Cofounder, Customer Development and Search

How Do You Want to Spend Your Next 4 Years of Your Life?

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. You don’t want to do Customer Development with them. So you and your team need to feel comfortable being in this business with these customers. It never goes well. You don’t want to talk to them.

Cofounder

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean

Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard. Yesterday, Michael Pope posted an article titled Technical Cofounders Are a Myth. He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website.

Technical Cofounder

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO

Nailing that elusive technical co-founder

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

The Scene Developers Nailing that elusive technical co-founder. Just last week, start-up supremo Naval Ravikant of AngelList wrote how the “oversupply” of founders starting companies is making it harder to hire for the average startup. Are there any ‘Founders Dating’ events coming up?”. Yiannopoulos.

Cofounder

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the minus side, that has made it a wee bit hard to understand.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

How We Fight – Cofounders in Love and War

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

I often get asked about finding cofounders and I usually give the standard list of characteristics of what I look for in a founder. And I emphasize the value of a founding team with complementary skills sets – i.e. the hacker/hustler/designer cofounder archetype for web/mobile apps. So I asked her to write a guest post.

Cofounder

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green

Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. Yet while we had plenty of language and tools for execution, we had none for search. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. He just hired Meg Whitman. The result?

Lean

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder | Vinicius Vacanti

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Home About Contact Me How To Make It as a First-Time Entrepreneur Vinicius Vacanti Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder September 7, 2010 | View Comments Steve Job's Technical Co-Founder “I’ve got this HUGE idea. I just need to find a technical co-founder.&# So, why should they pick you?

Cofounder

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby

Nail the Customer Development Manifesto to the Wall

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2012

When Bob Dorf and I wrote the Startup Owners Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. I thought they might be worth enumerating here: A Startup Is a Temporary Organization Designed to Search. Pair Customer Development with Agile Development. Preserve Cash While Searching.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Cofounder

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco

Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder

Launching a Portfolio Acceleration Platform at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Fund

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. First Round Search , Startupschool , and GSV Passport are examples of comprehensive founder resources from investors. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog. Customer Development.

Private Equity

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity

This Week in Venture Capital – Episode 2

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

He’s considering making me the permanent co-host so if you enjoy any of this episode or want to see me on the show on a more regular basis please Tweet @jason and let him know (he asked for direct feedback). It was the first company to do “paid search&# back when Larry & Sergey were saying they would never do it.

Venture Capital

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 43: Dakin Sloss and Ajeet Singh

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 43: Dakin Sloss and Ajeet Singh

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. October 13, 2008 6:47 PM Luke G said. Eric, love the blog.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

Vision versus Hallucination – Founders and Pivots

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. If not your co-founders, someone outside the company.”.

Founder

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Agile

Agile Software Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customer development?

Demand

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 42: Sunny Shah and Curt Haselton

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Curt Haselton , co-founder and CEO of Haselton Baker Risk Group. We found people to talk to through Google searches. Curt Haselton.

Cofounder

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California

Paul Graham on fundraising

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything. I say this as a founder: the contribution of founders is always overestimated. The danger here is that new founders, looking at existing founders, will think that theyre supermen that one couldnt possibly equal oneself.

San Francisco

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Thats why eBay advertises on search engines, and Facebook doesnt. Labels: search engine marketing 0comments: New comments are not allowed. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? As far as they are concerned, thats eBays job. Its simply too hard to focus on more than one.

San Francisco

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Pretty soon, a soul-searching meeting ensues. Pretty soon, a soul-searching meeting ensues. This is the speed-up-or-slow-down moment. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ▼ June (3) What is a startup?

Technical Review

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

The same has been true of an unfortunate number of startups, they manage to generate a lot of hype, raise a lot of money, and sometimes make some of their investors, employees, or founders rich. bigs : @ericries says Stealth dev is a (undesirable, failure-presaging) customer-free zone. Use some customer development to find out.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder

Don’t Underestimate the Undergraduates

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2013

Today he is the co-founder and Chairman of Triporati, LaunchPad Central. Jim co-taught classes with me at U.C. My prior journeys were spearheaded by the founder of this school of teaching, Steve Blank. And Zignal Labs. This would be my fourth voyage in the captain’s cabin of the SS LaunchPad. Let the games begin ….

Lean

Lean Cofounder Dividend Business Model

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean

How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

VCs tout themselves as frontier technology investors, but most are using the same infrastructure tools they have used for the past 20+ years: Excel and recent college grads searching Google. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . But beyond that, not much.

Private Equity

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review

Consultants Don’t Pivot, Founders Do

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. So I met the entrepreneur and asked him how his search for a business model was going. Let me say it again: Getting customer feedback can not be delegated.

Founder

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. The question was: what did the founders want to do? Will Harvey , Eric Ries and the other founders were unequivocal – “Screw the buy-out, we’re here to build a company. One founder quit and joined Google.) Go For Broke. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 42: Sunny Shah and Curt Haselton

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Curt Haselton , co-founder and CEO of Haselton Baker Risk Group. We found people to talk to through Google searches. Curt Haselton.

Cofounder

Cofounder Entrepreneur Engineer California

Thank you

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

I am grateful to everyone who helped make this event a success, especially my co-organizers Charles Hudson and David Sachs. When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review

Less is More, More or Less

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. Founder Too. My engineering co-founder and I had a great relationship. Founders’ start with a hypothesis of what the minimum feature set is.

San Francisco

San Francisco Database Advisory Board Silicon Valley

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere – Show No. 16: Wayne Sutton and Dave Kashen

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders sharing their experiences of what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Joining me this week at the Stanford University studio were: Wayne Sutton , co-founder of BUILDUP VC. Dave Kashen. We had this mission.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Get product into customers’ hands. More on that in a moment.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Lessons Learned: Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development?

Agile

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco

San Francisco Management Founder Lean

How Do You Want to Spend Your Next 4 Years of Your Life?

Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard

Trending Sources

Nailing that elusive technical co-founder

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

How We Fight – Cofounders in Love and War

Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder | Vinicius Vacanti

Nail the Customer Development Manifesto to the Wall

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. « Steve Blank

Launching a Portfolio Acceleration Platform at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Fund

This Week in Venture Capital – Episode 2

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 43: Dakin Sloss and Ajeet Singh

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 43: Dakin Sloss and Ajeet Singh

Lessons Learned: About the author

Vision versus Hallucination – Founders and Pivots

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 42: Sunny Shah and Curt Haselton

Paul Graham on fundraising

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up

Don’t Underestimate the Undergraduates

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood

Consultants Don’t Pivot, Founders Do

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 42: Sunny Shah and Curt Haselton

Thank you

Less is More, More or Less

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere – Show No. 16: Wayne Sutton and Dave Kashen

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Lessons Learned: Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management

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