Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

His reaction reminded me one more time why entrepreneurship is an art, why VC’s manage portfolios of companies and why new ideas come from those who don’t respect the status quo. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching. Customer Development Teaching' I’m a Domain Expert Damn It. Are You Crazy Enough ?

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Vertical Agile Lean 224

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

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.

Customer 420

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 420

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

In recent years Business Incubators have developed into diverse models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' 20% of the National Incubators were privately-run and their percentage is steadily increasing.)

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

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. The VC’s response? “Nah,

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

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

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

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

In recent years Business Incubators have developed into diverse models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' 20% of the National Incubators were privately-run and their percentage is steadily increasing.)

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs , Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation. To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

But underlying the company’s existence was a fundamental hypothesis we refused to see or test - customers would care if we did. Our potential customers didn’t seem to be calling for Hollywood stories, characters and narrative. Was my response to stop development of the games? That’s OK, because we knew better.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. The second development is SEIS and EIS. We recently published a case study of how that played out for our portfolio company Snaptrip. It went up on their blog yesterday. _.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

portfolios. That died with waterfall software development. It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small?

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies. I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems. “Oh It was a long way from Ellis Island.) Surprisingly, I enjoyed seeing other startups from an outsider’s perspective.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Her work included heading Nokia’s location-based services business and app portfolio for emerging markets, which she built from a back-of-a-napkin idea to a 100-person organization with over 10 million users. It can help develop applications for the startup’s technology in its early days.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Because kaChing prefers its portfolio managers to have a long track record, the marketplace launch (i.e., A portfolio manager’s entire track record & holdings had to be disclosed.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

We have a portfolio of more than 500 brands and 4000 products and people invite us into their lives more 1.8 For most big, established companies like us, our business models were developed years—even decades ago. in developing these new models. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Customer Development'

Lean 326

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 326

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Version One Ventures

APRIL 20, 2021

Filebase is very much an API-as-a-marketplace – similar to our portfolio companies Shippo and Patch. Decentralized storage networks are among the most distributed and secure networks in the world, but they can also require custom development and complex integration. It’s not simple.

API 102

API Portfolio Distribution Networking 102

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. Guide to Evaluating Startup Ideas - Tony Wright dot com , May 27, 2010 A great developer I once worked with was kvetching at lunch one day.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

In short, I find that authenticity helps a founder more quickly find product/market fit, recruit and inspire teams, and resonate more deeply with customers. One of our portfolio companies Scratch first tested their buying concierge concept by replicating the service strictly through email and humans on the back-end.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

That’s was what Advisor Impact found in 2010 when they surveyed more than 1,000 financial service clients to understand how customer satisfaction & loyalty was translating into new client referrals. In other words, customers were satisfied but they weren’t referring new business; why? image source. image source.

Programming 107

Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Entrepreneurial Development Firms. Thoughtbot - Web application development and design. Raizlabs – Mobile Development. Intrepid – Mobile development. Great for recent grads or career switchers.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. Steve Blank warns us of Drinking the Kool-Aid.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

produced this analysis of engineering representation within VC firms: Selected VCs with Highest Representation of Developers in Workforce. A number of analysts have particular focus on serving the customers of technology companies, e.g., Gartner and 451 Research. VC Firm. $ Tech % of workforce. Google Ventures (GV). 17% (13 / 80).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

You’re obviously not showing charts of user growth, number of customers, or revenue. Pre-launch customer development data is another way, sometimes in the form of user surveys for consumer companies or interviews with potential beta customers for B2B businesses. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

It only emerges after an intense business model design and search activity based on the customer development process. Companies will have to maintain a portfolio of new business model initiatives, not unlike a venture capital firm, and they will have to accept that maybe only 1 out 10 initiatives might succeed.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. These local governments financially supported the startups because, by locating in these zones, the new ventures were seen as contributing to local economic development.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

If our school is to retain its current standards in terms of access and excellence we think it is of paramount importance that we develop an overarching campus strategy that enables and supports online innovation. But the minute the memo started talking about a Policy Team developing detailed implementation plans, it was all over.

Portfolio 325

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 325

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

The “Customer Council” Advisor. A sales and marketing tactic as much (or even more) than a customer development one, try setting up a Customer Council Advisory Board. Highlighted Homebrew Portfolio Jobs. Plaid is a developer-first company making it easy for financial data to move between apps.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) Therefore, if you want to sell IMVU one day, you’ll need to abandon your business model, even though it’s generating a lot of revenue per customer.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167