Up and Running

MAY 15, 2014

When it comes to this topic, I’ve sought counsel from mentors, fellow entrepreneurs, and numerous resources available online. As an entrepreneur raised in the era of analytics, I want to find metrics for everything. Given that reality, my conversations with the contract developer didn’t move forward very quickly.

Partner 113

Partner Cofounder Equity Metrics 113

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. The board raises a collective eyebrow. The VP of Sales goes back and exhorts the troops to work harder.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2017

Almost on a weekly basis, I meet new aspiring entrepreneurs looking to execute on their ideas. Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. And that, by the way, was a great conversion rate for a simple survey-based research for the initial free subscription version of Recycler Spotter.

Technical Review 96

Technical Review Distribution Redemption Demand 96

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Heres an excerpt: The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Every startup that achieves success eventually faces a critical moment — whether to speed up or slow down.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.” Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Austin Startup

APRIL 8, 2019

Success leaves clues; perhaps that is why some of the most successful entrepreneurs turned investors in my startups such as Brett Hurt & Mark Cuban both told me that they like weekly updates from the startups in which they invest. Then I put those thoughts and facts into an email to 25+ people and my entire company.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Balance Sheet Startup Austin 48

Up and Running

JUNE 3, 2015

The premise is that many people who would call themselves entrepreneurs tend to spend the majority of their time working on the technical side of their business and not enough time on the managerial and strategic activities that are associated with being an entrepreneur. The E-Myth stands for the “entrepreneurial myth.”

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Finance Sales Management 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

Rob Walling generously allowed me to reprint this excerpt from his new book, "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup" available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon and in PDF and ePub from StartupBook.net. A VA can be domestic or international, as long as they have a computer and an email account.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

So lots of entrepreneurs skimp on this vital piece of work. Let me use the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework for product development to explain why. They used this insight to change the subject line in some of their reminder emails. That’s a bad decision. Reams have been written about the JTBD framework.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that. How do we raise the big bucks?”

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Let’s face it, working on the product is awesome—seeing it evolve, figuring out new features, and witnessing them as they come alive. Selling a product is a tough process, full of “no’s,” whether they come on the phone with a prospect or as a low conversion rate on your landing page. 1x hacker in charge of product/development.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. Most of the time, the experiments you run will have a zero percent conversion rate - meaning no customers were harmed during the making of this experiment.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

My explicit goal in working with HBR is to foster a dialog between entrepreneurs and more traditional general managers. Id be honored to have you join the conversation. The Conversation - Harvard Business Review For most of us, the phrase management science conjures up a decidedly non-entrepreneurial image, and for good reason.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

OnlyOnce

MARCH 14, 2011

I share the column with my colleagues Jack Sinclair and George Bilbrey and we cover how to approach the business of email marketing, thoughts on the future of email and other digital technologies, and more general articles on company-building in the online industry – all from the perspective of an entrepreneur.

Software Review 67

Software Review Development Team Review Later Stage Technical Review 67

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

The Five Whys for Start-Ups - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Root cause analysis and preventive maintenance are concepts we expect to see in a factory setting. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 23, 2015

That’s where qualitative conversion research comes into play. Despite optimizing your lead gen form, which you suspect is the problem, you’re not seeing a major increase in conversions. You simply ask, “What prevented you from buying Product S?” Conversion research, qualitative or quantitative, is vital. What gives?

Conversion 48

Conversion Retention Audience Software Review 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

This is probably the single-most important thing to me but as I mention here , it’s probably the number one area that entrepreneurs prepare the least for. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. You charge a high enough (i.e. Or grew up in the same town.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

This is probably the single-most important thing to me but as I mention here , it’s probably the number one area that entrepreneurs prepare the least for. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. You charge a high enough (i.e. Or grew up in the same town.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Many entrepreneurs forget that the growth phase may be your tightest squeeze on cash. Increase the pipeline and the conversion rate.

Social Media 120

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. In fact, the curse of product development is that sometimes small things make a huge difference and sometimes huge things make no difference. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Ever since that time, I have struggled to explain how the feedback loop in customer development should interface with the feedback loop in product development. Labels: customer development , product development 8comments: Sarah Milstein said. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Here are two specific ways it can go horribly wrong.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

Case studies Serious entrepreneurs not wannabes actual nuts and bolts, Im sold ont he phiilosophy debates of contentious issues - not just yes men" "Some of the core personalities of the group, a number of startups (who have already achieved fit etc and have success) who can talk from experience." Detailed case studies of how it was done.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Software By Rob

MAY 21, 2010

Join nearly 6,000 startup entrepreneurs by subscribing to my RSS feed. Even outsourcing construction of your sales website, or the HTML/CSS conversion, or copywriting can remove 20-80 hours from your time line and dramatically increase your chance of making it to launch day. Oy, if only it were that easy. (I’ve

Software Review 55

Software Review Startup RSS Software Developers 55

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. We were colleagues briefly at KPCB, where Randy has been working not just with individual companies, but also working to change the mindset of entrepreneurs everywhere. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. And what of the product development team?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. The Customer is a Genius Then instead of talking about our products he segued the conversation into their products.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

We would pretty much bid on any phrase that was "[name of competitive product] chat" and variations like that. And then we would use that simple analytics system I mentioned to monitor the conversion rates of customers from each campaign. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Im excited that well get more than the usual few minutes of Q&A, so come with a healthy appetite for conversation. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring someone with a scholarship to travel to the expo and contribute to the conversation, please leave a comment or let me know. You heard me right.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2010

So when I get notes like this, it kind of makes me cringe a little—but I understand where too many entrepreneurs are coming from. “We wanted to check with you in advance to let you know that we are working on development of our latest. Here's an area where I think entrepreneurs could make more productive use of LinkedIn.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital Later Stage 106

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Keep a close eye on your competitors but also on your peer entrepreneurs in your town; they provide the context relevant to you. Is there a development step that you must take to fulfill demand for a particular use case, and, if so, how does that cost get absorbed? Keep yourself visible and keep your ears open for honest feedback.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Conversion optimization is a form of kaizen. Conversion optimization is a form of kaizen. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. A/B testing is set-based design. 5 Whys is straight out of the Toyota playbook.

Lean 140

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 140