Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

A few of the many quotations that struck me: “Most startups fail due not to the failure of product development but due to the lack of customers”. Learning and discovering who a company’s initial customers will be and what market they are in, requires a process separate and distinct from product development”.

Japan 292

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Two years after release, product market share was up by 30% to 70%. The team followed these rules: Cardinal Rules of Synchronous Customer and Product Development. Twelve of 17 competitors were gone. The division was the dominant global player. Report to a “Board,” to explain and defend your strategy and business case.

San Jose 256

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

And if their initial guesses were wrong, they needed a process that would permit them to change early on in the product development process when the cost of changes was small – the famed “pivot”. They needed to be sure that what they were building was what customers wanted and needed.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Is it that some CEOs are better than others? Are their people smarter?

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

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 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Use of a Product Development Model to Measure Sales Using the product development diagram for startup sales activities is like using a clock to tell the temperature.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

The disadvantage is that its methodology was based on the old waterfall model of product development and not the agile and lean methods that startups use today. The advantage of following New Venture Creation is that it had a deep pedagogical infrastructure that students took away after they left school.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

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. This post describes such a model.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Executives look at that date and the calendar, working backward to ignite fireworks on the day the product is launched.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

Just as Durant had multiple interests, Musk is not only Tesla’s CEO and Product Architect, overseeing all product development, engineering, and design. At SpaceX (his rocket company) he’s CEO and lead designer overseeing the development and manufacturing of advanced rockets and spacecraft.

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

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. Market Type also affects the market size as well as how you launch the product into the market.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

The Lockheed Skunk Works led by Kelly Johnson was responsible for its Advanced Development Projects – everything from the P-80 , the first U.S. Skunk works differed from advanced research groups in that they were more than just product development groups. jet fighter plane, to the U-2 and A-12 spy planes.

Channel 286

Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 286

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. But there’s only one reason your company got funded. ——-. The Good News. To most founders a startup is not a job, but a calling. Traditional lenders (banks) think that startups are too risky for a traditional bank loan.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

.) – and the costs to deliver the product/service and have well defined product development and product management tools that emphasize the linear nature of shipping products to existing customers. for new product development that emphasize immediate returns.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Venture Capital | Tagged: Customer Development , Early Stage Startup , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Steve Blank « The Product Development Model There’s a Pattern Here » One Response Ho-Sheng Hsiao , on April 14, 2009 at 9:35 pm Said: I recently found your (..)

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

.” In searching for product/market fit (the right match between value proposition and customer segment) the product should be the last part you think of changing – not the first – as the cost of upending your product development organization is high.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

+ Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) + The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part 3) + The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 2) + The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 1) + The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product Development Diagram (..)

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

Product management tools like Stage-Gate ® emerged to systematically manage Waterfall product development. The product management process assumes that product/market fit is known, and the products can get spec’d and then implemented in a linear fashion. StageGate Process.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

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.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) How does product development differ in communications hardware versus enterprise software, etc. would look in each of the verticals.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.) Lie to My Face.

Forecast 264

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 264

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Convergent Technologies was one of those OEM suppliers.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. I call this process “Customer Development,” a sibling to “Product Development,” and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

More importantly, we’d witnessed Customer Development’s massive success at another local startup. We bought Steve’s book , started product development and began reaching out to customers ins search of our first earlyvangelists.

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Having failed to deliver the promised revenue, the VP of Sales in a startup who does not make the “numbers” becomes an ex-VP of Sales. The half-life of the first VP of sales of a startup is ~18 months.).

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

Product development salutes and gets to work building the product. Only after the product ships does the company find out that customers couldn’t have cared less about most of the bells and whistles. The mandate becomes; “Our competitors have these features so our startup needs them too.

Customer Development 259

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 259

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. Is there a profitable business model? Can it scale?” Great post!

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

Joe Bingold (MBA, Jun 2011) Head of Product Development for Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plant Control Systems, US Navy, MSME (Naval PGS), BSEE (MIT), P.E. Lee Redden (MSME Robotics, Jun 2011) Research in haptic devices, autonomous systems and surgical robots, BSME (U Nebraska at Lincoln), Family Farms in Nebraska. in Control Systems.

Business Model 236

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Stage 3: Productizing the Solution to Corporate Problems. In Stage 3 an Innovation Outpost creates a product development group to bring to market the solution(s) (a product or service) to the challenge(s) that led to the establishment of the Outpost in the first place. What solution are we productizing ?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization. These companies will look at innovative startups to help them gain market share from the incumbent.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

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 126

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 126

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

Challenges in Embracing Innovation in Government Agencies.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

Challenges in Embracing Innovation in Government Agencies.

Lean 177

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 177

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

It wasn’t always perfect, but it was way more right than wrong, It informed our product development to a great degree and kept us working on more or less the right stuff. Larry always had a 10-year technical vision that he could draw on the whiteboard or spin like a yarn. Back then he advocated for.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

+ Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) + The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part 3) + The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 2) + The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 1) + The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product Development Diagram (..)

North Carolina 143

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 143

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

Understand whether the problem is immediately solvable, requires multiple minimum viable products to test several solutions, or needs more R&D. I noticed that with all of the requirements fixed upfront, instead of having a freedom to innovate, the topic area action teams had become extensions of existing product development groups.

Framework 389

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 389