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.”. It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Here’s how.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

How do you figure out what’s the right mix of skills for the co-founders of your startup? I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. I told Radhika this is a perennial question for startups. ——-.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Last week one of our mentors abruptly resigned from coaching one of the Lean LaunchPad student teams after claiming the students were ignoring his practical advice and years of expertise in the field. A match made in heaven? A healthy disrespect for the status quo coupled with passion, persistence and agility trumps everything else.

Vertical 334

Vertical Agile Customer Development Lean 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. Our goal was to teach both theory and practice.

Oakland 313

Oakland Asia Lean Video 313

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century entrepreneurship education fell into two categories: 1) starting small businesses and 2) starting high-growth, high-risk scalable startups. The case method and business plans are the antithesis of how entrepreneurs create startups. Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 17, 2009 Join the Lean Startup discussion at Web 2.0 Expo for free Im honored to announce that my Lean Startup session at the Web 2.0 Everyone else can register to come to both sessions for free, including the Lean Startup talk in the main conference.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. Its power is matched only by the amount of confusion that it causes, because its actually quite hard to do. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Last week one of our mentors abruptly resigned from coaching one of the Lean LaunchPad student teams after claiming the students were ignoring his practical advice and years of expertise in the field. A match made in heaven? A healthy disrespect for the status quo coupled with passion, persistence and agility trumps everything else.

Customer Development 225

Customer Development Vertical Agile Lean 225

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) However, they need to match a top-level (board, CEO, exec staff) agreement on strategy and structure. We now have the tools to build successful corporate entrepreneurship programs.

Programming 270

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 270

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, June 9, 2009 The Lean Startup Tokyo edition I had a blast speaking at Startonomics Tokyo , which was organized to foster ties between the startup cultures in Japan and Silicon Valley. ericnakagawa : Show of hands how many in startup here? I am now decompressing with a guinness.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. Now the company is in crisis mode.

Customer Development 232

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 232

Steve Blank

AUGUST 4, 2016

State Department and asks students to use Lean Methods to test their understanding of the problem and deliver rapid-fire innovative solutions to pressing diplomacy, development and foreign policy challenges. This is a first step to a more agile, responsive and resilient, approach to diplomacy and national security in the 21 st century.

Lean 165

Lean Government Agile Africa 165

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Yet startups rely on collective learning in order to find their way. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Lean manufacturing , agile software development , and Theory of Constraints are all examples of this idea in action.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 4, 2016

State Department and asks students to use Lean Methods to test their understanding of the problem and deliver rapid-fire innovative solutions to pressing diplomacy, development and foreign policy challenges. This is a first step to a more agile, responsive and resilient, approach to diplomacy and national security in the 21 st century.

Lean 120

Lean Government Agile Africa 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2010

The rubble was still bouncing from the dot-com collapse and my goal was to teach students that there might be another way to think about how to build a startup. Eric observed that an Agile Development model was the right match for engineering to build a product when the initial feature set was unknown. are unknown. What’s Next.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Lean Developer Customer 242

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

Startups are companies. Startups aspire to become big companies. Therefore, startups should have departments. Each of these benefits also exists in startups, which is why most startups are also organized in departments. I once worked at a startup with an exceptional functional department system.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. 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 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 3, 2010

Recently AgileZen has topped the leaderboard for TwtPick.in’s survey on tools and services for a lean startup. And, if you are a software developer using Lean or Agile methodologies, take a look at Rally and AgileZen. AgileZen was one such company and the acquisition has been a successful one for everyone.

Founder 122

Founder Acquisition Software Developers Software Development 122

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 16, 2023

What is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for startups? Now is the perfect opportunity for those seeking to hone their marketing abilities, with more than half of all startups in search of better approaches. This is particularly beneficial for startups looking to establish their brand quickly.

Agile 62

Agile Technical Review Social Media Salary 62

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2014

—— The Lean Startup process builds new ventures more efficiently. It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses and agile engineering to build minimum viable products. Integration with Customer Development and Lean Startup.

Business Model 335

Business Model Design Customer Development Lean 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the issues that came up is whether the new lexicon of entrepreneurial ideas – Customer Development, Business Model Design , Lean , Lean LaunchPad class, etc. One of the things startups have lacked is a definition of who they were. Search embraces failure as a natural part of the startup process. Organization.

Search 324

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 324

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 278

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 278

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. Ideally we attempt to match the guests with the case or class session subject. Tags: Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies.

Business Model 235

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 235

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. The Old Days – Waterfall Product Development.

Continuous Deployment 331

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 331

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 9, 2021

Lean In To What Makes You, You. ” So, you have a startup that’s ready for the world? Are you sitting on an e-commerce startup? Let’s assume you’re sitting on an ecommerce startup. An Agile Business is Always a Good Business. The match between name and brand tone is crucial. It feels disorienting.

eCommerce 176

eCommerce B2C Naming Agile 176

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Startups and larger companies alike can learn a lot from the organization I observed. Obama understood the two concepts that are essential for building a high-performance, highly adaptable, agile organization: 1) rapid iteration and 2) clear values-based objectives. Heres some of what I learned from the experience. Fantastic post.

Campaign 84

Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile 84

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

Since then, PHP (as part of the LAMP stack ) has really been the dominant development platform, at least in the free software and startup worlds. And yet I keep returning to PHP as a development platform, as have most of my fellow startup CTOs. Given that startups depend on superstars to survive, why stick with PHP?

PHP 166

PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. Turn Your Organization Inside Out. It was humbling.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 7, 2021

And we charge money for it.” – Eric Ries, The Lean Startup. Strategy expert, Gary Fox , defines growth marketing as: “An agile and adaptive marketing methodology that focuses on how to get, grow and keep customers.”. Then we ship it to customers way before it’s ready. It also gives you a product to market.

Product 142

Product Marketing Software Review Social Media 142

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

A growing startup with a well-run product team will have a history of steady progress. In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. How do you plan for it? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Startups and Sales If you read this post you can come away with the impression that every startup with a direct salesforce needs a consultative sales team. what Market Type is your startup? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 12, 2016

We just held our final week of the Hacking for Diplomacy class, teaching students entrepreneurship and “Lean Startup” principles while they engaged in national public service applying advanced technologies to solve global challenges. Getting Lean. Each of the teams used the Lean Startup methodology.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley Lean San Diego Agile 212

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The latest “aha” moment for me when I was at Columbia University teaching an intensive 5-day version of the Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps class. The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. But hey, no problem. Lessons Learned.

Lean 120

Lean Customer Development Business Model Agile 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. More agile competitors are starting to eat into our business. What Drives Innovation?

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Join a select cross-disciplinary class that will put you hands-on with the masters of lean innovation to help bring rapid-fire innovative solutions to address threats to our national security. Targeting, assessments, technology, recipes, and tactics all flow at the speed of a Lean Startup. We’re Our Own Worst Enemy.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

But for startups, business plans fail to match the chaotic reality they encounter in the real world. Yet year after year, decade after decade, VC’s would watch as no startup business plan survived first contact with customers. They kept insisting startups write business plans as the price of entry to venture funding.

Business Model 267

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 267