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. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. That’s in stark contrast to the traditional Product Development Model where it’s expected a customer is already there and waiting and it’s simply a matter of [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 143

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 143

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Evangelos and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. Existing companies are starting to feel the pressures of new technologies and the massive wave of new entrants fueled by the explosion of investment from a recent form of financing – venture capital.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore.

Customer 294

Customer Marketing Technical Review Iowa 294

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. Luckily in the last quarter of the 20 th century a new source of money called risk capital emerged. At its core Venture Capital is nothing more than a small portion of the Private Equity financial asset class. ——-.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) The Customer Development Model is designed to minimize the risk of launching a product for a market that does not exist.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Is there a profitable business model? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Evangelos and I are working on what we hope will become a book about the new model for corporate entrepreneurship. In Stage 2, the corporation adds venture capital and/or mergers-and-acquisition teams to provide these functions. Stage 3: Productizing the Solution to Corporate Problems. What solution are we productizing ?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. (My Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. My mother kept asking if they were going to make me pay the money back.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

These blogs began as an attempt to explain why a “book” I wrote wasn’t a book. And now they’re a book of their own. After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. You most definitely read the book for the content.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 20, 2020

The agenda ( full agenda here ) includes the following discussions: DEIS in Corporate Governance & Board DEIS in Human Resources & Talent Acquisition DEIS in Procurement DEIS in Edge Technology Product Development & Corporate Innovation DEIS in Go To Market DEIS in Venture Capital & Investment DEIS in Impact.

Equity 123

Equity Cofounder Venture Capital .Net 123

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2011

I am no longer writing a book. The Lean Startup Book is done. The finished book will come out on September 13, featuring an amazing cover designed by my IMVU co-founder Marcus Gosling and refined and tested by so many of you. The book contains tons of case studies. But the book is much more than just stories.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Metrics Private Equity 167

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. Over scrambled eggs and diet coke, I listened to this seasoned startup veteran describe the excitement of his students who came to the U.S. to compete.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

OnlyOnce

MAY 13, 2021

As I finished up my work on the Second Edition of Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business and started working on a new startup, my colleagues and I started envisioning a new book as a sequel or companion to Startup CEO that is going to be published on June 9 with our same publisher, Wiley & Sons.

Startup 62

Startup Cofounder Venture Capital Leadership 62

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 11, 2012

Six Myths of Product Development – [link]. Unlimited Vacation Doesn’t Create Slackers–It Ensures Productivity – [link]. What I learned from raising venture capital – [link]. Six Myths of Product Development – [link]. Better Agile Than Smart – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

YoungUpstarts

MAY 16, 2018

There, he would be showered in venture capital, build a team of similarly brilliant twenty-somethings, acquire millions of customers seemingly overnight, and steer his startup to an IPO and himself to the cover of Inc magazine well before his 30th birthday. Instead, he would take his evident talent to Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley 157

Silicon Valley Forecast Venture Capital Business Plan 157

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Clear Books. Great for visualizing work of product development. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â?? Raising Venture Capital. Venture Hacks equity section. FreshBooks.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Note that we haven’t yet mentioned the more conventional and less creative finance approaches of Angel and venture capital investors.

Entrepreneur 254

Entrepreneur Finance Equity Early Stage 254

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 12, 2014

His book, Uncommon Stock , is the first one that we published at FG Press. I asked Eliot to write a short post about how he’s feeling and thinking about the category of “startup fiction” now that the book is out in the wild and he’s getting some great feedback. We’ve worked for a startup. We go to SXSW.

Stock 130

Stock Venture Capital Lean Product Development 130

YoungUpstarts

MAY 10, 2012

We’ve compiled this list to share what we believe to be some of the most important books for startups of any kind. If you’re stuck in a corporate job you hate, Pamela Slim’s book offers some encouragement for breaking free and creating your own startup. Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur.

Startup 247

Startup Lean Silicon Valley Open Source 247

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

This is a quote from Leander Kahney’s recently published book on Apple design chief Jony Ive: “In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

automatic links to generated images Rietveld - asynchronous code reviews on changesets Tech*if*er0*urs – blog on roadmap for learning rails Best free programming books Project Management Basecamp - web-based project management and collaboration tool. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2013

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Note that we haven’t yet mentioned the more conventional and less creative finance approaches of Angel and venture capital investors.

Finance 243

Finance Startup Equity Early Stage 243

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

According to the National Venture Capital Association , the amount of money that VC’s invested rose 8% to nearly $30 billion in 2013. To help build new product development and venture teams, my colleague Rob Goldberg, of Stages of Innovation , created an assessment tool called Talent for Growth.

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Hearpreneur

JULY 10, 2017

Prior to starting Ozmo both Ming and I worked in a design house creating new and better products. Throughout my five years of experience in product development, I realized that most of product launch failure could have been avoided by getting the product right earlier on, or understanding the limit of the maker.

Entrepreneur 98

Entrepreneur Hungary Software Review Cofounder 98

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 17, 2015

As you probably know, Forward Partners bundles help from our startup team, our proven methodologies and office space with our cash investment so I will be talking my own book tomorrow and hence here. Twenty years ago 3i dominated venture capital in the UK with a very low touch model. Uncategorized Venture Capital'

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Venture Capital San Francisco Silicon Valley 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Use of a Product Development Model to Measure Sales Using the product development diagram for startup sales activities is like using a clock to tell the temperature.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

It was always a welcome change of pace to leave the brown of the unchanging desert and travel into town and have dinner with them and have a non-technical conversation about books, theater, politics, travel, etc. But it was a bit incongruous to hear her get wound up and rail against our government and the very people we were all working for.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. But it is life and death for a new venture. It is the path that is hidden in plain sight.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

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 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

I place them roughly in this order: Movies > Television > Books > Music > Magazines > Radio > Newspapers Each industry is watching the one in front of it sink into the quicksand. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization. These companies will look at innovative startups to help them gain market share from the incumbent.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131