Remove Business Plan Remove Customer Remove Customer Development Remove Vertical
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Raising Money Using Customer Development

Steve Blank

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? Is there a profitable business model?

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The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

So what’s wrong the product development model? The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.)

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Vertical Markets 1: Bad Advice – All Startups are the Same « Steve.

Steve Blank

Intellectual Property At the next class I said, “You all ought to get out and start talking to customers on day one, and get early feedback on your idea. Don’t share the details of your manufacturing process with customers until you’ve locked up your intellectual property.” Just get out of the building.” Oops,” I said, “you’re right.

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Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

I hate business plan competitions. I Love Business Plan Competitions I had a breakfast with a friend who has founded a few companies in Thailand and started the New Ventures Program at one of their universities. For all the reasons why business plan competitions are wonderful for students from outside the U.S.,

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The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. They lack any way to stop and fix what’s broken (or even to know if it is broken.)

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Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Vertical Markets 4: Putting it All Together « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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