customers. Dropbox is a great example.

Startup 332

Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 332

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. Even more serious, startups can have radically different cash needs.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

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. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. Teams talk to 10-15 customers a week and make a minimum of 100 customer visits.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

The moment I saw the product I knew every one of my professional graphics customers (ad agencies, freelancers, photo studios, etc.) But every graphics professional did own a CDROM drive but most didn’t own a high-resolution film scanner – and PhotoCD would have been perfect for them – and the perfect launch customer.

Search 256

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 256

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Suppliers also have machinery and technology issues to contend with as they create customized products. Transportation partners play an enormous role in the supply chain as they bring products into distribution centers and sometimes directly to customers. Develop Relationships with Supply Chain Partners.

Management 145

Management Forecast Los Angeles San Francisco 145

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

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.” The idea of exploitation versus exploration was central in my own work in building the lean methodology for start-ups.

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

In 10 years of venture investing I don’t think I’ve ever participated in a seed round which had less demand than supply. But at the same time, for seed stage needs, I’ve generally found they can provide much value ‘on demand’ without having to be caught up on the intricacies of your business.

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2024

One of the most exciting things a startup CEO in a business-to-business market can hear from a potential customer is, “We’re excited. This can be the beginning of a profitable customer relationship or a disappointing sinkhole of wasted time, money, resources, and a demoralized engineering team. And it went great. What did I do wrong?

Founder 331

Founder Engineer Sales Conversion 331

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ On the surface, Facebook seems like a marketer’s dream. This points to a fundamental disconnect between established companies and the customers they’re trying to reach. Find and leverage your customer influencers.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. Price is not an exercise in maximizing some micro-economic supply/demand curve, slapped post-facto onto the product. Price is inextricably linked to brand, product, and purchasing decisions — by whom, why, how, and when.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. Two paragraphs, Five bullets. It didn’t take more. I couldn’t care less about those.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

Now you can watch Part 2 “ The Lean Approach “ This group of six videos provides an overview of how to successfully do Customer Discovery. You’ll learn how to: get to know your customers. get, keep and grow customers. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 2:44: What is a Pivot?

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' New Rules for China. 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Either way, custom software development is an effective way to build brand awareness and give your business a competitive edge. In order to bring the most value to your business, it’s important you explore ways to enhance your customer experience. That’s why app development has become more popular over the years.

Developer 93

Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. It’s hard to believe these are the methods and tools of a profession designed to attract and persuade us to become customers — especially when “we the buyers” increasingly ignore them. Pushy salespeople.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. Analyzing a case in the classroom, removed from the realities of a new venture, adds little to an entrepreneur’s preparation for the chaos, uncertainty, and conflicting customer responses that all entrepreneurs face.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

The “strategy” of learning who SuperMac’s customers were, what solutions they needed and what our repositioning would be was a three month effort. it was the speed of the applications that customers were using to get their work done. So I was going to give our customers metrics neither they or anyone else had ever seen before.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. And their branding and demand creation activities were going to occur primarily outside of Australia. With 317 million people the U.S. Trip 2 to the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' New Rules for China. 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Students need to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week. Like all great Silicon Valley companies they started with a technology and guessed who the customers will be. Now they were figuring out how to create demand. “The customers had way more insights then we had.

Lean 272

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 272

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 14, 2016

The whole thing is well worth a read, but the killer section for me was “Startup Lesson #1: Know your customers — and why they need your product” Silver Concierge didn’t make it through the customer dev process. Seniors” is not a meaningful customer segment.

Customer 60

Customer Demand Campaign Customer Development 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

He explained that companies have a penchant for continually improving sustaining products by adding more features to solve existing customer problems, and while this maximized profit, it was a trap. He had introduced the idea that customers don’t buy a product, rather than they hire it for a “job to be done.”

Lean 428

Lean Business Model Government Agile 428

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story. That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. to optimize this search.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. Furthermore, a paying customer is an even better indicator that they truly care. They just built it. Some things just have to exist first.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151