David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

These hypotheses span the gamut from who’s the customer(s), to what’s the value proposition (product/service features), pricing, distribution channel, and demand creation (customer acquisition, activation, retention, etc.). They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers).

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, That died with waterfall software development. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners. Cisco and others went out to fill out their Web 2.0

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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.). Identify activities/resources/partners locally and then globally. sales office.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 6, 2020

Class 3: Our guest speaker for session 3 was Anja Manuel , former State Department official, founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates and Manuel and author of This Brave New World : India, China and the United States. So, it’s incumbent on us to think about the ramifications of these acquisition decisions.

Technology 416

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 416

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

In fact, their affiliate partners dissuaded them from doing so. 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. That said I worry that V1 of the strategy isn’t a home run. No big surprise.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development.

Lean 181

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 181

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development.

Lean 181

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 181

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2014

A pivot may mean you changed your customer segment, your channel, revenue model/pricing, resources, activities, costs, partners, customer acquisition – lots of other things than just the product. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development. Business Model.

Business Model 332

Business Model Lean Customer Development Channel 332

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. the Customer Life Time (CLT)).

Customer 326

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 326

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

She had so much insight to share that we broke the interview into two parts, 1) Corporate Venture Capital and more broadly, 2) How the Fortune 500 Can Buy, Invest and Partner with the Innovation Economy (coming soon). . We never seek any rights to give Amex preferential treatment at the time of a potential acquisition.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Who are our partners? An early indication that you’ve found the right business model is when you believe the cost of getting customers will be less than the revenues the customers will generate. For web startups, this is when the cost of customer acquisition is less than the lifetime value of that customer.

Balance Sheet 303

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 303

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

My partner David has also written about this a bunch. In short, I find that authenticity helps a founder more quickly find product/market fit, recruit and inspire teams, and resonate more deeply with customers. (If I’ll dig into this a bit further… Founder/Market Fit. And what risks will be associated with scaling at that point?

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. The size of the red bars (IPO’s) versus blue (mergers and acquisitions) illustrates that while venture-backed startups did get acquired, the IPO market was booming. Software startups are most likely to exit as an acquisition.

Venture Capital 302

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 302

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. What are the 9 parts of a business model?

Wiki 315

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 315

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2016

That if we could get teams to rapidly discover the real problems in the field using Lean methods, and only then articulating the requirements to solve them, could defense acquisition programs operate at speed and urgency and deliver timely and needed solutions. Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey.

Agile 120

Agile Security Audio Video 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

When I first started teaching customer development (searching, validating and executing a business model), one of my students pointed out that customer development was similar to the theory of a military strategist, John Boyd. It developed a ten-line short form that listed the most important parts of the requirement.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs. there are almost no mergers or acquisitions in this market segment. In the U.S. Unlike the U.S.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 271

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

I taught the class this semester with Ann Miura-Ko a partner at Maples Investments. This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Yet every team did figure out how to conduct extensive out of building Customer Discovery. (By Teaching Goals.

Intellectual Property 246

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 246

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Second, and full disclosure, I’ve invested in a few of these funds ; and third my teaching partner Ann Miura-Ko is a partner in one of these funds. But scaling customer acquisition may take the same amount of dollars as a traditional software startup. ). Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital.

Lean 262

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 262

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.”. They’ve learned the best distribution channel to get the product from their company to the customer. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development'

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs. there are almost no mergers or acquisitions in this market segment. In the U.S. Unlike the U.S.

Silicon Valley 163

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 163

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2016

Steve : So while raising money, you were running a branding and a customer-acquisition campaign. — Building a partner network was another crucial thing for Cirrus, Brandon said: Brandon : People said a SAAS (Software as a Service) companies like ours, haven’t had a lot of success selling through partners.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Morocco Arkansas 120

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

www.ashmaurya.com

AUGUST 29, 2012

You can use this pitch to get more followers, or you can build your value proposition around a productized consulting offer (SEO analysis, customer acquisition, etc.). I run a software startup and I want to partner with you to improve your business.” The next value offer is a play on marketing and lead generation.

Email 52

Email Customer Tennessee Software Review 52

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” Their VC firm, In-Q-Tel , has been in business for 10 years, and like most VC firms they have an annual event where they show off their new portfolio companies to their limited partners and other VC partners.

Silicon Valley 262

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 262

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Growth is acquisition plus retention. Acquisition and retention tend to be inseparable from the product. You shift from qualitative feedback (customer development) to quantitative feedback (metrics). You start looking into focusing your activities on a strategic core and outsourcing everything else to partners.

Startup 55

Startup Business Model Retention Acquisition 55

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

Silicon Valley 218

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 218

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Because we wanted to document every aspect of the process before partnering with new freelance writers. A safe approach is to partner with contractors and freelancers to fulfill new business. This way, you can focus on business development, communications, and awareness to build a sales pipeline and “validate” early demand.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Secondly, they had an owned & operated (O&O) website – Google.com – and Overture had shut down GoTo.com at the request of their very profitable and large distribution partners. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 329

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 329

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The 11 Harsh Realities Of Being An Entrepreneur - OnStartups , November 1, 2010 There's always talk about the end game in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. Naturally, a big part of the go-to-market includes partnering with other players in the market. Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

It’s actually pretty hard to find a good start-up job if you have no real engineering or user acquisition / product management skills. My business partner is still with the business, but I just didn't see a positive future without a strong technical co-founder. The timing just never worked out. Vinicius Vacanti WOW!

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

They should understand the different states of the user (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue) and focus on moving users from one state to the next. In a nutshell: Acquisition - Get people to hear about your product from press, blogs and social channels. First Steps in Growth Hacking for Startups.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Then, what’s missing — clearly an engineer — and why do I want a partner? Prior to Sorced, Elizabeth worked in business development at SecondMarket.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2017

That if we could get teams to rapidly discover the real problems in the field using Lean methods, and only then articulate the requirements to solve them, could defense acquisition programs operate at speed and urgency and deliver timely and needed solutions. Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey.

Silicon Valley 191

Silicon Valley Southern California Lean San Diego 191