Mike Michalowicz

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Dr. White has one of the highest Yelp scores among private practice optometrists and has one of the highest per-patient revenues in the country. His practice, Complete Family Vision Care Optometry, is in San Diego, California. Dr. Aaron Neufeld, OD is an Owner/Optometrist at Los Altos Optometric Group in Los Altos, California.

San Diego 111

San Diego Technical Review California Retention 111

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

The subscription box industry is growing rapidly thanks to a steady revenue model and tapping into people’s love for surprises. But if you’re writing a plan as an internal guide for strategic growth, you should consider a lighter version— a Lean Plan. Marketing and sales plan. Your problem and solution. Operations.

Business Plan 63

Business Plan Curation Balance Sheet Intellectual Property 63

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 25, 2013

The Lean Startup methodology has its roots in the tech sector, where companies need to iterate quickly in order to survive. In fact, at last year’s Lean Startup conference we had speakers from a number other sectors, including government, transportation, education and public health.

Lean 167

Lean Ghana Startup Government 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Your goal was to preserve your cash while you turned these guesses into facts and searched for a repeatable and scalable sales model. A Progress Graph on the right visually shows how far you’ve come (in whatever units of goodness you’re tracking – revenue, units, users, etc.)

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I lived through the time when working in my first job in Ann Arbor Michigan we had to get out a map to find out that San Jose was not only in Puerto Rico but there was a city with that same name in California. The response was inevitably “great pipeline.” (Great pipeline means no real sales.). We now understand that’s wrong.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This week they were testing their hypotheses about Revenue Models: what are customers really willing to pay for? Are you generating transactional or recurring revenues? Parts one through six are here , Syllabus is here. .

Revenue 213

Revenue West Virginia Oklahoma Oklahoma City 213

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

When a startup finds a repeatable sales process and steadily increasing revenue, its investors wants to harvest the rewards and build a culture of “execution.” 4) You don’t see any revenue gain past three years. 2) They don’t care about your profitibility and ultimately, your staying power.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

The implications for entrepreneurs is that each of these (market risk versus invention risk,) require radically different financing models, a different type of venture investor, different timing for hiring sales and marketing, etc. These two numbers have direct impact on revenue and financial health.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Small Business and Startups: The True “Lean” Movement – [link]. Small Business and Startups: The True “Lean” Movement – [link]. These days, investors want to hear about the revenue you’re generating, not the traffic.” - [link]. How to Steal Killer Sales Copy Straight from Your Prospects’ Mouths – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. Some sales guy who was too busy to take the meeting was probably retired in Maui on the commissions. Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2015

Many people are too cautious in sales processes and as a result when they present their solutions they end up sounding milquetoast and undifferentiated from anybody else in the market. I recently wrote about the three rules of sales. In sales we often call these USPs (I wrote about them here: Unique Selling Propositions ).

Sales 150

Sales Silicon Valley Las Vegas Southern California 150

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

You might notice what’s not on that list above: revenue, investors. No revenue isn’t always a problem for venture-style businesses; no investors + no revenue = challenges for most founders without tremendous self-funding. Lean into it. What did our customers think? Step on the scale. Do I think we’re still better?

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

Up and Running

AUGUST 3, 2016

George Hedley, a CSP based in California, is known as “The Business Builder” and has worked in the construction industry since 1977. Sales goals, based on your firm’s profit margins and goals for gross profit and net profit. Use good years to buffer lean years. Use good years to buffer lean years.

Revenue 60

Revenue Nebraska Virginia Lean 60

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Search engine marketing is a tactic that is perfect for a lean, iterative approach to marketing. To generate sales and revenue? Or does it have to be an actual sale for you to consider it a conversion? Related posts: Lean Marketing: Public Relations strategies for small businesses and startups. Graphic: Sam Michel.

Advertising 103

Advertising Lean Marketing Campaign 103

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

Carl was also worldwide head of stores at Home Depot when Hurricane Katrina hit, running sales out of the backs of trucks and accepting IOUs for payment. And half our clubs were in the state of California in 2008, so was a very interesting time to be a CEO and learned a lot. You're usually your own worst critic. Carl Liebert : Yeah.

