Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. With fewer than 10 employees but almost $2-billion dollars in the bank, they plan on jumping right in. Most entrepreneurs today don’t remember the Dot-Com bubble of 1995 or the Dot-Com crash that followed in 2000. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. And it may work.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model.

Business Model 278

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 278

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I would come up for air once a month to religiously read the Harvard Business Review. It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. ” Groucho Marx.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 220

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Our goal– to inspire, educate and empower hundred’s of thousands of entrepreneurs and help create 10,000 startups. The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Build, Measure, Learn sounds pretty simple. Waterfall Development.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century, case studies and business plans had reached an evolutionary dead-end for entrepreneurs. The Rise of Business Schools – Management as an Occupation. The business school was invented in the first decade of the 20th century in response to a massive economic transformation in the U.S.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 7, 2022

Customers would peruse advertising with open-mindedness and intrigue, reviewing new products for potential purchase without much judgment of that advertisement or reflection about its purpose. Today’s customers have different preferences. Only the most adaptable companies survive. Stay agile to avoid competition.

Marketing 198

Marketing Advertising Metrics Technical Review 198

The Startup Magazine

JULY 7, 2023

Many aspire to become successful entrepreneurs in today’s fast-paced and dynamic world. Being an entrepreneur offers opportunities for personal growth, financial independence, and the ability to impact society positively. James Weintraub shares the essential steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur in this blog post.

Entrepreneur 112

Entrepreneur Angel Investor Audience Business Plan 112

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This class is built on conducting in-person of interviews with customers/ beneficiaries and stakeholders, but due to the pandemic, teams now had to do all their customer discovery via a computer screen. How would customer interviews work via video? See here for an extended discussion of remote customer discovery.).

Lean 394

Lean Security Asia SBIR 394

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

Even with advantages that independent startups can never hope to match, including brand recognition, customers, financial capital, and distribution, I don’t often see the entrepreneurial passion for innovation, agility, and team perseverance exhibited by new startups. Entrepreneurs crave more ownership.

Advisory Board 359

Advisory Board Incubator Dilution Agile 359

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 5, 2021

Every entrepreneur wants to know how they can improve their odds on the road to success, and why some entrepreneurs seem to be able to squeeze success out of even a marginal business case. Every existing and budding entrepreneur should internalize these reality principles: Ready yourself as a founder.

Agile 363

Agile .Net Founder Entrepreneur 363

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. We were positing that 20 years of teaching “how to write a business plan” might be obsolete. This post is part one.

Lean 300

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

Second, this class – which is built on the idea of interviewing customers/beneficiaries and stakeholders in person – now had to do all their customer discovery via a computer screen. How on earth would customer interviews work via video? At first this seemed to be a fatal stake through the heart of the class.

Oakland 306

Oakland Asia Lean Video 306

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 8, 2021

You may have a descriptive, thorough business plan to serve as the blueprint for the present and future of your organization – but there’s no guarantee it’s going to pan out the way you think. Uncertainty. There’s also a lot of uncertainty within a startup. For example, you’ll need to think about company profitability.

Employee 127

Employee Product Startup Software Review 127

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

To be honest I built the class out of frustration watching schools teach aspiring entrepreneurs that all they need to know is how to write a business plan or how to sit in an incubator building a product. using the business model canvas as the framework. in order to validate/invalidate their business model hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model. Learn how to put together a business model , not a business plan. Ann and I recruited VC’s and entrepreneurs to be mentors for each team.

Business Model 230

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2020

Hacking 4 Recovery is a 5-day version of the Lean LaunchPad / Hacking For Defense / National Science Foundation I-Corps curriculum that’s trained tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators. This class is not about how to write a business plan. This class combines theory with a ton of hands-on practice.

Lean 436

Lean Business Model Affiliate Incubator 436

Small Business Force

SEPTEMBER 18, 2016

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about business plans, especially for early-stage companies trying to raise capital. But, the mistake many entrepreneurs make is that the rationale for its existence is ONLY to raise money. In actuality, for small business owners, a business plan is essential for any long-term success.

