Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. And over time every venture capitalist develops their own gut feel for what makes up a great team in their industry. ——-. I had struggled with this one for years.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, effective communication is the key to successful customer engagement. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of Salesforce SMS integration and how it can revolutionize your customer communication strategies. Why does Salesforce SMS integration matter?

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SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 125

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. Get customers to the site. Test the “problem” with customer data. One of the problems they run into is building a web site.

Lean 333

Lean Web Coder Business Model 333

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

Doctors, researchers and Principal Investigators in this class got out of the lab and hospital talked to 2,355 customers, tested 947 hypotheses and invalidated 423 of them. Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences.

Lean 244

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP 244

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 ——-.

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Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 287

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. Teams talk to 10-15 customers a week and make a minimum of 100 customer visits.

Intellectual Property 283

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 283

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2010

I’ve been teaching Customer Development at U.C. Berkeley was brave enough to let me write and teach a class on a subject that no one had ever heard of – Customer Development. Customer Development was a process to quickly search for a profitable business model when customer needs (features, pricing, channel, etc.)

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Customer Development Lean Developer Customer 226

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

Today, I was fortunate enough to get Hunter Boyle – Senior Business Development Director of AWeber to talk with us about what exactly business development is, and the role it can play on conversions. In my interview with Hunter, we discuss: The key responsibilities of a business development professional. Channel Partners.

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Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) The news from customers was not good. talk to more customers? Which value added services do public clouds want to attract customers for?

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Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 236

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development. Microsoft Windows 3.0).

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Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

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? Reminder: What’s the Point of Talking to Customers ?

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Customer Business Model Restful Video 415

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. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. Companies Run on Process.

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Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 317

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. He took a deep breath, looked around the boardroom table and then proceeded to outline a radical reconfiguration of the product line (repackaging the products rather than reengineering them) and a change in sales strategy, focusing on a different customer segment.

Business Model 333

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 333

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers. The VC’s response? “Nah,

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Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 249

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

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Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 300

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). And going for crowdfunding before you do customer discovery with customers can lock you into the wrong idea too early. Yore launching to the customers you’ve already discovered and validated your ideas. . …

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation. To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup.

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Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

I pointed out that the “data” you gather in 10 weeks (talking to 100+ customers, partners, payers, etc.,) Now that you’ve gotten to know your potential channel and customers, regardless of how much money you’re going to make, will you enjoy working with these customers for the next 3 or 4 years? ——– 1.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 326

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2015

Starting this Monday, March 9 th 4-6pm Pacific Time I’ll be on the radio hosting the Bay Area Ventures program on Sirius XM radio Channel 111 – the Wharton Business Radio Channel. Mark your calendar for 4-6pm Pacific Time on Sirius XM Radio Channel 111 : March 9 th. Oren Jacob – CEO ToyTalk. Leave me a comment.

Channel 120

Channel Venture Capital Lean Business Model 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Teams that build continuous customer discovery into their DNA will become smarter than their investors, and build more successful companies. All of sudden what was an additional engineering and development effort now became a small, variable cost. So we’ve learned to live with our customers. Crop Dusters. Lessons Learned.

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Customer Algorithm Customer Development California 318

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 19, 2017

In e-commerce, retaining customers is essential to the survival of your business. It has long been known that keeping a customer is much cheaper than acquiring a new one, as those customers tend to be far more receptive to sales and promotions after they have made an initial purchase with you. Engage your customers.

Software Review 133

Software Review Technical Review Retention Channel 133

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? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

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. After talking to its resellers and customers I realized that SuperMac was the only company that could be described as “fifth in a group of three.” Nothing I couldn’t fix.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 150

Steve Blank

JULY 24, 2012

I Know A Great Customer. And along with that first customer hypothesis I had the brilliant hypothesis that my channel partner should be Onyx. And along with that first customer hypothesis I had the brilliant hypothesis that my channel partner should be Onyx. A year later my co-founders and I had formed Epiphany.

Seattle 260

Seattle Cofounder Engineer Sales 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. Two paragraphs, Five bullets. It didn’t take more.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

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Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Its a key lean startup concept.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. We were looking for four students for the program, four developers in training, and we ended up getting 700 applicants in a week. New Targets & Innovative Approaches.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 143

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

Analyzing a case in the classroom, removed from the realities of a new venture, adds little to an entrepreneur’s preparation for the chaos, uncertainty, and conflicting customer responses that all entrepreneurs face. The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 435

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch. He went through his product feature by feature and matched them to the customer problems. It certainly sounded like he had done a great job of Customer Discovery.

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Forecast Sales Customer Customer Development 272

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, – the business model – is what turns a product into a business. entrepreneurship is experiential and requires theory and a ton of practice. Eight teams per class.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

In the 20 th century corporate skunk works were used to develop disruptive innovation separate from the rest of the company. Developed by Lockheed Skunkworks. The way they did so was to set up “skunk works” to develop their most advanced, disruptive products. IBM used the process to develop the IBM PC.)

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Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 288

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

OCTOBER 31, 2014

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. But other critical hypotheses such as activities, resources, partners, channels needed testing offshore. With 317 million people the U.S. Establish U.S.

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Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335