Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2015

She had an interesting insight: existing content/media companies were having the same problem as hardware companies that rarely made the leap to new platforms. And she had a model for a new media company for mobile and wearables. lots more women founders in media companies than you find in enterprise software companies.).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley New York City New York Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2016

we held a DOD/IC 101 workshop, our advanced lecture was on the Value Proposition Canvas , and we watched as the students ran into common customer discovery obstacles and found new ones. Team Narrative Mind is trying to understand, disrupt, and counter adversaries’ use of social media. This post is a continuation of the series.

Social Media 132

Social Media Customer Programming Video 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Within a decade, the rise of venture capital in Silicon Valley enabled startups to find commercial customers rather than military ones. And from then on, innovation in semiconductors, supercomputers, and software would be driven by startups, not the government. companies felt a patriotic duty to help their country defeat a common enemy.

Government 308

Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 308

Steve Blank

MAY 20, 2020

I receive emails and texts, as well as social media posts daily, and it is inspiring,” Jill says. Since she can’t perform in person anymore, she’s switched to virtual party packages with customized entertainment for each client. Can you move to digital/online, extending your reach and potential customers?

Small Business 434

Small Business Jordan Green Social Media 434

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2016

we held a DOD/IC 101 workshop, our advanced lecture was on the Value Proposition Canvas , and we watched as the students ran into common customer discovery obstacles and found new ones. Team Narrative Mind is trying to understand, disrupt, and counter adversaries’ use of social media. This post is a continuation of the series.

Social Media 120

Social Media Customer Programming Video 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. like WeChat.).

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. Visionary CEOs are product and business model centric and extremely customer focused. They know who their customers are because they spend time talking to them. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. Visionary CEOs are product and business model centric and extremely customer focused. They know who their customers are because they spend time talking to them. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. They had reinvented a traditional print media category onto web and mobile devices for a new generation of users who were no longer buying magazines but reading online.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Gathering real-world feedback from customers is a core concept of Customer Development as well as the Lean Startup. When I asked him if he actually had personally left the building and talked to these potential customers, or even had gotten them on the phone, he sounded confused. Customer needs are non-deterministic.

Metrics 239

Metrics Customer Customer Development Lean 239

Steve Blank

APRIL 25, 2016

.); we sent each team a critique of their mission model canvas; we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators; our advanced lecture explained how to go from concept to deployment in the DOD/IC; and we watched as the students got closer to understanding the actual problems their customers have. See slide 2.)

Afghanistan 120

Afghanistan Iraq Technical Review Social Media 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 25, 2016

.); we sent each team a critique of their mission model canvas; we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators; our advanced lecture explained how to go from concept to deployment in the DOD/IC; and we watched as the students got closer to understanding the actual problems their customers have. See slide 2.)

Afghanistan 120

Afghanistan Iraq Technical Review Social Media 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. like WeChat.).

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

A thought leader in the area of big data analytics, social media, optimization, machine learning, and data mining, he also served as a Venture Advisor focusing on big-data analytics at Trident Capital , and was on the advisory board of several startups. . Filed under: Customer Development. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. I reminded her that all the Lean tools she learned in class–Customer Discovery, business model and value proposition canvases– contained her answer. Audience(s), Message, Media, Messenger.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2012

Facebook and Social Media. and aim for hundreds of millions of customers. And those customers may be using their devices/apps continuously. Today, social media startups can return 100’s of millions or even billions in less than 3 years. Instead, the investor money is moving to social media. And who can blame them.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Social Media Media 336

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

Chris Schroeder , Internet/media CEO, venture investor and author of Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East. First of all, most of your customers don’t know or care who any of these venture firms are. For customers t he venture firm brands don’t matter. Chris Schroeder.

Washington 285

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 285

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. About 1/3 of all China’s Venture Capital investment is made in Beijing and the majority of those investments are in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector I’ll describe shortly. Closed for You, Open For Us.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

It struck me as I watched the teams try to find how their technology would solve real customer problems, is that machine learning is following a similar pattern of previous technical infrastructure innovations. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. This team epitomized rapid learning.

