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. would look in each of the verticals. Sales – What Channel to reach the customer? Marketing – How do you create end user demand?

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. When you and your board agree you’ve found a repeatable and scalable sales model (i.e.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

New media platforms are enabling a new creator type: Digitally Native Vertical Creators , Eric Feng. New media platforms are enabling a new creator type: Digitally Native Vertical Creator s, Eric Feng. Copyright, or the lack thereof – it’s hard for creators to prevent illegal distribution of their IP.

Aggregator 207

Aggregator Vertical Audience Seed Stage 207

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. But that wasn’t the root cause of the problem.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

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. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2012

Often, this means specializing in a single vertical market or industry. Leadership is distributed. They demand real measurements that help them run the business. Develop new channels? Measure only what matters. Metrics must help answer questions such as: Should you increase spending to build new and innovative products?

Vertical 223

Vertical Distribution Leadership Programming 223

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

Often, this means specializing in a single vertical market or industry. Leadership is distributed. They demand real measurements that help them run the business. Develop new channels? Measure only what matters. Metrics must help answer questions such as: Should you increase spending to build new and innovative products?

Startup 233

Startup Leadership Vertical Distribution 233

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Often, this means specializing in a single vertical market or industry. Leadership is distributed. They demand real measurements that help them run the business. Develop new channels? Measure only what matters. Metrics must help answer questions such as: Should you increase spending to build new and innovative products?

Leadership 224

Leadership Vertical Distribution Programming 224

The Next Web

DECEMBER 8, 2013

Today, Airbnb, oDesk and multiple second-hand fashion marketplace startups show that there are tons of untapped verticals where horizontal product platform cannot serve properly or where consumer simply prefer a more tailored brand. Start with aggregating scarce and in-demand inventory.

B2C 136

B2C B2B Demand Vertical 136

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 5, 2013

Palantir has been able to repeatedly pair it’s core analytics platform with human investigators who unlock business value across a variety of vertical domains. The challenge ahead lies in translating this technology + human solution into a product that can be distributed through established sales channels for maximum scale.

Cofounder 167

Cofounder Vertical Algorithm Government 167

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

ConversionXL

JANUARY 14, 2020

It’s more than just a distribution channel. Whether it improves the quality of an existing page (and, therefore, rankings for keywords you’re already addressing) or justifies new page creation (to rank for new keywords), there has to be demand. SEO is a pull channel, and search volume is indicative of demand.

SEO 159

SEO Framework SCRUM Search 159

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The product development model is so focused on building and shipping the product that it ignores the entire process of testing your basic hypothesis about your business model (customers, channel, pricing, etc.) customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) before you ship.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Start Up Blog

JANUARY 29, 2012

Innovate radically to invent new ways to distribute consumer goods. We can no longer buy an audience on demand. Brands that have a share of voice in the new media landscape will be ready to participate in emerging distribution channels when they arrive. One of which will certainly be theirs.

Australia 93

Australia Distribution Asia Channel 93

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

A tool like Quuu identifies relevant, shareable content to keep your social media channels active. . Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. the Untouched Vertical. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. From left to right I wrote in boxes: talent discovery, content development, production, post-production, distribution, & marketing. Were they vertically integrated ? If so, why?

Technical Review 356

Technical Review Framework Audience Media 356

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. The person who can quickly re-channel that excitement to a different idea (one based on fact, not faith) will have much more success. There is no certainty about a startup on day-one.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 212

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. I was simply confused about what a plan was for.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

StoredIQ has rapidly gained traction with customers across several vertical industries, including financial services, healthcare and oil and gas. “Buddy has substantial channel and business development experience working with a range of companies, from early stage to multinational corporations.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

After that there’s a discussion of how the product will reach the customer and the potential distribution channel. The distribution discussion leads to some conclusions about competition: who are they and how they differ. The distribution discussion also leads to some assumptions about pricing.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Rob Go

JANUARY 21, 2016

The ride experience is better in an UberX than a taxi, uberX is cheaper than a taxi, and on demand mobile booking, payments, etc make it way more convenient. Convenience tends to be an area where incumbents struggle, especially when convenience is tied to new forms of distribution. Some companies have all three. Uber is the trifecta.

Disintermediation 28

Disintermediation Distribution Demand Flash 28

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Do you know have they distribute their product? Do you know how they create demand? Rule 1: In an existing market Customer Development means not only understanding potential customers, but your competitors in detail – their product features, their sales channels, their demand creation strategy, their business model, etc.

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2016

Founded in Los Angeles by Latinos to address the growing demand for short-form online video for Millennials it is probably single-handedly improving the diversity of the tech industry as the employee base is overwhelmingly Latino and proud. And you can now negotiate for fees for cable and satellite operators to carry your channels.

Vertical 150

Vertical Video South America Los Angeles 150

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

17:11] There are a lot of brands today that are direct to consumer – how has distribution changed? [20:10] I think there's something that you'll notice that most, most premium brands across industries, I'm sorry, across production verticals that chase the consumer, the premium ones tend to have very clean websites.

Networking 89

Networking Early Stage Distribution Hosting 89

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

They also use multi-channel content distribution to improve brand awareness and meet prospects where they already are. For a reasonable return on investment, target higher-value accounts than you would with more conventional demand generation plays. How LiveRamp drove over $50M in annual revenue from 15 target accounts.

Marketing 100

Marketing Campaign Email Sales 100

VC Cafe

APRIL 15, 2024

Initially, many publishers were slow to recognize the internet’s impact on their business model as distribution and the classifieds and ad worlds split – or what Ben Thompson calls the “ Great Unbundling ”. Media companies can create their own smaller, specialised LLMs to boost vertical content creation. What do you think?

Generative AI 142

Generative AI Media Artificial Inteligence Vertical 142

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

In this case, a simple distribution of overall search traffic and the amount that is coming via paid search. You can get the overall traffic numbers… Which gives you a sense for how strategically you are treating this channel, and how your competitors are doing it. It shows Traffic Share and distribution of the share.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Non-Compete Search 60

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

But I knew I had to look for investments in “software meets X (often known as Vertical Software solutions)” rather than necessarily horizontal enterprise software applications. A few years ago Jonah acquired Ze Frank’s video production company and the two of them have really built an enormous video production & distribution business.

Media 210

Media Los Angeles Russia Viral 210