ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

This philosophy comes from The Lean Startup methodology , which relies on testing hypotheses to better understand your customers’ pain points and goals. It outlines four major growth strategies: market penetration , market development , product development , and diversification. Product development.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Last May, I shared the news that long-time Lean Startup advocates Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits were working on a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur featuring illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. That new book is about to hit bookstores everywhere.

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Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Following is his advice to early stage entrepreneurs for creating structure in their company. So, I’ll explain my reasoning through the story of ASC, a fictitious company that has a combination of characteristics I’ve seen across a number of early stage companies. Seven months in, there is a beta product.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Another advantage of the early stages is that most dont have to juggle too many competing priorities. If you dont have customers, a product, investors, or a board of directors, you can pretty much stay focused on just one thing at a time. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 22, 2015

A massive rain storm blew through San Francisco in the middle of last year’s Lean Startup Conference. Why You Should Join Us in 2015 Since 2011, The Lean Startup has helped countless ventures transform ideas into thriving businesses. Register today to take advantage of our Spring sale prices. No lights, no wifi, and no A/V.

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. Let’s take sales and business development. Ready to start simplifying?

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PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

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. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

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Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. Am I in a company with “invention risk?

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

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Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

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. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup.

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Up and Running

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

When you put together a business plan, you have to spend time thinking about things like your target market , your sales, and marketing strategy , the problem you solve for your customers, and who your key competitors are. Investors, particularly those investing in early-stage startups, want to understand your vision.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup.

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Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

But if that piece-parts solution is great, then its unlikely they are going to need to buy any additional products. Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth. Aug-15: Head of Sales (growth team). Nov-15: Graphic Designer (growth/product). Nov-15: Graphic Designer (growth/product). Dec-15: Developer (product team). Lean marketing.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

A year ago I blogged about one of my most common mantras that applies to sales, biz dev & fund raising alike: “ Time is the Enemy of all Deals.&#. Are you in the “lean&# phase? I’m a very big believer in the “Lean Startup&# principles as espoused by Steve Blank and Eric Ries.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Because you get organized around marketing metrics, because your campaigns get optimized, because your landing pages and drip campaigns become stronger, because word of mouth produces sales “for free,” and so forth. Another is that average revenue per customer increases. You spend less on marketing/advertising/acquisition.

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BeyondVC

DECEMBER 10, 2009

Financial models for startups are important from a big picture perspective, but I never like to get mired in the full details as things always change in the early stages. In my mind some of these key variables include new bookings, growth of deferred revenue, churn rate, cost of acquiring new customers, and obviously cash.

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Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

Lean Analytics is the latest addition to the Lean Series. Matrix Partners' David Skok agrees with the 5% churn threshold, but only for early stage companies, and says that you have to see a clear path to getting churn below 2% if you want to scale significantly. “In

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Well, my advice for Chak is to focus steadily on a worldwide list of greeting card distributors using Telewebsales and Sales 2.0 methodologies - in other words, dont invest in travel and in-person sales, but try to close as many deals as possible by phone and the Web. (On While you may not have the budget to spend $500,000 on Sales 2.0

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www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Well, my advice for Chak is to focus steadily on a worldwide list of greeting card distributors using Telewebsales and Sales 2.0 methodologies - in other words, dont invest in travel and in-person sales, but try to close as many deals as possible by phone and the Web. (On While you may not have the budget to spend $500,000 on Sales 2.0

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Almost all of the companies we invested in in 2017 had customers even if they didn’t have much of a product. Those who didn’t have a product or much of a product used a concierge model of sorts ala Lean Startup philosophy to start running their business. You charge a high enough (i.e.

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Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Almost all of the companies we invested in in 2017 had customers even if they didn’t have much of a product. Those who didn’t have a product or much of a product used a concierge model of sorts ala Lean Startup philosophy to start running their business. You charge a high enough (i.e.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. Customer Development Manifesto. The Leading Cause of Startup Death: The Product Development Diagram. Customer Development In the Real World.

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Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Do we believe “startup-driven” innovation (innovation that comes from relationships with external, early-stage companies) should be part of the corporate innovation portfolio? Acquiring a growth-stage private startup can provide a faster ROI at lower risk than the acquisition of an early- stage startup.

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Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 26, 2015

This week, the Lean Startup took over the blog on Intuit Labs with original stories centered around experimentation as a method for investigating all parts of a business or product idea. We also posted Lean Startup 101 , in case you’re looking for a refresher or an explainer to send to friends or colleagues.

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maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? Or should I launch products and a startup for each of them, focusing on only 1 product at a time? I also like to get a sale $$$ ASAP.

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Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. While this may seem obvious to anyone not in sales and marketing, trust me, in a technology company this is a conceptual breakthrough. Every product marketer thought they should help define the product feature set, etc.

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Love the guest post TechCrunch!

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Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team?

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Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources. Lean Startup Circle â?? turn customer feedback into sales and relationships.

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53