Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. One of their major initiatives is to launch marketing programs that engage customers in a fresh, new way. We come across some interesting stories from people who are really making things happen.

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

Rent seeking lobbyists go directly to legislative bodies (Congress, State Legislatures, City Councils) to persuade government officials to enact laws and regulations in exchange for campaign contributions , appeasing influential voting blocks or future jobs in the regulated industry. Diagram the Customer Segment Relationships.

Marketing 321

Marketing Startup Government SEC 321

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he ran the Think Different ads, a brilliant marketing campaign to make Apple’s core customers believe that Apple was still fighting for the brand. Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture. Entrepreneurs as Dissidents. The crazy ones? The misfits?

Entrepreneur 335

Entrepreneur United States Customer Development Business Model 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In Customer Development the goal of a minimum feature set is to pare the features of the first product release to the minimum necessary for early customers. And once you got the data you asked for, it still took weeks or months for a marketer to tease out any customer insight and trends from the data. An Epiphany.

San Francisco 228

San Francisco Database Advisory Board Silicon Valley 228

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. Present and explain your marketing campaign.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

ConversionXL

MARCH 4, 2020

Another solution is to use custom Events instead of dimensions, but that usually requires some custom development work. (At Check that there are no filters editing your campaign final URLs. This way, you can check that no other live experiment has GA12 in its name. At CXL Agency , we set this up for most clients.).

Analytics 88

Analytics IP Metrics Conversion 88

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 20, 2010

As a good student of startup theory, especially modern theories of customer development, this time I was methodical and purposeful. 30 simultaneous marketing campaigns, particularly when offline (e.g. If you want a step-by-step, here's a great guide and checklist of how to do early customer development by Ash Maurya.

Startup 239

Startup Campaign Turkey Customer Development 239

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

and Britian can affect German war-fighting capability is by mounting a Strategic Bombing campaign , from England. The Americans and British split up the air campaign: the British bombed at night, the Americans during the day.

Silicon Valley 180

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 180

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 10, 2012

Until you have the roadmap nailed down, you can’t scale sales (it would be like throwing money at a big search campaign before you know your lifetime values and conversion rate). It’s the same reason you can’t outsource customer development. The founders have to do the early sales.

Hiring 51

Hiring Founder Viral Early Stage 51

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

In today’s language of Customer Development , RIM positioned the Blackberry as a segment of an existing market – pager users who needed two-way communication. In today’s language of Customer Development , a TiVo positioned as a segment of an existing market (VCR’s) was a no brainer. Except there was one problem.

Hockey Stick 271

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 271

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2015

Customer Development for us meant a lot of hard-won learnings. So we launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. The endless emails we received describing the exact need we had uncovered were the powerful validation of the customer development approach. There was no going back. Eat your own dog food.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Lean Customer Development Startup 120

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Talk to your customers or prospects. You have only 10 customers? No customers at all? If you’re starting out, what you need is customer development, not conversion optimization. You need to talk to people. No problem! both tests Monday to Sunday).

Conversion 124

Conversion Framework Technical Review Analytics 124

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 29, 2014

This tells you where your mobile users are coming from, which can influence how you design campaigns to attract more visitors. This functionality requires custom development to set up, which you can read more about here. Another useful report is Channels (Acquisition > Channels) with the “Mobile Traffic” segment applied.

Analytics 65

Analytics Mobile Channel Conversion 65

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2016

The real driver was that we wanted to fund the café without borrowing money, so we decided to spend these three years doing a capital campaign. Steve : So while raising money, you were running a branding and a customer-acquisition campaign. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Jack : Right!

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Morocco Arkansas 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2013

It’s OK because in an era where you can much more rapidly prototype and build products it is far more beneficial to launch your first version, get initial customer traction and then talk to your customer base to understand how well it meets their needs.

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Sales Startup Framework Search 393

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

If you want to earn your customer’s trust, you have ample opportunities to do so. Fundraising Campaigns Still Work. There was a time when local companies would start their businesses on the back of fundraising campaigns. Trust can be earned through: 1.

