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

MAY 14, 2012

These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Traditionally, engineering, sales, and marketing have all focused on the immovable launch date. Executing on a sales and marketing plan. Focusing on the launch date.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

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 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. After awhile, you ought to be able to go to the whiteboard and diagram the acquisition decision process much like a sales process. Do you wait 7 years until you’ve built enough revenue for a billion-dollar sale? ——-. The Good News.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

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 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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

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. The Business Plan is Dead.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

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. If they had done this, there would have been zero dollars in sales. They never understood Market Type.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

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

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. I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. What happened?

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

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. Lessons Learned.

Channel 286

Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 286

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.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

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. What Does this Mean?

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. Am I in a company with “invention risk?

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

You can almost set your watch to six months or so after first customer ship, when Sales starts missing its “numbers,” the board gets concerned and Marketing tries to “make up a better story.” The web site and/or product presentation slides start changing and Marketing and Sales try different customers, different channels, new pricing, etc.

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Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

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

MARCH 11, 2015

They’ve figured out the revenue model (subscription, license, direct sale, etc.) and how to price the product. for new product development that emphasize immediate returns. There are financial metrics (Return on Investment, Hurdle Rate, etc.) Why Execution and Innovation Need Different Tools, Cultures and Organizations.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

When a startup finds a repeatable sales process and steadily increasing revenue, its investors wants to harvest the rewards and build a culture of “execution.”

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

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.) For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Sales – What Channel to reach the customer? New/Disruptive?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

Joe Dinucci, our VP of Sales, was hot on the trail of our next big order. He had just demo’d our product to his friend, the CFO of Autodesk. After seeing the demo, the CFO walked Joe over to the office of Autodesk’s VP of sales, and said to her, “I think this product might solve your sales reporting problem.”.

Forecast 290

Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 290

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. Which is why I had OEM sales as part of marketing—we had to earn our keep.). I think he came to appreciate the sales culture later on.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

Most competitive analyses are: 1) sales documents for investors and/or 2) an attempt to rationalize the founders assumptions. Product development salutes and gets to work building the product. And I had done my share. Here’s why. Prove What I Already Believe. It’s Part of the Plan.

Customer Development 259

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 259

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. Something else?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

The consulting firm suggested that they organize these 15 topic areas as a matrix organization, and the ballroom was filled with several hundred people from across their company – action groups and subgroups with people from across the company: engineering, manufacturing, market analysis and collection, distribution channels, and sales.

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Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 389

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. The goal was to figure out whether this product could become a company. Dollar size of deals is sufficient to be profitable with direct sales strategy. in Control Systems.

Business Model 236

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

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. 2) Provide corporate management with near real-time divisional sales reports and budgets that indicated when they deviated from plan.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

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

JANUARY 21, 2010

The good news is this team found a business model, product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. What lies ahead, however, is a different set of challenges: finding the new set of mainstream customers on the other side of the chasm and managing the sales growth curve.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out product plan becomes irrelevant. Great founding CEO’s live for these moments.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. They made other assumptions about the type of sales channel, partnerships and revenue model they would need. It All Came Crashing Down.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

It is relevant to and aligns the entire organization, e.g., sales, marketing, development, etc. It’s worth remembering that people buy products and services to get a “job” done. The goal of the market definition canvas is to help innovators uncover the job-to-be-done as perceived by the customer , not the product developer.

Customer 420

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 420

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Customer Development Manifesto. The Leading Cause of Startup Death: The Product Development Diagram. Rabbits Out of the Hat – Product Line Extensions……… 189. Sales, Not Awards……… 196. The Best Defense is a Good IP Strategy………… 65.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

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.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 8, 2015

In contrast, Facebook’s acquisition of the virtual reality hardware company Oculus still requires significant product development, identification of a viable business model – and the target market and revenue may never materialize. W hat would be the charter for our Innovation Outpost?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Acquisition Boston Early Stage 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

For example, US Steel had integrated vertically and was involved in the mining of the iron ore all the way to the production of various steel products, e.g., nails. These new corporate strategies drove companies to build structures around functions (manufacturing, purchasing, sales, etc.)

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Nand changed the culture of the JAIC, bringing in Silicon Valley tools for product development, product management and for the first time a culture that focused on UI/UX, MVPs and continuous integration and deployment. Selling JAIC Like Enterprise Sales. I organized my missions teams like an enterprise sales team.

Artificial Inteligence 388

Artificial Inteligence Fractional CTO Technology CTO 388

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Finally the board would fire the VP of sales.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222