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How Startups Can Keep Product Development Lean

YoungUpstarts

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. Specifically, we show that OPD leads to: Increasing the ability to pivot.

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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

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?

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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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Raising Money Using Customer Development

Steve Blank

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? What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

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Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

The Customer Development process says preserve your cash by not hiring anyone in sales and marketing until the founders turn hypotheses into facts and you have found product/market fit. This “get out of the building” activity is the Customer Discovery step of the Customer Development Model.

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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. While these objectives provide an illusion of progress, in reality they do little to validate the business plan hypotheses about customers and what they will buy.