Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

While most of the early attention in a startup is paid to finding product market fit ( the match between value proposition and customer segment on the right-side of the canvas) it’s the left side of the canvas that will tell you what your founding team should look like. Filed under: Customer Development.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development. Here’s how.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

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. And Udacity has put their awesome production resources behind the class and hosts the Lean LaunchPad online lectures.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

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. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

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Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2010

I’ve been teaching Customer Development at U.C. Berkeley was brave enough to let me write and teach a class on a subject that no one had ever heard of – Customer Development. Customer Development was a process to quickly search for a profitable business model when customer needs (features, pricing, channel, etc.)

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Customer Development Lean Developer Customer 226

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

Business plans presume that building a startup is a series of predictable steps requiring execution of a plan which assumes a series of known facts: known customers, known features, known pricing, known distribution channel. The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. experiential.

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Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

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 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

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. by having the students get out of the classroom and talk to 10-15 customers a week and build a new Minimum Viable Product weekly.

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Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? finding product/market fit).

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Customer Business Model Restful Video 415

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe 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. They never understood Market Type. End result?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

The other departments in marketing gave the same answers; the product-marketing department said their job was to write data sheets. But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. The first reaction from my CEO was, “that’s why you’re running the department.”

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

Successful founders have a laser-like focus and commitment; a keen understanding of customers’ needs; and a tenacious spirit, said the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on Sirius XM Channel 111. Even though there was a real need in the market it wasn’t right (the right time) for a wearable (product).

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Cofounder India Entrepreneur Maryland 120

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 ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

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Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 322

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. Nothing made any difference.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) Others emphasize how to build a product. Therefore we developed a class to teach students how to think about all the parts of building a business, not just the product.

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 312

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. As a founder you start out with: 1) a vision of a product with a set of features, 2) a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users?

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

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. existing enterprises are establishing corporate innovation groups. StageGate Process.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. That institution will touch many people in its life: customers, investors, employees, and everyone they touch as well.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

You get increasing growth by optimizing the viral loop , and you get revenue as a side-effect, assuming you have even the most anemic monetization scheme baked into your product. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

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San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

These false assumptions – that you know the customer problem and product features – led startups to organize their product introduction process like the diagram below – essentially identical to the product management process of a large company. The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 248

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

The class is intensely and deliberately experiential to develop the mindset, reflexes, agility and resilience an entrepreneur needs to search for certainty in a chaotic world. The premise of the class is that startups, are not about executing a plan where the product, customers, channel are known.

Lean 258

Lean Business Model Agile United States 258

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

The business plan is a wonderful document for organizing and planning for existing companies to launch follow-on products. This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. Business Plan vs. Business Model + Customer Development. The International Business Model Competition.

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Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 264

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. The biggest waste in manufacturing is created from having to transport products from one place to another. The goal of both is to eliminate waste.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30. It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. We’re building the wrong product!”

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Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 317

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Customers will get to consume the content they want, and support the producers of that content directly, rather than having to rely exclusively on intermediaries. Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health. Lessons Learned.

Lean 243

Lean Customer Development IP Agile 243

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As a formal method, the Lean Startup consists of three parts: The Business Model Canvas – to frame hypotheses, Customer Development – to test those hypotheses in front of customers, and Agile Engineering – to build Minimum Viable Products to maximize learning. Customer Segments is changed to Beneficiaries.

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Most of the social and mobile channels (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, iPhone, Android) have emerged in just the past 3-5 years. Quickly iterate the product in front of customers. Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital.

Lean 260

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 260

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. They were busily testing their hypotheses about customer segments and value proposition, seeing if they could find product/market fit. What was critical?

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Business Model Agile 120

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.”. More agile competitors are starting to eat into our business. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. and how to price the product.

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Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Send PDF versions of brochures and product sheets as soon as you get back to the office. Have enough dead-tree brochures and product sheets on hand before the show so you can snail-mail out the information after you emailed it. Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.)

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. None of the students were domain experts in their areas, and each team had to figure out how to contact potential customers and channel partners. By design we didn’t give them too much Customer Development theory.

Intellectual Property 234

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 234

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Today these potential adversaries are able to harness the power of social networks, encryption, GPS, low-cost drones, 3D printers, simpler design and manufacturing processes, agile and lean methodologies, ubiquitous Internet and smartphones. Rapidly iterate technology to produce solutions while searching for product-market fit.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120