Business Plan 20

Business Plan Early Stage Operations Software Review 20

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2013

Every entrepreneur wants to know how they can improve their odds on the road to success, and why some entrepreneurs seem to be able to squeeze success out of even a marginal business case. Every existing and budding entrepreneur should internalize these reality principles: Ready yourself as a founder.

Entrepreneur 259

Entrepreneur Agile .Net Founder 259

Hearpreneur

JUNE 21, 2017

It doesn’t matter if it has been said before and repeated numerous times, quotes can give you the fire you need to be a better entrepreneur or learn how to handle a difficult situation. Below are some of those quotes sent in by entrepreneurs throughout the country. #1 1 – Pain pushed you until a vision pulls you.

Entrepreneur 52

Entrepreneur Africa Cofounder CTO Hire 52

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

It said, “teach us to number our days that we gain a heart of wisdom “ Since then I’ve had a series of interesting careers: technician in the Air Force, tech writer, marketer, entrepreneur, CEO and now educator and mentor. Established businesses execute business models while startups search for them.

Lean 222

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 222

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2013

If you were built to lead instead of follow, a career as an entrepreneur might be right for you. But before you can launch a high-growth company, you’ll need to find the right business plan and create a culture of success. Finding the right employees and creating an agile, focused team is essential to business success.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Entrepreneur Ohio Aggregator 230

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? is known , you will be executing it.

Search 322

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 322

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 21, 2017

Share It’s always a special time when you take the “leap of faith” and start your own business. But it’s rare that an entrepreneur or business owner doesn’t leverage their background in some way to launch their business. No one even “born entrepreneurs”aren’t born as CEOs.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Investment Bankers PR Social Media 48

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2019

Most entrepreneurs are quick to assert to potential investors that their product or solution will kill the competition, but unfortunately your opinion alone is not enough to convince most experienced investors. We want to see a documented business plan that clearly addresses this challenge.

Intellectual Property 215

Intellectual Property Agile Differentiation Government 215

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

One of the attributes of great entrepreneurs is that they are tenacious and relentless. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s our story: We started like most entrepreneurs — an idea, an opportunity, and very little money.

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model. Lean Launchpad.

Agile 251

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 251

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 6, 2011

Every entrepreneur wants to know how they can improve their odds on the road to success, and why some entrepreneurs seem to be able to squeeze success out of even a marginal business case. Every existing and budding entrepreneur should internalize these reality principles: Ready yourself as a founder.

Entrepreneur 232

Entrepreneur Agile .Net Founder 232

Up and Running

MARCH 14, 2017

Ideally, you will be able to use the results for your business plan and your pitch deck to convince investors and other business plan recipients that your idea is worthy of investment. See Also: Our Best Resources to Help You Find a Business Idea. The importance of speaking with potential customers.

Business Plan 94

Business Plan PPC Lean Campaign 94

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

The idea of a Business Model competition first emerged when I realized that Business Plan writing ought to be taught in English Departments – as they’re the best example of creative writing entrepreneurs will ever do. The Business Plan ?- And your revenue plan is something more than a hallucination.

Business Model 264

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 264

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2017

As a long-time business advisor, and occasional investor, I have seen many successful businesses lead by college dropouts and people with average intelligence. Investors don’t look at CEOs for advanced degrees, but they do look for experience and emotional intelligence, often before they even evaluate the business plan.

Agile 141

Agile Non-Compete Angel Groups Venture Capital 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2023

Many passionate entrepreneurs fight to add more features into their new products and services, assuming that more function will make the solution more appealing to more customers. Focus is the art of limiting your scope to the key function that really matters for the majority of customers. It’s tough for an elephant to be agile.

Startup 287

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 287

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. Startups needed millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product out the door to customers.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220