The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

The Strategist In the startup world, a strategist is the master of maneuvering through the complexities of business planning and market analysis. Their campaigns not only grab people’s attention but also convert leads to sales – crucial components in supporting revenue-generation efforts of a startup.

Startup 113

Startup Retention Agile Hiring 113

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 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

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. KPI’s and processes are the root cause of corporations’ inability to be agile and responsive innovators.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

The latter requires speed and agility. Bad Habit #3: Insisting on untested and detailed business plans. Most established companies require detailed business plans for new ideas. Business plans actually maximize the risk of failure because of the focus on executing an unproven idea rather than testing it.

Non-Compete 329

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 329

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

How Does Customer Development, Agile Development and Lean Startups Fit? The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model. Agile Development is the way startups quickly iterate their product as they learn. Business Plan Versus Business Model.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Given this certainty, it’s logical that a startup will hire a sales and marketing team to simply execute your business plan.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

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. The Business Plan (Concept- Alpha-Beta - FCS ) became the playbook for startups. 1970 – 1995: The Golden Age. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

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 263

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan. Albert Einstein.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) Many entrepreneurship courses focus on teaching students “how to write a business plan.” This class is not about how to write a business plan. to optimize this search.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

More agile competitors are starting to eat into our business. They’ve figured out the revenue model (subscription, license, direct sale, etc.) Therefore, in a large company, failure to meet a goal – revenue, product delivery, service, etc.– Now we’re known for “making the numbers,” living on our past successes.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

The latter requires speed and agility. Bad Habit #3: Insisting on untested and detailed business plans. Most established companies require detailed business plans for new ideas. Business plans actually maximize the risk of failure because of the focus on executing an unproven idea rather than testing it.

Non-Compete 120

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. Most likely, your business plan is loaded with opinions and guesses, sprinkled with a dash of vision and hope. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission? In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue?

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Up and Running

AUGUST 6, 2015

Businesses that lack positive cash flow—i.e., Without positive cash flow, all companies (and small businesses in particular) likely won’t possess the agility necessary to respond to today’s quickly evolving business landscape.

Management 60

Management Technical Review Software Review .Net 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

We were even more embarrassed by the pathetically small number of customers we had, and the pathetically low amount of revenue we had earned so far. We’d always cringe as we admitted that, no, we really only had a few thousand customers and a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Retention cohort analysis. I am chugging along.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

YoungUpstarts

MAY 14, 2019

According to the Workplace 2025 study released in 2017 by Randstad US, by 2025 a majority of the workforce will be employed in an agile capacity, as a consultant, contractor, temporary, or freelance employee. In fact, the report predicted that as early as this year, as much as 50 percent of the workforce will be comprised of agile workers.

Agile 100

Agile Artificial Inteligence Salary Reputation 100

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

And so the spreadsheet is built with conservative assumptions, including a final revenue target. No matter how low we make the revenue projections for this new product, it’s extremely unlikely that they are achievable. Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.) They realized that conditions change so rapidly that the original business plan hypotheses becomes irrelevant. Lessons Learned.

Forecast 264

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 264

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory – income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models, 5-year forecasts, etc. And they’ll do this using the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

In a capital scarce environment following the Dot Com crash, startups needed to do more with less and survive long enough to generate revenue. Most principles of Lean Startup remain true, as described by Steve Blank in The Lean Startup Changes Everything : Business Plans are dead: Startups a series of hypothesis that need to be tested.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

It made more sense than our 60 page business plan predicated on a B-school class and a supernatural ability to predict the future. Focus on revenue from day one. Temptation to focus on growth and worry about revenue later. It’s only a business if you make money. Customer Development is like being Agile.

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Up and Running

JUNE 11, 2019

For various reasons, people are leaving their traditional 9-to-5 jobs and working in more agile roles instead—even starting their own businesses. You will still need to learn how to behave on a sales call, how to market your business , how to do your taxes, how to write a business plan , how to network.

Salary 81

Salary Reputation Agile Business Plan 81

Hearpreneur

JUNE 21, 2017

My Mama, the founder of Yuca’s Hut in Los Feliz, CA, didn’t allow a lack of college degrees or a business plan to deter her from launching her dream. It helps me have the agility to make adjustments on the fly that benefit brands. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take ~ Wayne Gretzky.

Entrepreneur 51

Entrepreneur Africa Cofounder CTO Hire 51

The Entrepreneurial Mind

JANUARY 2, 2012

Taking outside money can also lead to building overhead and creating an infrastructure that can lock you into a specific business model as you attempt to make good on the things you have committed to in your business plan. We chose to stay agile and not lock ourselves into a rigid trajectory unnecessarily," Brody-Waite says.

Bootstrapping 76

Bootstrapping Agile LLC Cofounder 76

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Once the product begins to ship, startup sales execs use orders and revenue as its marker of progress in understanding customers.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Hearpreneur

JULY 14, 2017

Building a business can be tough and sometimes entrepreneurs need a strong mission and vision to get through the difficult times. The founders of College HUNKS Hauling Junk, Omar Soliman and Nick Friedman have built a socially conscious franchise that generates revenue but also improves lives.

Entrepreneur 49

Entrepreneur Tampa Canada Agile 49

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

My business plan at KAS Placement changed several times from inception, and the reason I had the flexibility to adapt to market needs is that I didn’t have to wait to rely on a manufacturer to produce for me in order to generate quick revenue. B2B” service-based companies tend to be more agile than “B2B” product-based companies.

B2B 105

B2B Business Model B2C Agile 105

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Customer Development by Vertical - Click to Enlarge (As a reminder, the Customer Development process says your business plan is just a series of untested hypothesis (unless you’re a domain expert.) Some of these are questions that would be addressed in a business plan. Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory - income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models - seems like another planet. And they'll do this using the business model-customer development-agile development solution stack.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition. They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

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 I can even imagine cases where it might burn more cash than a traditional startup. Lets see why. Something else?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 5, 2022

It's important to keep business agile. My business plans for 2022 is to go for growth. To achieve this, I plan to outsource most of the tasks associated with my business. Since my business is 100% online, I can outsource talent from anywhere in the world and I plan to take advantage of this option.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Affiliate Green Cloud 109

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

It starts with “Plan-As-You-Go” instead of detailed, formal business plans. Lean Planning started with Tim Berry ‘s 2008 “ Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan ” which was a new way for entrepreneurs to think about planning. The business plan should no longer be just a single event.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147