Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. If they were a commercial company, they figured out product/market fit; or if a government organization, it focused on solution/mission fit. Companies Run on Process.

Government 315

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 315

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. During the pre-seed fundraising stage, investors need a viable business plan to base their investments on.

Seed Stage 125

Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 125

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

SneakerLabs’ first product was a Java-based chat server and client. One of our first customers was a stock trading company in NY that wanted to host live stock chats. Another customer was my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, who was using it to host online class discussions for its distance education program. Not so fast.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ The old paradigm works like this: Your company produces goods and services that help customers get a job done. In return, the customers pay you money.

Customer 158

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 158

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. If so, the business world is full of specialists who are all too eager to help. Talented product developers. Your most powerful growth engine is your existing customer. Highly trained salespeople.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. It always reduces risk to plan your business first. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Bootstrapping 134

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development. Microsoft Windows 3.0).

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ Harnessing the power of references and referrals seems like an obvious win. What could make more sense than to leverage the enthusiasm of happy customers to convince buyers that they need your products and services?

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But the purpose of this post is what happens when a founder (or large company CEO) finds a better business model.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

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? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. But businesses are finding that Continuous Deployment not only changes engineering but has ripple effects on the rest of its business model.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review. The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. Within each brand there were several models at different price points.

Cofounder 268

Cofounder Michigan Stock Forecast 268

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. Customer service and support.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2017

by Steve Owens, Founder and CTO of Finish Line Product Development Services. The lean start-up movement has been based on a single insight – which the purpose of a start-up is to discover a business model that works. Reducing product turn time. Start-ups are very different from established businesses.

Product Development 132

Product Development Lean Developer Product 132

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. For the first few years, your VCs want you to keep your head down, build the product, find product/market fit and ship to get to some inflection point (revenue, users, etc.). If so, how is the revenue measured? ——-.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Private Equity 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

Outside investors are most interested in scaling a proven business model, not research and development. Thus it’s a waste of time for most entrepreneurs to be looking for investors until they have a product and some customer revenue. Most founders bootstrap product development.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Bootstrapping 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2023

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 228

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 228

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 30, 2011

93% of startups that scale prematurely never break the $100k revenue per month threshold. times more likely to spend more than one standard deviation above the average on customer acquisition. Inconsistent startup outsource 4-5 times as much of their product development than consistent startups.

Silicon Valley 174

Silicon Valley Software Review Startup Cofounder 174

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

It drives media attention and fosters customer retention rate, which is why most companies strive to have it in their mission statement. It seeks to solve customer problems in a better and modern way and helping such companies edge the competition. Basecamp is one of the few companies in our business that we appreciate.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review SEO 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 336

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 336

Hearpreneur

APRIL 13, 2022

They continue to provide superior customer service by ensuring their storing and syncing capabilities are top-notch. Moreover, I like inspiring myself with interesting online business models and Wikipedia is a great example of a user-generated content-based website. Dropbox has been simple, down-to-earth, and. 5- Airbnb.

Artificial Inteligence 77

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 77

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Every large company, whether it can articulate it or not, is executing a proven business model (s).

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Sacha demonstrated the benefits of selling many copies of an eBook at a low price, while Jarrod pointed out the advantages of higher prices, bringing in more revenue with 1/6th the number of units sold. Company A has 1,000 customers each paying $10/mo. Company B has 10 customers each paying $1,000/mo. Which is better?

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

YoungUpstarts

MAY 18, 2017

However, when it comes to MLM product development, marketing ideas and compensation plan strategy, being a creative copycat could be a legal and ethical shortcut to achieving your business goals for your new MLM, party plan or direct selling company. The same goes for new MLM product development.

Marketing 104

Marketing Seattle Operations California 104

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) In an existing company with existing customers you 1) understand the customers problem and 2) since you do, you can specify the entire feature set on day one. The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Spencer Fry

MAY 2, 2014

Anyone who works in product development will know that ten months is an eternity. We started in July 2013 with the intention of getting something testable in the hands of a few customers by September and releasing it to everyone else by Thanksgiving. At Uncover, we’ve only churned one customer in twelve months.

Bootstrapping 57

Bootstrapping Revenue B2B Product Development 57

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30. 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. We’re building the wrong product!”

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

This partnership speaks to a core philosophy of the program where we encourage entrepreneurs to get as much customer validation as possible before raising too much money, use other people's channels if you can get to them, don't burn too much cash, and all that good fiscal conservative stuff. The business is already profitable with $2.9

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

YoungUpstarts

JULY 5, 2018

As online competition continues to heat up — from Amazon, specifically, which shows no signs of slowing down — brick and mortar retailers have been hard pressed to find new ways to acquire customers, secure their loyalty and continue expanding. Among the strategies tested by retailers are subscription billing programs.

Programming 104

Programming Bankruptcy Curation Retention 104

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Product development process. Billing and revenue collection. Customer service and support.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2014

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 285

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 285

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2018

That means they normally only invest in startups with a working product that has already been sold to at least one customer for full price (beta tests, giveaways and best friends don’t count). They are willing to cover marketing, inventory and scaling, but not product development. Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 139

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 139