Steve Blank

article thumbnail

Why Some Startups Win

Steve Blank

His company had marched through customer discovery, learning about the customer problem, validated solutions and was now scaling sales and marketing. And it was going to mention the two words that marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. Generate end-user demand (to match our revenue goals). All good news.

Startup 310
article thumbnail

Death By Revenue Plan

Steve Blank

In my last post I described what happened when a company prematurely scales sales and marketing before adequately testing its hypotheses in Customer Discovery. You would think that would be enough to get wrong, but entrepreneurs and investors compound this problem by assuming that all startups grow and scale by executing the Revenue Plan.

Revenue 230
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Why a Company Can’t “Be More Like a Startup”

Steve Blank

Its employees and investors don’t depend on an existing revenue stream. Every Airbnb rental is a lost night of revenue for hotels that hate it. To protect auto dealerships in the 1920s, direct sales by an automobile manufacturer were made illegal in most states in the U.S. None of the renters pay hotel or tourist tax.

Startup 275
article thumbnail

I-Corps @ NIH – Pivoting the Curriculum

Steve Blank

Next we teach Distribution Channels (how are you going to sell the product) and Customer Relationships (how do you Get/Keep/Grow customers) and Revenue Streams (what’s the Revenue Model strategy and pricing tactics.) You get an introduction to reimbursement early here, while the details are described later in the “Revenue” lecture.).

article thumbnail

Apple Vision Pro – Tech in the Search of a Market

Steve Blank

Marketing and capital expenses (new factory, high R&D expense) were predicated on consumer-scale sales. In addition, they’ve created an entirely new $85+ billion subscription business model; the App Store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV.

Search 256
article thumbnail

SuperMac War Story 9: Sales, Not Awards « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Oh yes, and retail sales doubled with the new product packaging.

Sales 120
article thumbnail

It Must Be A Marketing Problem

Steve Blank

CEO – “Well, we’ve missed our sales numbers for the last six months.” What does this have to do with missing your sales plan? CEO – “Well our VP of Sales isn’t making the sales plan and he says it’s a marketing problem, and he’s a really senior guy.”. The CEO asks the VP of Sales to join us in the conference room.

Burn Rate 248