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Customer Wiki Social Media Channel 133

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Do This: Use customer development techniques found in this post to build a profile of your ideal buyer personas. Making The Most Of Your Autoresponder Campaign. image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2018

Much of the writing on startups focuses on two elements: finding product-market fit scaling the company once #1 is accomplished For product-market fit, we have a lot of source material to work with from the last decade: Steve Blank’s leadership on Customer Development , and Eric Ries’ on the Lean Startup ?—?along

Warrant 48

Warrant Bootstrapping Framework Hiring 48

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

After volunteering for the Obama campaign last year, a friend of mine insisted that I write a letter to our new President telling him what I thought he should do. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Ill explain in a moment. This post is the result.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Hippoland

DECEMBER 5, 2012

Customer Development. When I first started customer development , it was really daunting. I would often have to cold-call and approach random people I didn’t know to do these customer interviews. We needed to keep campaigns straight and keep track of who paid and who needed to be paid. Growth Hacking.

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Founder Cofounder Advertising Customer Development 90

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

As part of their book campaign, Brant and Patrick have teamed up with General Assembly to offer 4 free online video classes, including: Lean UX Research Techniques - Rapid Prototyping - How to Hire Developers - Growth Hacking Every book pre-order get access to all of these classes - and quite a bit more. It's a big tent.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

ConversionXL

JULY 1, 2014

You send out email launch campaign to highly targeted list of 30 000 people and only 30 people sign up? The post Everything You Need To Know About Designing Valuable Customer Surveys appeared first on ConversionXL. Seems Like A Lot Of Work, Does This Stuff Really Work?

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Customer Design Software Review Lead Generation 76

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 14, 2016

However, whilst that might be a great testament to the power of customer development and their most important learning it wasn’t the thing they found out. They are building an online garden centre chasing the £4bn spend in that market across the UK, but the first target customers are people who own balconies and flats in London.

Customer 60

Customer Demand Campaign Customer Development 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

They created the “Intel Inside” campaign. Apple was trying to resurrect a then-dying company by reminding people what Apple stood for with their “Think Different” ad campaign. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing. Use the Value Proposition Canvas to understand who your audience(s) are.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

If it was a very big mistake, I blamed the VP of Sales. “This marketing campaign didn’t work? Reply Customer Development Gut Checks « Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on April 28, 2009 at 11:38 am Said: [.] The only variable was how big the screw-up was – that made a difference in whom I blamed.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2016

the FEC deals with campaign finance information, regulating and disclosing all that information. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Steve : So other people can suck out data from their site? Hillary : That’s exactly right.

Small Business Administration 120

Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 1, 2013

3) Customer Development: In the social change space, the customer who "pays" (e.g. The space that I work in—online advocacy—has a long history of running controlled experiments and using A/B testing to measure and optimize campaigns. a foundation) is often not the beneficiary of the service.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Metrics Angel Investor 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

And, Alistair carefully breaks down cohort analysis, a method of grouping users according to a shared criterion (all the users who joined in a given month, for instance, or during a particular campaign), and then demonstrates how you can test with those cohorts to yield actionable information.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2010

After so many of you stepped forward to show your support in last years 2gov campaign , I got a call out of the blue from a member of Senator Lugars staff. After so many of you stepped forward to show your support in last years 2gov campaign , I got a call out of the blue from a member of Senator Lugars staff.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco DC Washington Startup 113

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about Customer Development and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). You can get away with effective behavior in a large company.

Silicon Valley 324

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 324

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

We were trying out different cities, and I was flying around the country, and we were trying different campaigns and various things, and ultimately they were not working. Through that process, I lost a lot including some relationships with individuals, and I started to develop symptoms of acute anxiety. . Tune in Thursday, Oct.

Columbus 245

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 245

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 29, 2010

We have a list of ways on the StartupVisa website: Go to our campaign page & tweet your support NOW! (<30 We have a list of ways on the StartupVisa website: Go to our campaign page & tweet your support NOW! (<30 The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Video DC Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I know that sometimes campaigns like this can seem overwhelming. The good news I hope well get to announce in a few days is the direct result of the twitter campaign you helped launch last year. I know that sometimes campaigns like this can seem overwhelming. If you have other ideas, please feel free to leave them in a comment.

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San Francisco DC Startup Lean 118

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2015

The campaign ends on Wednesday, April 15-- learn more about it here. MVP''s help you discover "what really matters" The technology research and development team of REDACTED faced a challenge that will be familiar to anyone whose products are subject to rigorous reliability and safety testing.

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Lean Technology Metrics Developer 60