SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 6, 2011
In both cases, the answer was that the founder would go to find other ideas, turn those into paper descriptions and validate it with customers. Customer Validation 101. The Fallacy of Customer Development Hubris Versus Humility: The $15 billion Difference Less is More, More or Less Yes, but who said they’d actually BUY the damn thing?
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 5, 2009
Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Entrepreneurs put together their funding presentation by extracting the key ideas from their business plan, putting them on PowerPoint/Keynote and pitching the company – until they get funded or exhausted.
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Steve Blank
AUGUST 31, 2009
In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Focus on Execution Versus Learning and Discovery The product development model assumes that customers needs are known, the product features are known, and your business model is known.
Steve Blank
APRIL 16, 2013
But the eye opener for me was reading Clayton Christensen HBR article on disruption in the mid 1990’s and then reading the Innovators Dilemma. As much as I loved the magazine, there was little in it for startups (or new divisions in established companies) searching for a business model. I learned about Michael Porter s’s five forces.
Startup Lessons Learned
NOVEMBER 8, 2008
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.
Steve Blank
APRIL 16, 2013
But the eye opener for me was reading Clayton Christensen HBR article on disruption in the mid 1990’s and then reading the Innovators Dilemma. As much as I loved the magazine, there was little in it for startups (or new divisions in established companies) searching for a business model. I learned about Michael Porter s’s five forces.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Given the stock market was buying “the story and vision” of anything internet, inflated expectations were more important than traditional metrics like customers, growth, revenue, or heaven forbid, profits.
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