David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Organize events in your vertical.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

This preference isn’t necessarily due to market size, but rather the structure of the market: are there only a few dozen customers that might buy your product or are there thousands, or even tens of thousands of potential customers? CTO, VP of HR) in the customer organization.

Fractional CTO 154

Fractional CTO Software Review Viral Sales Cycle 154

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

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. a customer before you try and build a business. That’s in stark contrast to the traditional Product Development Model where it’s expected a customer is already there and waiting and it’s simply a matter of [.]

Product Development 146

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 146

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

Muun found a market need but failed to compete with bigger names that provided customers with authoritative content and resources. One neglected its positioning by failing to target the biggest pain point, and the other failed to build a brand that its customers could trust above the other major players.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 28, 2022

I came up with my company's name by envisioning what my company represents and that is an alpha level of customer service and training for me and my agents. We want our clients to feel like out of all the shopping they have done online they finally reached the top of their journey in securing the right product for their families.

Naming 150

Naming Entrepreneur Jordan Merger 150

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

Sloan realized that GM couldn’t compete on price, so GM created multiple brands of cars, each with its own identity targeted at a specific economic bracket of American customers. The idea was to keep customers coming back to General Motors over time to upgrade to a better brand as they became wealthier.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

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 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Version One Ventures

AUGUST 26, 2016

Building an efficient engineering organization takes more science than art and adding an experienced VP of Engineering to your team will maximize your chances of being able to execute on product development in the most efficient way. 5 th hire: VP Product. 2 nd hire: VP of Finance.

Part-Time VPE 60

Part-Time VPE Management Finance Vertical 60

Berkonomics

JANUARY 3, 2013

Most every business can take advantage of continuing, recurring revenues from its customer base. Sometimes, products are designed to make all of their profit upon the recurring revenues from supplies or support. We immediately recall the razor and blade analogy to illustrate the point when planning product development and release.

Revenue 79

Revenue Software Review Vertical Valuation 79

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 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

For example, he sees great potential ‘for co-pilots are “branded” sales people, like wealth managers, insurance brokers, and mortgage brokers’ and re-defining the product surface area, for example: how would AI change customer service or productivity?

Generative AI 78

Generative AI ChatGPT Artificial Inteligence Cofounder 78

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 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

DataRails , the financial analysis and reporting software startup, has announced the hiring of David Rosenberg as the company’s new VP of customer success. He has a wealth of experience in the data vertical, having served in previous roles at companies such as Intel, AllScripts, and Vision.bi. ” Product Focus. “The

Hiring 172

Hiring Software Review Customer 172

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

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 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

In addition, I’ve noted a few multi-product lending firms, e.g., Kapitus and United Capital Source , which provide RBI as one of many structural options to companies seeking capital. . We have a special program if you are pre-seed and need product development. Alternative Capital. “ You qualify if you have $5k+ MRR. Graduate.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

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 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

A high number of quality suppliers attract more customers; then more customers attract more suppliers to join, until the growth of sellers and buyers quickly accelerates. Expand into different verticals. Don’t spread across verticals too fast. That new product now represents 35% of their business.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Vertical Equity Cofounder 60

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

The chicken-egg issue of getting customers to your platform while you don’t have any money to spare is a puzzle that many companies are unable to figure out at all. 1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth. Apr-15: Head of Marketing (growth team).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 6, 2011

Our engineers often come up with great ideas, and they are the most productive when they work on these ideas. Shawn Gupta of OhLife , a personal journaling tool over email, has similar sentiments in using metrics to drive product innovation: Make metrics a core part of our product development.

Stealth 60

Stealth Startup Lean Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

The first startup, a vertical SaaS company, wondered if they should bring someone on board to run their paid search marketing campaigns or outsource it to an agency. The second startup was struggling to find good mobile developers and debated outsourcing their mobile app development to an agency.

PR 165

PR Vertical Mobile Hiring 165

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 7, 2013

With their lives perpetually tethered to the mobile web, the rise of these generations of tomorrow’s customers, managers and workers will change how we develop and consume technology. This will result in stronger networks of interaction and relationships from employees to suppliers to customers. billion) in 2005.

Technology 174

Technology Singapore Malaysia Indonesia 174

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 421

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 421

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Software By Rob

JULY 15, 2011

is a tool that helps you edge into customer development. It’s a free tool put together by Sean Ellis and Hiten Shah as a way for product owners to easily survey their customers using pre-written questions. So two weeks ago I dove in head first and emailed the survey to all of our customers. Photo by Eleaf.

Customer 55

Customer Analytics Vertical Sales 55

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

And, no matter the audience, whether investors, customers, or team, truth can be measured by how transparent you are. Customer-centric. While I do not subscribe to the maxim that “ the customer is always right ” I do strongly believe that the customer is always first. Disciplined. Focus equals discipline.

Small Business 95

Small Business Startup Leadership Vertical 95

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

It is generally a soft touch at the beginning of the development process, perhaps identifying 1-2 early alpha/beta customers to help flesh out use cases to be built upon over time. While I know I can add value, I also know when and how I can add value. Lack of confidence? Camaraderie? Perhaps all of the above. Lack of confidence?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

Redemption 127

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 127

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 30, 2017

My primary mission was to learn from the impressive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austin and draw lessons for developing the entrepreneurship education program for Beetroot Academy. This 4-part story, however, explores the Austin ecosystem based on the 4Cs framework —  culture , capital , customers , and competencies.

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Intellectual Property 48

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Filed under: Family/Career « Let’s Fire Our Customers Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1 » 3 Responses Twitter Trackbacks for Unintended Lessons « Steve Blank [steveblank.com] on Topsy.com , on September 28, 2009 at 10:04 am Said: [.]

North Carolina 146

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 146

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery. It’s a process that doesn’t exist in large companies with existing customers and markets.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 128

YoungUpstarts

MAY 4, 2015

More companies are realizing that sending their valued customers to Facebook and Twitter, then “buying them back” by spending money on ads on those sites, is not a great marketing strategy. So instead of “renting” social interaction, these companies are owning more of their social experiences – by creating their own customized channels.

Social Network 100

Social Network Vertical Networking San Francisco 100

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). Product second. This is obvious.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48