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

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

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. End result? If they had done this, there would have been zero dollars in sales.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

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. I know many people who think that software works like magic, but to me it actually was magic.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

This case presents a further complication: desktop software. Without being able transparently modify the software in situ, is it still possible to deploy on a continuous basis? Continuous Deployment is a process by which software is released several times throughout the day – in minutes versus days, weeks, or months.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc.

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 312

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Doctors, researchers and Principal Investigators in this class got out of the lab and hospital talked to 2,355 customers, tested 947 hypotheses and invalidated 423 of them. We kept track of all this data by instrumenting the teams with LaunchPad Central software.). Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences.

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Lean Customer Development IP Agile 243

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. VC’s invested in things that ran on electrons: hardware, software and silicon. Most of the social and mobile channels (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, iPhone, Android) have emerged in just the past 3-5 years. Here’s why.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 260

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Instead, each potential customer has to go through a self-serve process of signing up and paying money. Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. Go on an agile diet quickly. Labels: agile , customer development 15comments: Scott Shapiro said.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

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. I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. Filed under: Customer Development.

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Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 317

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. If you use software like LivePlan, you can create this initial “lean plan” in under an hour and then spend your time where it really matters—on validating your idea.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

During the Cold War we used asymmetric technologies in silicon and software to disrupt the Soviet Union’s lead in conventional weapons.) All while we’re still writing a Request for a Proposal from within the US Government procurement and acquisition channels. Yet in the last decade the U.S. We’re Our Own Worst Enemy. Lessons Learned.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,) Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads. this may be a useful read. What didn’t?

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Mass blasts of information are ineffective, because the broadcast channels are suffering from information overload (even in social media). Test-marketing is now easier than ever before, thanks to leveraged distribution channels like AdWords and Facebook. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. Leveraged distribution channels.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

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.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. In contrast, spark gaps are broad-band radio “noise&# sources – the idea of discrete radio channels was impossible spark gaps because of this. I’ll stop channeling James Burke now.

Silicon Valley 279

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 279

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

Take a look at The App Store after the gold rush - FierceDeveloper : According to a recent BusinessWeek feature , the flood of new games, productivity tools and related iPhone software is making it difficult for the vast majority of apps to crack the consumer consciousness. The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition.

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San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

. ————– We’ve spent the last 3 years building a methodology, classes, an accelerator and software tools and we’ve tested them on ~500 startups teams. Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering.

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Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 327

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Even if you must launch to your customers, avoid the urge to also launch in extra places, just because your PR firm can do it at the same time. In some businesses, especially in certain industries like traditional enterprise software, you simply cannot bring a new product to market on your own. Do some Customer Development instead.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2011

These diagrams are the visual representation of the how and the what a team learned in the class – how they tested their hypotheses by getting out of the building using the Customer Development process and what they learned about each part of their business model. The students were challenged to get users, orders, customers, etc.

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Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 281

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

Flip startups are agile startups that aim to exit quickly. This is lean development without any customer development. In addition, channels such as Applifier, Appsumo or the Humble Indie Bundle have made it easy to reach large groups of users. The development part is similar to a lean startup: you want to be agile.

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Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

In both physical and Web/mobile channels, earlyvangelists display these common characteristics: They have a problem or need. Another path is to put product development on hold until the customer development team can find customers who can provide adequate feedback. They understand they have a problem.

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Customer Advisory Board Engineer Cofounder 119

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

I grabbed one of each piece of literature, stuffed into my bag, and wandered through the exhibit hall looking at other hardware and petroleum software companies. Intelligence As I leafed through the Cray sales material, a glossy magazine with the headline Cray Channels jumped out of the pile.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 151

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Wave after wave of hardware, software, biotech and cleantech products have emerged from what has become “ground zero” of entrepreneurial and startup culture. Startups traditionally required millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product to customers. Government and the enterprise are now followers rather than leaders.

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Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

And I’ve been lucky enough to watch innovation happen not only in hardware and software but in Life Sciences – in Therapeutics, Medical Devices, Diagnostics and now Digital Health. In the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, momentum shifted to the enterprise as large businesses supported innovation in PCs, communications hardware and enterprise software.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 227

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

In fact, you cant go through traditional channels at all. For example, "If you hire me you can free up 10 of your staff in department X, because I will write software that." The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? A possible approach is to "steal" another job category.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. customer retention, churn reduction, lifetime value. free/cheap web customer relationship mgmt software. marketing automation software. email blast and mgmt software. email blast and mgmt software. email blast software. email blast software.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads. The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses.

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Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Most normal customers – even among early adopters - do not pay attention to the trolls. They are largely invisible in the normal channels where customer service and community management pays attention. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158