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 419

Customer Business Model Restful Video 419

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

The benefits of customer and agile development and minimum features set are continuous customer feedback, rapid iteration and little wasted code. But over time if developers aren’t careful, code written to find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling.

Part-Time VPE 323

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 323

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

They launched an incubator for the top scientists and engineers in the U.S. 63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. government agency that supports research in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. billion U.S.

Incubator 307

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 307

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. I was an aggressive, young and a very tactical VP of marketing at Ardent , a supercomputer company – who really hadn’t a clue about the relationship between profound beliefs, customer discovery and strategy. I was a great marketer.

Business Model 345

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 345

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 287

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 287

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. This is often B2C because the value is in quantity of customers, and there’s 100x more consumers than businesses. $1/mo simple enough to be self-service). Even bootstrapped businesses can make this work (e.g.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Traction and evidence from customers were what investors were looking for – even in “slow” sectors like healthcare and energy. And there it was. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. But businesses are finding that Continuous Deployment not only changes engineering but has ripple effects on the rest of its business model. Waterfall – The Customer View.

Continuous Deployment 331

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 331

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military.

China 327

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 327

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves.

Lean 295

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). And going for crowdfunding before you do customer discovery with customers can lock you into the wrong idea too early. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. A study done by SurveyMonkey and Search Engine Land found that brand name was the first thing people looked for when clicking on search engine results: Source. Custom development. Website builders. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max entered Stanford in the fall of 2010 as a freshman, took as many of the engineering entrepreneurship classes as he could and independent study with me. (He But he left to work on what he told me he came to do - crack the innovation code of Silicon Valley and share it with the rest of the world. I was feeling pretty old.

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime , the first multimedia framework for a computer. The software was idiot proof.

Video 184

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 184

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military.

China 219

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 219

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 2, 2024

in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and 11 innovative patents to his credit, Jack Truong has an impressive history of researching untapped market niches and subsequently creating the requisite goods and services to fulfill them — all to the tune of major profits. Focusing on Your Sales Funnel With a Ph.D.

North America 97

North America Artificial Inteligence America Valuation 97

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Rather than a traditional VC pitch I suggested that they do something unconventional and tell the story of their journey in Customer Discovery and Validation. The heart of the Cafepress presentation is the “ Lessons Learned from our Customers ” section. The rest is just fluff. Your results may vary.

Venture Capital 239

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 239

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 127

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 127

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, – the business model – is what turns a product into a business. entrepreneurship is experiential and requires theory and a ton of practice. Reflection Week.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

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 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. The Army offered Fred Terman, the Dean of Engineering at Stanford, a $5M contract to build an electronics countermeasures lab. By 1961 its customers now included our intelligence agencies. There were no venture investors.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

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. If you can just be friendly enough and get your users to party with you, the rest is really easy. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. You could just outspend. Innovative.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By 1923, 2/3rds of the courses at Harvard were taught with the case method, and the pattern was set for business education for the rest of the 20th century. The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. Entrepreneurship Becomes a Subject in Business Schools.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. A giant fork in the road.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. A giant fork in the road.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, is you move from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek to jowl. Engineers were packed in cubicles or desks right on top of each other? Now every engineer can have their own office. A VERY nice office.

Silicon Valley 230

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 230

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 4, 2013

As a recent graduate of the Computer Science department at CU Boulder, I’m really lucky to have found what I want to do for the rest of my life, even if it was only recently. We learned how to do customer development, conduct empathy interviews, and build a real MVP (not just an alpha version).

Startup 130

Startup Vesting Cofounder Lean 130

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Or offer some real insights into our customers? It wasn’t a lack of competence or skill in her job; it was just that as far as she was concerned, her job had no connection to the rest of marketing, our customers or our ultimate success as a company. “We Has anyone ever spoken to a customer?” Ah, a leading question.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 210

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

customer development. agile engineering. Some general customer development slides click here. Called “ How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad ,” it walks you through the Business Model Canvas and an overview of the customer development process. Berkeley presentations, lectures and syllabus here.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress. I use the Investment Readiness Level as part of my sessions to help the students understand that being ready for investment means that besides having a pretty PowerPoint, they need to do real work and show Customer Development progress.

Sacramento 312

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 312

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) But what NYU did with the rest of their grant dollars was simply brilliant. Spread it Widely.

Lean 274

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 274

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 263

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

When I try to unpack what people mean by the question, heres my best take on what they are asking: "Look, Steve Jobs doesnt go out and ask customers what they want. He tells customers what they want, and he gets it right. When a customer tells you how they feel about your ideas, that doesnt tell you anything about your ideas.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Business Model Design meets Customer Development. Both Stanford and Berkeley have been extremely generous in letting me test these ideas in their engineering and business schools. Lean Launchpad.

Agile 254

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 254

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. The goal is for them is to observe this class, then host and teach the next round of 50 NSF Innovation Corps scientist/engineer teams in July. The EngineKites customer discovery narrative blog is here. Here are the first five.

Lean 261

Lean Business Model Agile United States 261

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2010

They were deep into Customer Discovery and presented a ton of customer data on the validity of their initial hypothesis – target customers, pricing, stickiness, etc. Wait a minute, what about the rest of Customer Development ? Wait a minute, what about the rest of Customer Development ?

Customer Development 313

Customer Development Singapore Channel PR 313