Artificial Inteligence 318

Artificial Inteligence Lean Exit Strategy Startup 318

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

The eight teams spoke to over 820 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security, customers, etc. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the presentations are worth a watch.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Disruptive innovations are coming from startups – Telsa for automobiles, Uber for taxis, Airbnb for hotel rentals, Netflix for video rentals and Facebook for media. They’re better than large companies at identifying customer needs/problems and finding product/market fit by pivoting rapidly. What’s holding large companies back?

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

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.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. About 1/3 of all China’s Venture Capital investment is made in Beijing and the majority of those investments are in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector I’ll describe shortly. Closed for You, Open For Us.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

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. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Worry about the sales results. That’s 10x what many websites convert.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

After a year and a half of running training and teaching the new Z-8000 and its peripheral chips, I began to figure out that one of the jobs of marketing was to translate what engineering built into a description that our salesmen could use to talk to potential customers. I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

Chris Schroeder , Internet/media CEO, venture investor and author of Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East. First of all, most of your customers don’t know or care who any of these venture firms are. For customers t he venture firm brands don’t matter. Chris Schroeder.

Washington 120

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 11, 2020

This move effectively limits China’s access to a critical resource- the custom chips that are vital to products that fuel China’s domestic and export growth. States can utilize subversive and disruptive messaging on social media and other platforms to sow discord and confusion within an adversary’s borders.

Technical Review 322

Technical Review Taiwan Technology Design 322

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

For software, gone are the days of having to buy a new version of physical media (disks or CD’s.) The downside is when companies unilaterally remove features from their products without asking their customers permission and/or remove consumers’ ability to use the previous versions. Their customers weren’t amused.

Product 335

Product Cloud Software Engineer 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2017

In addition to customer discovery, creating end user demand, and product strategy, Marketing also serves as a service organization to sales. It drove me crazy when we failed to deliver a project for sales on time or we missed a media deadline. So we created The No Excuses Culture. — No Excuses as a Core Value.

Bankruptcy 371

Bankruptcy Sales Channel Restful 371

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

It’s worth noting that everything from the Internet, to electric cars, genomic sequencing, mobile apps, and social media — were pioneered by startups, not existing companies. The convergence of digital trends along with the rise of China and globalization has upended the rules for almost every business in every corner of the globe.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2016

They talked to 86 customers/stakeholders before the class started. Slide 4: Customer Discovery. Team Narrative Mind is trying to determine how to use data mining, machine learning, and data science to understand, disrupt, and counter adversaries’ use of social media (think ISIS). It’s a natural mistake.

Lean 120

Lean Silicon Valley Social Media Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2016

we held a Customer Discovery workshop, we started streaming the class live to DOD/IC sponsors and other educators, our advanced lecture was on Product/Market fit for the DOD/IC and we watched as the students solved their customer discovery obstacles and started getting closer to their customers. See all the H4D posts here.

Social Media 134

Social Media Networking Naming Aggregator 134

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade. Today, startups receive only 4% of those funds, something Clearshore–now in the customer discovery phase–is out to change. Now Hear This.

Silicon Valley 195

Silicon Valley California Vertical Customer Development 195

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

I was surprised how interested the faculty was in exploring whether the Capstone class could be modified to use the Customer Development process to get input from potential “customers” inside the Air Force. with the product built incrementally and iteratively, as students acquire more customer feedback.

Silicon Valley 255

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 255

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

These are generating actual customer feedback, which is accelerating the teams’ learning. We’ve challenged them to consider how they will acquire, keep and grow their “customer base” – whether those customers are Syrian refugees or U.S. government bureaucrats. Teams hit the class running.

Eritrea 253

Eritrea Lean Libya Silicon Valley 253

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

These are generating actual customer feedback, which is accelerating the teams’ learning. We’ve challenged them to consider how they will acquire, keep and grow their “customer base” – whether those customers are Syrian refugees or U.S. government bureaucrats. Teams hit the class running.

Eritrea 253

Eritrea Lean Libya Silicon Valley 253