Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

It’s Part of the Plan. Most investors require you to write a business plan which includes a section called a “competitive analysis” in which you tell potential investors how your product compares to products other companies trying to develop and sell to the same customers. No feature lists without facts.

Customer Development 259

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 259

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. Students formed 5-person teams, came up with a business idea then got out of the building to validate their business model. Customer Discovery.

Intellectual Property 226

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 226

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

I think this idea is particularly appealing to those of us from an engineering background. Certainly venture-backed startups don’t have this luxury – every business plan has a model in it. In a startup context, numbers like gross revenue are actually vanity metrics, not actionable metrics.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2010

For the many entrepreneurs that send me cold emails asking for me to review a business plan or answer a strategic dilemma: Im much more likely to answer if youve already tried getting an answer on the mailing list. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 146

Lean San Francisco Wiki Startup 146

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission? In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue?

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

The core of the article is my first attempt to articulate the key metrics (in graph form) that I believe demonstrate customer value. When startups ask me what to measure, I always come back to these three as a starting point: Revenue per customer. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

We just had our app support a few tens of thousands of customers, and it did well. Some combination of the dot-com crash and a just terrible business plan prevented us from having to take our scalability problems to the next level. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

This week they broadened the discussion with interviews with the city planner in Mariposa, Texas and the city engineer from Rapid City, South Dakota. What are the key financials metrics for costs in your business model? Where is the best place for your business? They worked on understanding their partners.

South Dakota 217

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 217

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. Instead of sitting down to write a 40-page business plan, start with a one-page pitch. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

But instead of spending the time and money to develop products on spec, TPGTEX creates mocked-up webpages that list the features of a potential new product -- such as a system for making radio-frequency identification, or RFID, labels -- along with its price. The key ideas are customer development , the pivot , MVP, and root cause analysis.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Ali G meets with business leaders and investors on Wall Street to learn how to create a new company around a new product idea. After some general lessons, he then proposes his first product idea, complete with flip charts, business plan, and marketing plan. Labels: customer development 3comments: Anonymoussaid.

San Francisco 104

San Francisco DC Continuous Deployment Lean 104

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and media buyers I see lots of startups whose business plans revolve around selling high-value ad space to brand advertisers. You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore).

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Thats what business is designed to do.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

We still have some collective scar tissue: the idea conjures up the hordes of dot-com hopefuls that descended on VC’s and angel investors with little more than a business plan. I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. What’s the worst case?

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. Constructing a working business model is a form of ecosystem design. Startup founders need to use their own judgment to ask: which is the riskiest assumption underlying my business plan?

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think. The problem is that customers dont read your business plan.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

No vanity metrics should be looked at. But when it comes to the specific of a product release, business plan, or marketing launch, all that matters is: do we have a strong hypothesis that will enable us to learn? No vanity metrics should be looked at. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Written By Dan Martell on February 2nd, 2012 | Category: Hiring LeanStartup Marketing Metrics Startup Life | 6 Comments. Building Metrics / Usage Reports / KPI 3. Product/Metrics (70%/30% time) * Get your product activation (sign-up + meaningful action) to 60% * then, Get your product retention to 20% weekly. Why do I do it?

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

It’s hard to imagine, but only a decade ago, the capstone entrepreneurship class in most universities was how to write – or pitch- a business plan. In my experience, I saw that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. As a serial entrepreneur turned educator, this didn’t make sense to me.

Lean 248

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 248

market-by-numbers.com

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Market By Numbers on Twitter | Entries RSS | Comments RSS Market By Numbers High-Tech Marketing and Customer Development Home What is Customer Development? The “encroachment&# of business or engineering on design is (theoretically) dependent on the driving force, rather than personal bias.

San Diego 40

San Diego RSS Lean Elevator Pitch 40

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

One can see how it ripples through the entire business plan. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. I think its critical technologists understand market segments, even more than market types.

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Firebase : Are all your developers front-end engineers? Google Custom Search Engine. Google App Engine. Small Business tools list. Startup Metrics for Pirates â?? SaaS Metrics Tutorial â?? Search Engine Optimization Tools.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53