Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. He just hired Meg Whitman.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. Talented product developers. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. Are you ready to grow your company? That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Similarly, customers are more knowledgeable, aware, and conscious to choose from the variety out there, which slows down the company’s revenue and growth. Capturing and analyzing data enables companies to get insights that benefit their companies in cost-saving, relevant marketing, product development, etc.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Forecast Analytics Social Media 158

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2016

Assume you already know what your customers need and want. Just because you love a new solution doesn’t mean your customers will love it. Before spending any money, make sure you interact directly with potential customers, industry experts and investors. Forecast revenue growth that defies business principles.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Forecast Angel Investor 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Don’t give up your dream too early.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2017

From product development to market research, many startups are one-person operations in their early days. Even as their teams grow, entrepreneurs often feel that they must tend to every aspect of the business, including low-level tasks that distract from revenue-generating activity. The result?

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Management Arizona Software Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 30, 2022

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Optimize the total customer experience.

Mezzanine 368

Mezzanine Private Equity Bandwidth Metrics 368

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Between January 2015 and January 2016, we grew our platform Slidebean from $1K to $20K in monthly recurring revenue. Getting the first tracks of revenue is one of the toughest processes of building a startup. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

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

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. Customer service and support.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2017

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. In this article we explore the unique challenges of a lean start-up and how Outsourced Product Development (OPD) can be used to overcome them. Reducing product turn time. Extending the runway. The Lean Start-Up Environment.

Product Development 153

Product Development Lean Developer Product 153

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

Product development. Now that you have a refined product idea and a team that can turn this idea into reality, the product development stage will start. Initial product development usually consists of prototyping and MVP. Prototyping usually means the initial working draft of the product idea.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

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

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction? They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

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 162

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. Hold the phone far away from your ears.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Cofounder Sales 306

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Some make big mistakes, such as Webvan expanding too fast with a huge infrastructure, and Pets.com , trying to grow the business with a negative margin, under the mistaken assumption that winning customers is more important than making a profit. Introduce new products and enhancements every month. Don’t give up your dream too early.

Social Media 329

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. 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

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Who should you hire? In a way, you can think of BD as “sales when you don’t know what the product is yet.” It’s basically working with potential outside partners to reach your business goals--which could be revenue, distribution, financing, product development, awareness, etc. How are you ever going to get it done?

PR 160

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 160

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Exactly three months after its $48 Million funding announcement, Smooth-Stone today detailed its company momentum, including significant new executive hires, new office space and renaming the company. This is within our reach with technologies we are developing at Calxeda.

Naming 59

Naming Hiring Technical Review Virginia 59

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 24, 2017

4- Hiring amazing team. At Cave, our biggest accomplishment this year was hiring impressive new people. We pride ourselves on offering our clients the best marketing services possible, and our most recent hires are a perfect fit for our mission. We were selling over $25,000 of products per hour at this pop up store.

Las Vegas 88

Las Vegas Entrepreneur Software Review Community 88

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 26, 2022

You're likely going to be experiencing revenues in waves, owing to the pandemic booms and dips, and the varying regulations. Prezi hired the former director of product from Pixar to build a more cinematic video meeting experience. #11- 16- Customer focus. Thanks to Sameera Sullivan, a Relationship expert ! #6-

Software Review 122

Software Review Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur 122

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 10, 2010

Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. The Proof Is In The Revenue. Hiring The Right Candidate. Two years ago, 93% of Americans believed companies should have a social media presence.

Social Media 134

Social Media Media Programming Viral 134

ConversionXL

APRIL 17, 2019

Conversations with prospects or customers can improve practically every metric or user state model you’re aiming for. As Jen Havice noted here on the CXL blog , insights from customer interviews can: Accelerate the customer journey; Increase conversions; Drive more leads, sales, and revenue. Under “What’s Missing?,”

Customer 120

Customer Framework Conversion Search 120

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

The business development team needs to see the customer feedback they deliver make it back into the product, and the tech team needs to see reasonable requests to develop new features without a constant stream of changing direction. Hire T-Shaped People. Make sure to hire T-shaped individuals. Build Trust.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

ReadWriteStart

JULY 12, 2023

Companies can improve their efficiency, productivity, and responsiveness with the aid of these solutions. Companies can reallocate resources back into core business activities and new product development by streamlining IT operations. Q: How important is customer acquisition for IT management firms?

United States 121

United States Management Mexico Artificial Inteligence 121

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

By definition, second-stage ventures generally have 10 to 99 employees and/or $750,000 to $50 million in revenue, and see that as just the beginning. Growth is more than simply repackaging existing products, and adding bells and whistles or slick incentives. Hire more help than helpers. Optimize the total customer experience.

Mezzanine 244

Mezzanine Private Equity Startup Bandwidth 244

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Austin Startup

APRIL 8, 2019

Team morale is high, we are exceeding the [REDACTED] KPI by several months, burn went up faster than expected, and product development is ticking along well except for one hiccup. At the end of the month, I will be in San Francisco for a customer meeting but am padding a day on either side to meet amazing people.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Balance Sheet Startup Austin 48

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 5, 2018

From smart cities and driverless cars to artificial intelligence, big data, CRM and SaaS, 2018 is ripe for technology companies to achieve record revenue and profits. Ahead of CES, product development teams scrambled to make sure their shiny new product was ready for prime time. Scientific Interviewing and Hiring.

Sales 113

Sales Artificial Inteligence Retention Startup 113

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Just once I'd like to see a pitch deck with a slide for the hiring plan and *most* importantly, how they're going to execute it. Top talent drives revenues, business development, great product development. Oh, you're going to hire 15 engineers with my $5mm? sounds good.". %^%#@@!!

Hiring 111

Hiring PR Differentiation Acquisition 111

Small Business Force

AUGUST 27, 2017

The company didn’t have great results over this time, with only two sales, generating minor revenue. The CEO and founder, who hired and fired the staff, blamed the lack of sales on two things. This made it difficult to establish a value proposition for the customer. Only products that can show real ROI stand a chance.

Sales 30

Sales Sales Cycle Product Technical Review 30

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. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168