Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 259

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ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

And, as we brainstormed with today's audience, they suggested other excellent use cases, including one for product managers to discuss feature-function priorities with customers and prospects. Said from Orange County, California, pitched MapWide.com , which is supposed to be a collection of sites like MapDentist.com, MapDoctors.com, etc.

Entrepreneur 116

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. Was the sales revenue model based on actually testing the hypotheses outside the building?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

revenues from internet video services spanning user-generated content to television shows and movies will exceed $7 billion this year. Get The Answers I am very excited to share with you the opportunity to meet the Managing Director of Growthink's new media and entertainment practice, Mr. Lee Muhl. How about Internet Video? Annual U.S.

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Technical Review Distribution 85

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. A year goes by, you miss your revenue plan, and you’ve burned through your first VP of Sales. What happened?

Silicon Valley 131

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results. What did we learn?

Sales 120

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Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

He had just filmed the second of a series of videos called, Speaking to the Big Dogs: How mid-level managers can communicate effectively with C-level executives (CEO, VP’s, General Managers, etc.) As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phrase “Speaking to the Big Dogs” might end up as his corporate brand.

Silicon Valley 176

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ReadWriteStart

MAY 12, 2011

Today, he has over a thousand, and he has chosen to focus on the realtor vertical. Then Taariq Lewis from San Francisco, California, presented Stanzr, a lightweight online events platform specifically focused on moving qualified leads generated through webinars towards a close. He is seeing excellent results. Following a guerrilla p.r.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Entrepreneur Silicon Valley India 125

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 16, 2010

The trends include Cloud computing, outsourcing, social Web, vertical and local Web, smartphones and tablets, online advertising, online video, online gaming, e-books, and bootstrapped entrepreneurship. Today, the company produces low carbon footprint fruits and vegetables and sells to distributors in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Senegal 117

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. As you stated, the VCs only want to hear about product development and, I would add, revenue models.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Lets see why. Something else?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan Foundation , the Sloan School of Management at MIT , the Sloan program at Stanford , and the Sloan/Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York. Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines.

Silicon Valley 156

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

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. I still think it is, but orthodox managers don’t see it that way. We had no clue what our market was when we first started. Ortho kills.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. The Experience is the Product | Better product management and products , on September 23, 2010 at 12:17 pm Said: [.]

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation. What is a company anyway?

Silicon Valley 164

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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.) We also talk about cash flow management rather than fund-raising though – watch and justifying expenses by cash coming in that matches or exceeds.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

The quintessential California couple, they stood out in our crowd as the engineer (in his late 20′s, respected by his peers and the customer) had hair down to his shoulders, sharply contrasting with the military crewcuts of the customers and most of the other contractors. Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

It might cater to new customers, it might solve a different need, or it might involve a different revenue model. For example, if you’re an early-stage SaaS provider that is shifting from a horizontal solution to a vertical focus, your mission, culture, and competencies can stay the same and the pivot transition will probably go smoothly.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. A big thank you to my friend Josh Webb who provided the transcription for This Week in Venture Capital with Tige Savage , Managing Director and co-founder of Revolution.

Cofounder 277

Cofounder Merger Founder Venture Capital 277

Growthink Blog

JUNE 19, 2010

revenues from internet video services spanning user-generated content to television shows and movies will exceed $7 billion this year. Get The Answers I am very excited to share with you the opportunity to meet the Managing Director of Growthink's new media and entertainment practice, Mr. Lee Muhl. How about Internet Video? Annual U.S.

Los Angeles 76

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Technical Review IP 76

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Silicon Valley 126

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Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

My own marketing department was convinced that the same industry magazines, which we had managed so well, would turn on us when they saw that the boards were physically identical. And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. What did I learn so far?

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Similarly, the bulk of the companies getting funding are still California-based. After Northern California and Southern California the biggest area of investment geographically was in international companies. The cost of money is steep, and only works in certain verticals, of which software is NOT one. just my 2 cents.

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

Start Up Blog

APRIL 29, 2013

The art of activating idle assets to bring in new revenue is occurring for both the service provider and the service creator. A local example was the Greenhouse pop up restaurant in Melbourne by Joost Baker – Which included vertical gardens and large amounts of material re-purposing. Cities are now becoming vertical again.

Uruguay 123

Uruguay Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 123

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2016

And maybe that openness is what has attracted many on the management team of other ethnic groups of Chinese, Iranians and the like? This is the cycle of synergies that lead to strong vertical franchises in media. Of course there are many great verticals including: Auto, food, music, animation, shopping. ESPN in sports.

Vertical 150

Vertical Video South America Los Angeles 150

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

If you are looking for short-term revenue or quick wins, you are better off skipping it (do something boring, but profitable, like Email or Affiliate marketing). Provide a list of target countries to your management team where new opportunities exist (as identified by your competitors). Geographic World Domination Opportunities.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Non-Compete Search 60