Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. In a startup, that’s your job as founder, and it’s a job you can’t afford to delegate. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. In a startup, that’s your job as founder, and it’s a job you can’t afford to delegate. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. In a startup, that’s your job as founder, and it’s a job you can’t afford to delegate. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. What to do when you hire someone better than yourself…. |

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. A startup’s first hires: What to look for | Fortune - [link]. Google App Engine is ready for primetime says Reddit/Hipmunk co-founder – [link]. Advertising Age - [link]. ” - [link]. – [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Founders should understand what the customer hopes to accomplish , or what their job to be done is.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

What are the terms of their relationship with the founder? I’ve also asked this question on Quora.There, I ask for advice on how to best structure this for all parties: The development shop, the founders (outside of the dev shop), and potential outside investors. What are the timelines? The discounts? The cliffs? The fine print?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

Domain Experience – “Domain experience&# means that the founders have worked in the industry before. Traffic.com sold 10-second in-content advertising spots to local TV broadcasters. The exact same team had worked on 2 previous customer service startups (and 1 non-CS product).

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Either way, you can use any marketing channel thats available to bring in new customers, including word of traditional advertising, SEO, SEM - wherever you can find prospects who are going to find your product addicting. Thats why eBay advertises on search engines, and Facebook doesnt. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 29, 2008 The ABCDEFs of conducting a technical interview I am incredibly proud of the people I have hired over the course of my career. This second objective plays no small part in allowing you to hire the best. Hiring decisions are among the most difficult, and the most critical.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Finally the day came, we unleashed the landing page, emailed our existing customers, and started advertising online. If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order?

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively. Some startups fail because the founders cant have this conversation - they either blow up when they try, or they fail to change because they are afraid of conflict. I am so sick of your tweets it's advertising 24/7.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

That year the two founders decided to get serious about being a company, and hired a CEO. In today’s language of Customer Development , RIM positioned the Blackberry as a segment of an existing market – pager users who needed two-way communication. Filed under: Customer Development , Market Types.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 276

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of SNAZZ, a cloud-based event management platform. At Virgin Mobile USA, Mari led early initiatives in mobile commerce, social networking and advertising. What are some of the unique benefits and constraints from the point of view of a founder? . Mari Holds a B.A.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

You declare how much someone clicking an advertisement is worth to you, and then the search engine does its best to get you as many clicks as it can at that price. Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. SEM is a simple idea.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If youre making revenue, you should be finding ways to grow it predictably month-over-month; if youre focused on customer engagement, your product should be getting more sticky, and so on. Some companies and founders refuse to serve existing customers, and are always lurching from one great idea to the next.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers I see lots of startups whose business plans revolve around selling high-value ad space to brand advertisers. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

Neil Patel, co-founder of CrazyEgg says that even though the video below brought in an extra $21,000/ month back in 2012, it was the script that was really responsible for such incredible growth. Also, always do qualitative research & conduct customer development interviews to help your script address as many pain points as possible.

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If I have some budget for outside help, should I hire a vendor to help us drive down our payment fraud rates by 1% (ROI easy to predict), or hire a market research firm to give us insights into potential customers (ROI hard to predict)? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

The job was building relationships with partners and advertisers and to sell advertising. Their main investor was the husband of Anita Roddick (the founder of Body Shop), who passed away. I am really bad at deadling with difficult, non-savvy customers who demand a lot of attention and understand very little. No replies.

Panama 124

Panama Africa Internet Email 124

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Its easier to believe in a glorious future when you have only zeroes, for everyone: founders, investors, and employees. Freemium or subscription or advertising? Freemium or subscription or advertising?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

You are here: Home » Hiring » Crazy! Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup? Ability to hire top talent (A+ talent). you can hire for those. Maple Butter.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

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 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For now, Id like to ask a favor.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development?

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Founders push for it. In some ways, founders are even worse. My experience is that many founders actually have a deep anxiety that maybe they are not succeeding. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build. and Google.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84