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

www.inc.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Sales & Marketing | Wednesdays. SALES & MARKETING. But with the help of Grahams company, which specializes in creating tech systems for start-ups, Jumpstart grew to more than $50 million in revenue--enough to make it an attractive acquisition for media conglomerate Hachette Filipacchi. Finance | Tuesdays. Innovation | Fridays.

Arizona 40

Arizona Equity Iowa Venture Capital 40

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. End result?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

If failure is defined as failing to see the projected return on investment—say, a specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow—then more than 95% of start-ups fail, based on Mr. Ghoshs research. Harley Goes Lean to Build Hogs. Businesses For Sale |. California. Businesses For Sale |.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Sales – What Channel to reach the customer? Waterfall, Agile, Lean?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

I might have pursued a humanities education at a “ kumbaya college ” in California, but it’s only human to be at least a little bit selfish! Top firms want fiercely ambitious product managers who possess a deep and revenue-generating empathy for their users, their colleagues and their shareholders.

Management 85

Management Product Technical Review Software Review 85

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. While this may seem obvious to anyone not in sales and marketing, trust me, in a technology company this is a conceptual breakthrough. But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

Up and Running

JULY 16, 2015

From the beginning and all along the way, careful planning has guided the business from revenues of $35,000 in 2011, to $400,000 in 2014, and estimates of $700,000 for 2015. In our second year, we bought a small commercial ice cream machine, added a second cart, and almost tripled our sales.”. Again, sales tripled. “By

Oregon 60

Oregon Prospectus Southern California California 60

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

As a result, Pandora is nowhere near profitable at more than $103 million in quarterly revenue, paying more than half of this sum to labels for content licenses. iOS App Store revenue still dwarfs Google Play’s, but the challenger is catching up fast. Surprisingly, the leading market for Google Play revenue is Japan, not the US.

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 22, 2020

Digital Response (USDR) CalFresh Onward California Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1935-1944" SF New Deal donation/volunteer page Transcript for Out of the Crisis #15: SF New Deal Eric Ries : This is Out of the Crisis, I'm Eric Ries.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Government Technical Review Community 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

If it was a very big mistake, I blamed the VP of Sales. “This marketing campaign didn’t work? It was a brilliant strategy but Sales screwed it up.&# (My own lame defense here for this behavior is that sales and marketing are always cats and dogs in startups. Or simply wishful thinking?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

I took a deep breath and asked, “Ok, if you were, what percentage of your sales do you think these markets would be in 5 years?” “I guess less than 5%,” was the answer. Achieving consensus about every corner case from each stakeholder in the room is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 176

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.)

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

October 2012 – Erin Turner and Gagan Biyani host the first Growth Hackers Conference in Menlo Park, California. Ads drive awareness…to drive sales. PR and publicity drive attention…to drive sales. Social media drives communication…to drive sales. Ensured that sales reflects your value-based pricing strategy.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Some engineers were insulted that we were going to slow down their board and sales was convinced that within days of the board hitting the street we would have a black market in chips to speed up the $699 boards and turn them into $3,999 ones. Marketings job is to take engineering products and use them to maximize revenue and profit.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. I’ll show you the memo in a second. But first some background.) It was still a year away from its IPO. Its latest product was an oscilloscope, the HP 150a.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Scalable Startup

MAY 16, 2015

“Boom and bust is our lot and we must follow the ancient advice.that Joseph gave to the Pharaoh: Put away your surplus during the years of great plenty so you will be ready for the lean years which are sure to follow.”. But its stock is trading at twenty-odd times the company’s annual sales.” There is no E in the P/E.

San Francisco 20

San Francisco Silicon Valley California Oakland 20

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

For a lot of small businesses, they start to think they’re making some sales, they’ve got a product. Then, of course, more effective sales down that sales funnel. To Tim Berry’s point, who was on this podcast a little while ago in a lean planning episode, a lot of this stuff comes from iterative thinking.

Marketing 60

Marketing United States Employee District of Columbia 60