Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Doing so meant they would have to take risks for IP acquisition and customer/market risks outside their experience or comfort zone. 2) We should have had buy-in about the value of disruptive new business models, design and open innovation thinking. Venture Fest was not integral to their success.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Now that you’ve gotten to know your potential channel and customers, regardless of how much money you’re going to make, will you enjoy working with these customers for the next 3 or 4 years? It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. It never goes well.

Cofounder 325

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 325

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Back then, an entrepreneur used a serial product development process that proceeded step-by-step with little if any customer feedback. They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers). customer segments, such as users and payers or moms or teens. Testing Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers. Module 2, Getting Out of the Building: Customer Development. 0:24: What is Customer Development? 1:09: How Do You Start the Customer Development Process?

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 328

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 6, 2020

Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. So, it’s incumbent on us to think about the ramifications of these acquisition decisions.

Technology 397

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 397

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

You might hire a really amazing designer, and perhaps even charge companies for their service for cost recovery purposes. However, the designer is a non-scaleable service; you’ll have to hire more people like her as your portfolio grows. . Customer Development. Is the service scaleable? Advantages. Disadvantages.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Tech acquisitions went crazy at the same time the IPO market did. The Rise of Mergers and Acquisitions -– March 2003 -2008 After the dot.com bubble collapsed, the IPO market (and most tech M&A deals) shutdown for technology companies. And some companies didn’t even have to go public to get liquid. billion.) So what’s left?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

andrewchenblog.com

MARCH 10, 2010

Coupled with A/B testing, customer development, and thinking through business problems in a scientific, hypothesis-driven way, you end up with a powerful cocktail of techniques to build a modern startup in the most iterative way possible. However, there’s the other side of the coin, which is the product design.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

For example, one of the critical business model hypotheses they could test locally is Product/Market fit – the connection between their Value Proposition (what product or service they were building) and the Customer Segment (who they were building it for.). Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I think everybody heard about this acquisition. On the founder’s side it’s about taking money off of the table and / or having strategic reserves for big acquisitions. Quirky - Platform facilitating collaborative design of consumer products through an online community. M&A Discussion. No big surprise.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. Personally, I think that customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc.,

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

Most companies incrementally improved their products with process innovation (better materials, cheaper, product line extensions) and/or through acquisitions. But to survive companies need innovation by design. Companies now need innovation by design – innovation and execution that work side-by-side. Here’s how.

Channel 286

Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 286

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

ARM, a competitor, not only had a better, much lower power processor, but a better business model – they licensed their architecture to other companies that designed their own products. Capital is returned to these investors through liquidity events (originally public offerings, but today mostly acquisitions).

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?)

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Next, we needed to focus our messages away from technology and onto what the customers told us they needed – performance solutions for four key publishing applications. Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw. Very much in addition to the text.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Tech IPOs were a receding memory, and mergers and acquisitions became the only path to liquidity for startups. VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Startups could now get a first version of a product out to customers in weeks/months rather than months/years.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Their R&D groups and contractors had the smartest domain experts who could design and manufacture the best systems. They can crowd-source designs, find components through eBay, fund through PayPal, train using virtual worlds and refine tactics, techniques and procedures using massive on-line gaming. We’re Our Own Worst Enemy.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

In a major break from the past, where the military designed all its own weapons, 10,000 scientists and engineers from academia worked in civilian-run weapons labs (most headquartered in universities) in an organization called the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). could design and produce. The Gulf Wars.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Our keynote speaker was Palmer Luckey , founder of Oculus and the designer of the Oculus Rift. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. He’s now the CEO/founder of the AI-focussed defense contractor Anduril Industries. Presentation Format. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 29, 2014

Another useful report is Channels (Acquisition > Channels) with the “Mobile Traffic” segment applied. This tells you where your mobile users are coming from, which can influence how you design campaigns to attract more visitors. This functionality requires custom development to set up, which you can read more about here.

Analytics 65

Analytics Mobile Channel Conversion 65

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

(If you’re interested in learning more, I lay out some thoughts about this and other helpful resources for avoiding pitfalls and executing best practices for startup customer development in this post. ). The other consideration around PMF is the cost and time that will be required to really show demonstrable PMF.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

This might include new products, markets or acquisitions. It only emerges after an intense business model design and search activity based on the customer development process. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 333

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Its the same with acquisitions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No one wants to buy you till someone else wants to buy you, and then everyone wants to buy you. The key to closing deals is never to stop pursuing alternatives. Take a look and let me know what you think.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And when we do make bets, they’re small bets on incremental products or acquisitions that simply add to the bottom line.”. I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. For most companies it feels like innovation can only happen by exception and heroic efforts, not by design.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

We never seek any rights to give Amex preferential treatment at the time of a potential acquisition. There is a possibility that Amex may explore acquisitions within the Amex Ventures portfolio, but those discussions will be on market terms similar to those with other potential acquirers.”. Can the founders communicate well?

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

They specify, design and build a project that may be of use. I was surprised how interested the faculty was in exploring whether the Capstone class could be modified to use the Customer Development process to get input from potential “customers” inside the Air Force. Air Force Customer Development Lean LaunchPad'

Silicon Valley 255

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 255

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.) There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) In contrast, startups search for a business model. (Or

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

None of the students were domain experts in their areas, and each team had to figure out how to contact potential customers and channel partners. Yet every team did figure out how to conduct extensive out of building Customer Discovery. (By By design we didn’t give them too much Customer Development theory.

Intellectual Property 226

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 226

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. For more on how this plays into the process of scaling up, see the Customer Creation stage of the customer development model.)

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly. 1) Enterprise Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

They specify, design and build a project that may be of use. I was surprised how interested the faculty was in exploring whether the Capstone class could be modified to use the Customer Development process to get input from potential “customers” inside the Air Force. And how the engineering process could be turned Agile.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 151

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Fourth , would the same Lean Startup methodology (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) used in the Lean LaunchPad and NSF I-Corps class work here? Multiple teams have been engaged by government, prime contractor and VC firms for follow-on discussions/engagements. Result: Hell yes.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Fourth , would the same Lean Startup methodology (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) used in the Lean LaunchPad and NSF I-Corps class work here? Multiple teams have been engaged by government, prime contractor and VC firms for follow-on discussions/engagements. Result: Hell yes.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 120

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

The Four Steps to the Epiphany (highly recommended book by Steve Blank) preaches for customer development before product development, advocating a quick launch with a minimal feature set rather than a full fledged product offering. Like on a date, you pretty much create a judgement in your mind in the first 15 seconds.

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Audience Viral 120

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244