Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

I think customer feedback comes in a very unstructured manner, hence it is difficult to apply an algorithm on it. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. Order Here.

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. What a great idea.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. Let’s Fire Our Customers Part of the DNA of great entrepreneurs is a bias towards decisive and immediate action. Get it done, now.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

V: Should you raise venture capital from a traditional equity VC or a Revenue-Based Investing VC? GCVF is pioneering the future of venture capital and high growth startups for all small communities. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

I first met Evangelos Simoudis when he ran IBM’s Business Intelligence Solutions Division and then as CEO of his first startup Customer Analytics. Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. and the emergence of new industries, markets and customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&# Context here.)

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. In the Early Days.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

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. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2022

And they figure out how they could digitally enable their business – supply chain, customer interactions, etc. They explore and analyze data using machine learning platforms to create models about customers, processes, risks, or whatever they’re trying to predict. Making business smarter : Customer Support. What’s Different?

Artificial Inteligence 417

Artificial Inteligence Software Review Algorithm Technical Review 417

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . At Flow Capital, we use HubSpot’s sequences and workflows functions to automate a bulk of our emails and internal tasks. 3) Raise capital. 6) Due diligence.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Hearpreneur

FEBRUARY 19, 2023

With the evolution of technology, there's room for so much more but the requirements are becoming extremely competitive as consumer behavior is evolving, with the need for personalization, interactivity, engagement, and an epic customer journey. Thanks to Denise Hemke, Checkr ! #3- Thanks to Matt Bowman, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency ! #9-

Artificial Inteligence 104

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Entrepreneur Global 104

Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Our first question was, did the total number of customers that had already bought products from our competitors and us represent a saturated market or the tip of the iceberg? Since I was heading a marketing department, not acting as an individual contributor, I needed to teach all of marketing the importance of customer data.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Customer RSS Philippines 134

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. The first step was to recruit a new management team. Why they were looking to me to run marketing wasn’t clear. I took the job.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Don’t take my word for it – in the roundup of venture capital predictions for 2017 , I found it to be the top recurring theme. Many large companies will be built (Michael Wolfe, Point Nine Capital). Venture Capital investments in AI, Europe 2016 (Source: Dealroom ). Billion in VC funding.

Artificial Inteligence 122

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Startup 122

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

I guess it may be impractical for Twitter to acquire Seesmic given it has raised considerable amounts of venture capital (reportedly $12 million) but the broader point for me is that I always believed Twitter should control the client versions of its product. Think about the creative tension.

Acquisition 287

Acquisition Developer Management Advertising 287

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 13, 2013

These vertical solutions would focus on specific pain pain points in the enterprise, such as logistics or customer relationship management. Slice and dice this landscape according to different features/metrics that you think are important to your CUSTOMER. Are you following, in sync, or ahead of the market? – PEOPLE.

Advisory Board 70

Advisory Board Cloud Venture Capital Vertical 70

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Finally, for those of you who need some additional infusion of courage, please study the story of Ryan Allis in North Carolina who bootstrapped his company iContact to $1 million in revenue and THEN raised venture capital to get to $40 million. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina San Diego Entrepreneur Balance Sheet 116

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 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that.

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. Lots of ideas sound exciting because people are clueless.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

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

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. Graduate.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

VC Cafe

APRIL 27, 2011

Despite the VC’s obvious disadvantage in the early stages, marketing and differentiation of venture capital funds is limited today. Create events around guests arriving from abroad or experts in a vertical area. So what makes one VC fund be better perceived than others? Can they teach each other something?

Venture Capital 90

Venture Capital Differentiation Incubator Angel Investor 90

VC Cafe

MAY 18, 2022

venture capital and private equity) the VC index (by Refinitiv) shows a nearly 40% decline. After the crazy year that was 2021 in venture capital, the tone has rapidly changed in May 2022. What is your plan if half your current customers go bankrupt? Gil Dibner, Angular Ventures. Multiples by vertical.

Term Sheet 190

Term Sheet Startup Valuation Ukraine 190

Version One Ventures

APRIL 8, 2014

Thus, it should come as no surprise that we are now seeing Venture Capital being disrupted by these forces as well. In his post The Disruption of Venture Capital , Albert Wenger described VC as “the club you had to be invited into.”. Enter Mattermark: where “Big Data Meets Venture Capital”.

Venture Capital 160

Venture Capital Vertical Curation SEC 160

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

This focus has helped me recruit the best and the brightest in the field, build a world-class operation, and most of all, with all the knowledge in a specific vertical, help build a leading agency for food & beverage manufacturers that are looking to build a direct to consumer channel. Thanks to Mac Fadra, MAXiM Hair Restoration ! #12-

Entrepreneur 117

Entrepreneur Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 117

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

In many cases, a deeper focus on a particular category or vertical allows these marketplaces to distinguish themselves from broader marketplaces like eBay. Stitch Fix’s algorithms match the perfect stylist with each and every customer to help ensure the optimal outcome for each client. As you can see, that can be a big mistake.

Internet 88

Internet Matching Vertical Hosting 88

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Version One Ventures

JULY 11, 2013

Every venture capital firm narrows its investment focus one way or another…perhaps by geography, sector, and/or stage. For example, at version one ventures, we’re focused on early-stage (seed and Series A) opportunities in e-commerce, SaaS, and marketplaces/platforms across North America.

North America 147

North America Vertical Venture Capital Early Stage 147

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Can you recognize and capitalize on them? Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? And you’ll still need to have a resilient and agile personality, as new customer and product opportunities will appear and change your work. Get customers first. But it won’t be happening daily.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Haystack

MAY 9, 2019

2/ Capital Efficiency And Returns: While the companies aren’t exactly similar (slightly different models and product mixes), it is worthwhile to note that Dollar Shave raised about $170M, whereas Harry’s is believed to have raised somewhere between $350M-$400M in venture capital. razor market.

Acquisition 121

Acquisition Liquidity Event Venture Capital Vertical 121