Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). Her first startup, Pencil You In, grew from a personal need to schedule hair appointments.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

They sold their product through the computer retail channel, something I knew nothing about. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Scalable startups are on a trajectory for a billion dollar market cap. But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. Entrepreneurship is everywhere, but everywhere isn’t a level playing field.

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Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? How do should startups do it? Which are permanent?

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Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

They had direct interaction with customers and controlled a sales channel which allowed them to negotiate their own deals with customers. Skunk works had control over their sales channel and had direct customer feedback. Skunk works looked much like a startup. Skunk works epitomized innovation by exception.

Channel 286

Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 286

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.

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By the end of the 20th century entrepreneurship education fell into two categories: 1) starting small businesses and 2) starting high-growth, high-risk scalable startups. The case method and business plans are the antithesis of how entrepreneurs create startups. Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

Everyone knows what a startup is for – don’t they? In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. In your startup’s business model, the boxes will have specific details of your company’s strategy.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Or blame my MarCom department who approved it.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. So I generally feel right at home in these conversations.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 19, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

” I see at least one or two startup teams a year in this space.). All of sudden what was an additional engineering and development effort now became a small, variable cost. As a bonus it meant the 1,400 aerial applicator companies could be a potential distribution channel partner.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. What’s the distribution channel? Startup Metrics.

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2013

This post is part of our series on the Lean Startup in Life Science and Health Care. Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 7: Revenue Streams in Life Sciences.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. It has become an integral part of startup culture. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. In my opinion, every startup needs to "pick a major" among these three drivers of growth. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0.

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San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. Our goal is to teach students the key concepts of the startup process and help them understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model.

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Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. I’ve been experimenting with how to best teach this idea to students in classroom and with startups. Keeping Score.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

These new entrants disrupted their food categories by offering high quality proprietary recipes, outsourcing their manufacturing, and using their cash and resources on sales and marketing to build distribution and a differentiated brand. The Lean LaunchPad class works for existing businesses as well as new startups. Lessons Learned.

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Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

So without further delay: Large Tech Meetups: Web Innovators Group : Quarterly Demo-Style meetup in Cambridge draws over 1000 members of the startup community each time. Online Resources and Newsletters: Bostinno : Great coverage of local startup happenings with a growing network of local writers. HBS Startup Tribe.

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Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

The Lean Startup is the way most innovators build startups and innovate inside of existing companies. The Business Model Canvas has been a great invention for everyone from startups to large companies. Customer Segments is changed to Beneficiaries. Channel is changed to Deployment. Change Channel to Deployment.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Its a force that allows startups to build products at parity with much larger companies - cheaper and much faster. Its a key lean startup concept. Leveraged distribution channels.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. Reply steveblank , on May 22, 2009 at 2:39 pm Said: Morteza, The comments about “ignore this post&# were meant that if your sales channel is the web you rarely go to trade shows.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health.

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Lean Customer Development IP Agile 241

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The goal of the class is to expose students to the basics of the Lean Methodology – Business Model Design , Customer Development and Agile Engineering. The not so good news is that other than having been customers, none of them had ever been in the fashion business. They had the Lean Startup model to follow.

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Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch. A VC asked me to have lunch with the CEO of a startup building cloud-based enterprise software.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know have they distribute their product? An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.” Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

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Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Finally the amount of capital needed to take a drug to FDA trials could be enormously expensive, at least 10x more than startup costs at an electron-based company. The two watershed events for biotech startups were the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. I call them “ Lean VC’ s” to emphasize why they’re different.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I pointed out to Bob the irony – in a large company “fear of failure” inhibits speed and risk taking while in a startup “fear of failure” drives speed and urgency. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. They’ve found product/market fit (what products customers want to buy).

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Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Don’t startups exist for the same reason? How does that stack up?

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

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. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

Our new Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. what distribution channel? Customer Segment : Owners/administrators of large green spaces (golf courses, universities, etc.) Channel : Mowing and agricultural equipment dealers. This post is part two.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

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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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

There is no certainty about a startup on day-one. You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 212

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

By getting out of the building on a team project, the class helped students viscerally understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model. Guest Speakers.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 126

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, September 18, 2008 How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of iPhone-related companies lately. There are other models, in other distribution channels. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. I havent found any yet.

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