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. Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

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. billion in sales in today’s dollars). What Does GM Have to Do with Tesla And Elon Musk?

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder 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.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

After many sales calls, early prospects showed little rush to buy it! By then, I had become a venture capitalist at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and found myself talking to a lot of entrepreneurs who were proclaiming their great technology yet were struggling with little revenue, and claiming they were “crossing the chasm”.

Japan 292

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

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 Venture Capital 120

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Here’s a short summary of the discussion: Guy, you launched Snyk in 2015, and a large part of your success was driven by your freemium model. With COVID, we’re getting into a world with tighter budgets and likely longer sales cycles. million developers using our product. A year in, we had great usage and no revenue.

Early Stage 62

Early Stage Open Source Development Team Review Security 62

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

You take that money and invest a good portion of it in traditional sales and marketing efforts — including product developers, creative people, and salespeople, all of whom are paid to figure out what buyers want and to say good things about your company — in a quest to get even more customers. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

The Enterprise: Business Model Execution We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

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

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. Adobe and Tesla offer two examples.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. Traditionally, engineering, sales, and marketing have all focused on the immovable launch date.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

What could make more sense than to leverage the enthusiasm of happy customers to convince buyers that they need your products and services? And in an increasingly social and networked world — not to mention an economy where every dollar of revenue is critical — this type of third party validation is more important than ever.

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

If so, the business world is full of specialists who are all too eager to help. Talented product developers. When 3M brought “lead users” into its innovation process, they improved revenues by a factor of eight times over innovations from internal product developers. Highly trained salespeople.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) The Revenue Plan – The Third Fatal Assumption. Notice that the traditional product introduction model leads to a product launch and the execution of a revenue plan. Albert Einstein.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Tesla Tesla invented a successful business model for bringing compelling electric cars to the market. Tesla has always put a huge emphasis on product development and technological advancement. It is also one of my most admired companies. The reason for its success is due to not holding ‘compromises’ as an option.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review SEO 118

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Spencer Fry

MAY 2, 2014

Anyone who works in product development will know that ten months is an eternity. Unfortunately, it’s just the nature of product development — and especially so when you’re working with part-time people —that deadlines are missed and work takes much longer than you expected. I’m glad I held out, though. I love SaaS.

Bootstrapping 57

Bootstrapping Revenue Forecast Product Development 57

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.

Startup 268

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 268

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

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

And, oh by the way, we also really like the idea of the 1M/1M entrepreneurs building valuation and negotiating leverage through these business development efforts, instead of signing off large chunks of their company in form of equity early on. The business is already profitable with $2.9 million in revenue.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

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.

Institutional Investors 230

Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping Database 230

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

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.

Startup 255

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 255

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Sites like KickStarter have for years offered rewards and pre-sales for crowd investments, but real equity won’t be legalized until sometime this year for people other than accredited investors. Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It suggests the minimum features to allow the product to be deployed and get feedback, and no more.

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

YoungUpstarts

JULY 22, 2015

Run of the mill startups accept seasonal drag without a plan while the ones that eventually grow significantly larger do not accept profit swings or revenue losses as part of their company’s reality. Here’s how to change your business model in order to mitigate or leverage seasonal demand: Level out revenues.

Startup 100

Startup Bankruptcy Campaign Demand 100

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Of all your hires, if you have commissioned sales people, those will give you the most problems if they’re not all given an equal chance to make their quotas and achieve their personal earnings goals. Your business works as intended if you can attract customers that fit into the context of your operation. Are the logistics manageable?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

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. In that case, A can’t keep growing forever, so its revenue is limited, which is a bad spot. maximizing per-unit profitability).

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2011

The VP of an operating division had run into trouble in product development; the product was late and getting later. The revenue plan had the new product baked into the numbers and it was clear that this division General Manager was going to crater his forecast (happens all the time, nothing new here.)

Forecast 264

Forecast Agile Revenue Founder 264

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

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.

Startup 239

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 239

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

So, if thinking about the future isn’t a waste of time, why are 5-year business plans a waste of time? They’re a waste of time because they typically follow the same format as a traditional business plan, where you are asked to project sales, expenses, and cash flow 5 and 10 years into the future. Let’s be real.

Business Plan 83

Business Plan Lean Forecast Exit Strategy 83

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 15, 2017

by Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of “ The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue “ The fastest growing businesses today have a powerful secret weapon: superusers. But first, you have to nurture your existing superusers while also developing new ones.

Community 124

Community LLC Customer Developer 124

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

There is an inherent conflict in a consultant’s business model and the needs of a startup. For instance, if a consultant proposes to help you with public relations, pay them a commission equivalent to the greater of a flat fee per story placed or a percentage of revenue generated from the PR coverage. Pyramid Power.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. A typical ad-based revenue stream on a media website is around $5 per 1000 eyeballs ($5m CPM and give or take $1-$20ish CPMs). For example, if you are running affiliate ads for hotels, you might get 3-5% on a sale.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Diving in a bit more into some thoughts here: 1b) Ad-based revenue streams generally have terrible unit economics. A typical ad-based revenue stream on a media website is around $5 per 1000 eyeballs ($5m CPM and give or take $1-$20ish CPMs). For example, if you are running affiliate ads for hotels, you might get 3-5% on a sale.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

The company’s sales manager shared some remarkable research that showed that while the “conventional wisdom” was that the company’s market space was in free fall and under severe “legacy” pressure, in actual reality the market was experiencing solid, and in some areas, unprecedented growth.

Conversion 48

Conversion Los Angeles Europe Acquisition 48

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 14, 2015

Image via Flickr by Side Wages Some entrepreneurs forget that they need an innovative business model along with an innovative solution to have a successful startup. Inventors alone, or business gurus alone, generally fail. Technologists forget that investors are buying a chunk of the business, not the product.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Startup Angel Investor Social Media 120

Up and Running

JULY 24, 2015

On Bplans, you’ll find templates, free eBooks, and articles on how to plan and start your business. Business Model Generation. This website offers a downloadable worksheet called a business model canvas that helps you think through your business idea. Product development. Edison Nation.

Entrepreneur 60

Entrepreneur Small Business Administration SBA Pennsylvania 60

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

And then I think in a lot of ways it’s become air for every sort of channel and element and, even as you suggest in your last book, a business model in itself. We think there’s something bigger, as Robert talked about and you talked about, this is a business model change. We create four, five.

Cost 37

Cost Marketing Audience Media 37