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. Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.

Vertical 147

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Leveraging my marketing skills, I successfully made what Steve calls an “onslaught launch”, generating a lot of press coverage and apparent early success. However, when I looked into the detail, most of them did not have even early adaptors and the problem wasn’t “chasm crossing,” it was that almost nobody wanted their products.

Japan 296

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 296

Berkonomics

AUGUST 10, 2017

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. Ignoring cost of product for a moment to make a point, saving a month’s fixed overhead by making processes more efficient, could easily double profits for the year.

Silicon Valley 97

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 97

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Modern Corporation Marketing. auto market. car market. But the spirit of Billy Durant would rise again in what would become Silicon Valley.

Michigan 275

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 275

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. 4) You don’t see any revenue gain past three years. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

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. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Brilliant ad agencies and clever marketing communications experts. Talented product developers. Customer content and engagement built rapid growth in the success of Intel ’s social media and Web-based marketing efforts, increasing “customer contacts” by a factor of tenfold and overall page views by 100x. That’s right.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. A year goes by, you miss your revenue plan, and you’ve burned through your first VP of Sales. What happened?

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

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

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

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In contrast, sales and marketing activities before first customer ship are adhoc, fuzzy, and don’t have measurable, concrete objectives. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Berkonomics

MARCH 30, 2010

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. There is an art to efficient management of a process, whether that is the process of bringing a product to market from R&D to production or developing a new product’s launch program.

Silicon Valley 85

Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 85

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Super-angel investors are a new category of investors (like Mike Maples Jr. ), closer to venture capitalists, who are perceived to be more sophisticated, insightful, or well-connected in the startup community, particularly with respect to technology companies in Silicon Valley and other technology centers (also called micro-VCs).

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

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. Ultimately you want to see if you can find customers and a market for the product as specified – as early as possible. Technology?

Vertical 123

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

I have discussed at length why revenue sharing channel deals may serve as perfectly fine alternatives to raising equity (or even complements) because of their non-dilutive nature. I also advised Andrew to greatly tighten his product and go-to-market strategy. million in revenue. Note, I said, validated. Safarclick.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley. Confidence that the test will yield a successful result.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Growing revenue and profits is a core objective of most companies, and it is the responsibility of every function to contribute to the pursuit of this goal. Yet, the Growth Manager role remains poorly understood, especially outside Silicon Valley. Confidence that the test will yield a successful result.

Management 20

Management Analytics Technical Review Framework 20

www.lanceglasser.com

MAY 13, 2012

Product development. Queuing theory and product development. The Essential Product Investigation Phase Gate. So you want to ship the product early? Marketing and sales. The minimum viable product. Silicon Valley melting pot. Metrics for cyclical businesses. Let the Games Begin!

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Technical Review Architecture 40

Up and Running

JANUARY 7, 2020

One of the biggest challenges we overcame at Skylift was getting product-market fit to prove to investors we had a viable business. . Instead, what you read is how to communicate product-market fit. What is product-market fit? Then you talked about a completely irrelevant market problem.” .

Product 82

Product Marketing Silicon Valley Term Sheet 82

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. We know some products succeed and others fail, but the reasons are complex and the unpredictable.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D , part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley , and part three The 6 Decisions to Make Before Setting up an Innovation Outpost. Successful Innovation Outposts typically develop over a period of time through three stages. Silicon Valley, Boston).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. It’s a process that doesn’t exist in large companies with existing customers and markets. As you stated, the VCs only want to hear about product development and, I would add, revenue models.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 128

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Do they believe you have a big enough vision and market. Did the VC’s like your team

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.) Lets see why.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

At today's roundtable we had some intensive discussions around market sizing and its impact on financing. You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities - $500 million to $1 billion. I asked him several times what exactly is his TAM (Total Available Market). 30 million market?

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Are they consistent with your founding team, are they competitive in the market, and will they not create precedents that you’ll regret in the next round of hiring? That will keep the Silicon Valley wags buzzing for some time to come. Your Product Plan must fit into context of your overall business mission. Paisley is OK.)

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines. auto market with 60% of the U.S. car market. This time in what would become Silicon Valley. General Motors had 20%.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 161

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 20, 2016

When we say on-demand, the glorious image of Silicon Valley and its technological environs pops up in the layman’s mind, and even that may be too imaginative. The sharing economy is expected to grow to US$335 billion in revenue by 2025 from US$15 billion today, according to PwC – and these are no small numbers.

Demand 100

Demand Singapore Malaysia Asia 100

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities - $500 million to $1 billion. But there are others - many others - who are looking for smaller opportunities, playing in the sweet spot of $50-$100 million market opportunities. Is that a $20 million market? $30 30 million market?

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities - $500 million to $1 billion. But there are others - many others - who are looking for smaller opportunities, playing in the sweet spot of $50-$100 million market opportunities. Is that a $20 million market? $30 30 million market?

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Chris Neumann , on August 26, 2009 at 9:41 am Said: I think you need to look at the incentive system for TechCrunch. Mike Arrington is a capitalist. Customers walk, patients sue, and people vote.

Silicon Valley 191

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 191

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Build your own Startup Death Clock - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , November 1, 2010 A few months ago I created a fun device at WPEngine to focus everyone's attention the most important thing. The Proof Is In The Revenue. " 34; To which I say "we don't think we can time markets."

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. A description of the problem you’re solving for your customers, and your solution to the problem, which is usually your product or service.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D and part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. . Today, large companies are creating Innovation Outposts in Innovation Clusters like Silicon Valley in order to tap into the clusters’ innovation ecosystems. These challenges may be either strategic or tactical.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120