Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

First Movers” didn’t understand customer problems or the product features that solved those problems (what we now call product-market fit). Startups with huge burn rates – building leases, staff, PR and advertising – ran out of money. It has to find product-market fit before running out of cash.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A business plan has a set of assumptions (who’s the customer, what’s the price, what’s the channel, what are the product features that matter, etc.) The web site and/or product presentation slides start changing and Marketing and Sales try different customers, different channels, new pricing, etc. Pivots Versus Crises.

Burn Rate 250

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 250

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

Tossing their agile development process and at times their entire business model in the air, the company would go into fire-drill mode and engineering would start working on whatever his latest insight was. He should make sure that there aren’t other parts of the business model (revenue model, pricing, partners, channel, etc.)

Founder 320

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 320

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.

Customer Development 251

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 251

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 257

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 257

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Again, its critical to focus your marketing launch on those publications, venues, and channels that your potential partners are paying attention to. And even worse, wed cranked up the burn rate in order to be ready to handle all those millions of mainstream customers we anticipated. Instead, do your product launch first.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168