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Why Acceptance of Failure is Critical to Startup Success

Both Sides of the Table

Silicon Valley itself was built on the sciences with a foundation of trial-and-error and then improving the model and trying again. I believe this scientific method and trial-and-error approach is one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable strengths. Could big business accept its own creative destruction?

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When Should Technical Founders Become CEO?

Both Sides of the Table

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). So why did Larry need to return?

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Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development

Steve Blank

In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers? And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” They’re putting money into web services/business – most without early revenue. End of theory.&#

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Driving Corporate Innovation: Design Thinking vs. Customer Development

Steve Blank

their burn rate (the amount of money they’re spending monthly minus any revenue coming in) and. In large companies, the employees are no less smart, but the organization is optimized to deliver repeatable products, revenue and profits. First, most Silicon Valley startups were (and primarily still are) technology-driven.

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Acquire New Users by Adding Growth Hacking to your Marketing Strategy

ConversionXL

In the acquisition phase, measure these performance metrics: Customer acquisition cost Conversion rate Website traffic Click-through rate Bounce rate Quality of leads. In the activation phase, measure these performance metrics: Conversion rate Number of customers using a product feature Drop-off rate Dwell time. Activation.

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The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part.

Steve Blank

The VP of Sales comes to a board meeting, still optimistic, and provides a set of reasonable explanations – “our pipeline looks great, but orders will close next quarter” or “we’ve got lots of traffic to our site, we just need to work on conversion.” Just had a conversation today with a student taking Steve’s class. Order Here.

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How To Build a Web Startup – Lean LaunchPad Edition

Steve Blank

Heck, in Silicon Valley even the waiters can do it.). Use Skype or Google+ Hangouts for team conversations. Emphasis should be on the discovery done for that weeks assigned canvas component (channel, customer, revenue model) but include other things you learned about the business model. Size the market opportunity.

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