Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development.

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

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. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

And he recognized it was making his startup feel and act like a big ponderous company. Most decisions in a startup must be made in the face of uncertainty. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one.

Silicon Valley 307

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 307

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

founder paired with a mentor who had two operating companies in this space, who had developed and sold vertical market software to companies in this space, and had studied the field as an academic specialty. A healthy disrespect for the status quo coupled with passion, persistence and agility trumps everything else. Not exactly.

Customer Development 225

Customer Development Vertical Agile Lean 225

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2022

If you are interested in advancing your leadership, and achieving more success in this new Internet age, here are some principles to guide your focus: Foster the trend to flat teams versus vertical organizations. In this age of world-wide markets, you need all the help you can get to attract loyal customers.

Leadership 262

Leadership Agile Vertical Internet 262

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2022

And they figure out how they could digitally enable their business – supply chain, customer interactions, etc. Today, 100s of billions of dollars in private capital have been invested in 1,000s of AI startups. Making business smarter : Customer Support. They’d steamroll everyone. But What Is It? What’s Different? Example here.

Artificial Inteligence 422

Artificial Inteligence Software Review Algorithm Technical Review 422

Where to Play

AUGUST 18, 2020

Most of their business growth was vertical by focusing on food, tentage, and decoration for marrying couples and their families. Here potential customers are individuals, corporations, and families who can sit-in or organize their events for tea/coffee gathering. Step 3: Agile Focus Dartboard. Opportunity Nr. Opportunity Nr.

Pakistan 62

Pakistan Sales Cycle Marketing Technical Review 62

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 229

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 229

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. This wave of 1950′s/’60′s startups (Watkins-Johnson, Varian, Huggins Labs, MEC, Stewart Engineering, etc.) After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C.

Silicon Valley 297

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 297

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, January 4, 2009 Sharding for startups The most important aspect of a scalable web architecture is data partitioning. Imagine you want to store data about customers, each of whom has "last name" field in your database. But startups rarely have either luxury. Key-based partitioning.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

Similar in concept to Jay Baer’s “Youtility “, the notion here is to be useful to one’s customers by being customer focused, pain-free, simple to use, fast, and convenient without any expectations of a return. The need to provide utility in marketing. Understanding how passive and active media works.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review North America Social Media Media 164

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 17, 2018

It’s clear that whatever your font choice, it should align with your customers’ expectations when they encounter your brand. If your logo is too “on-the-nose” and unoriginal you may come across as unprofessional; which will undermine your potential customers’ faith and trust in your business.

Design 85

Design Vertical Software Review Wichita 85

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Rather than a traditional VC pitch I suggested that they do something unconventional and tell the story of their journey in Customer Discovery and Validation. The heart of the Cafepress presentation is the “ Lessons Learned from our Customers ” section.

Venture Capital 239

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 239

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. Ultimately you want to see if you can find customers and a market for the product as specified – as early as possible.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Cray’s first customers were the U.S. See the previous Ardent posts for context.) Supercomputers With the introduction in 1976 of the Cray-1 , supercomputers were defined as the fastest vector-processing computer , one in which a single instruction performed operations on an array rather than a single number.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It’s important to invest in good architecture so that your website will scale once customers arrive. If you make that investment, and then customers arrive, and the site stays up, most companies will reward the people who built the architecture and, thus, prevented the scaling problems. How upset will those customers be?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment 133

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, is you move from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek to jowl. We can’t bring customers to this rundown building. Engineers were packed in cubicles or desks right on top of each other?

Silicon Valley 230

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 230

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 17, 2018

It’s clear that whatever your font choice, it should align with your customers’ expectations when they encounter your brand. If your logo is too “on-the-nose” and unoriginal you may come across as unprofessional; which will undermine your potential customers’ faith and trust in your business.

Design 48

Design Vertical Software Review Wichita 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 14, 2019

Startups armed with powerful tech are changing what is possible in and around the modern construction site. These are but some of the global startups who are gunning to transform an industry that is, quite frankly, in desperate need of a shake-up. by Ramzi Jreidini , CEO of Handiss.

Global 189

Global Vertical Agile Engineer 189

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. This post describes such a model.

Customer Development 253

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

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 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

View from Seed

APRIL 8, 2020

Stevens has held roles across verticals such as head of sales, marketing, product, and professional services at five startups over twenty years. He helps early-stage startups with sales, marketing, and general “go to market” topics. Understand Your Customer and Their Timelines. Chill Out & Build Brand.

B2B 156

B2B Angel Investor Vertical Early Stage 156

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 13, 2010

These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! PR for Startups – [link]. Understanding Salespeople at Startups – [link]. Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic – Pivoting the Business Model – [link]. Writer 2.0

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 13, 2010

These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! PR for Startups – [link]. Understanding Salespeople at Startups – [link]. Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic – Pivoting the Business Model – [link]. Writer 2.0

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. It’s why all of you operated so well in the unpredictable environment that all startups face.”

Founder 310

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

If these sound like reasonable answers to you, and you are in a startup/small company, update your resume. Most startups put together a corporate mission statement because the CEO remembered seeing one at their last job, or the investors said they needed one. What I was actually hearing was a failure of management.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. Strong pre-show promotion will let your customers and prospects know about your exhibit.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 136

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

And in hindsight, we seemed a bit more agile and innovative in WWII.) Yet decades later the military lacked the agility to write a spec in two years, let alone get 10′s of thousands of new systems deployed on aircraft as Terman had done. How was this possible?

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 203

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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. By 1961 its customers now included our intelligence agencies. Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

But B2B startups need to take a different tack. Business facing companies typically provide software or an online service for which their customers pay a fee. Arguably revenue is the best signal of product-market fit for B2B startups. Arguably revenue is the best signal of product-market fit for B2B startups.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

ConversionXL

JANUARY 14, 2020

In return, customers might first get to Amazon through an off-site search, then buy the product there. what customers are doing); Qualitative research (i.e. speaking to customers); Customer requests; Strategically, to attack a market. Ask your customers. But what if the high-potential feature isn’t obvious?

SEO 159

SEO Framework SCRUM Search 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We decided to work with our engineering department to create the Potreo benchmarks because we really wanted to see how our boards performed with the four applications customers told us that they used; Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator and PageMaker. Given we consciously worked hard not to, here’s what we were thinking.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 127