Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Simulation to Reduce Invention Risk If you’re in a vertical where “invention risk” is dominant, then you want to do everything you can to manage and reduce those risks. When I wrote the Four Steps to the Epiphany , the Customer Development text, I hadn’t yet thought about what vertical markets it might be appropriate for.)

Vertical 137

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 137

Up and Running

AUGUST 6, 2019

You’ve launched your new restaurant and you’re starting to see customers, but running a restaurant is serious business, especially because your financial livelihood is most likely tied up in startup costs. . The high cost of marketing, salaries, appliances, ambiance, and so on will dry up incoming revenue instantly.

Technical Review 86

Technical Review SBA Merger Customer 86

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. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

This focus has helped me recruit the best and the brightest in the field, build a world-class operation, and most of all, with all the knowledge in a specific vertical, help build a leading agency for food & beverage manufacturers that are looking to build a direct to consumer channel. Thanks to Aalap Shah, 1o8 ! #5- 5- Two things.

Entrepreneur 119

Entrepreneur Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 119

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

I have been saying privately for years now that I believe online video will evolve into fragmented distribution (my next online video post) and vertical production. They have production facilities in Mexico where they have been creating lower-cost video for traditional TV for many years and they pivoted this facility to producing for YouTube.

South America 291

South America Colombia Mexico Vertical 291

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2014

by Matt Tenny, author of “ Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom “ A recent Gallup poll shows that only 30 percent of Americans are actively engaged at work. This is accomplished easily when you build a culture of servant leadership. Since then, it’s been almost vertical.

Leadership 169

Leadership Employee Community Non-Compete 169

Occam's Razor

JULY 24, 2018

Action #2: Aligning Metrics & Leadership Altitude. Identify if the metrics being reported to each leadership layer are the ones being recommended by the Impact Matrix. Slice the matrix vertically along the time-to-useful dimension…. Small changes accumulate big bottom line impact over time. What’s your quadrant?

Analytics 93

Analytics Framework Metrics Algorithm 93

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Reply Lots of low cost experiments « Open Ambition , on April 22, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: [.] Reply Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus « Steve Blank , on April 22, 2009 at 5:04 am Said: [.] “Speed and Tempo&# – Fearless Decision Making for Startups [.]

Silicon Valley 307

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 307

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 27, 2018

This is why practice leads write thought leadership, speak at conferences and more generally work to articulate the kind of “burning platforms” on which urgency and engagement are built. At least they should be open to the idea of improvement. Create distinctions which illuminate challenges or opportunities to which you are the answer.

Developer 149

Developer Elevator Pitch Reputation Vertical 149

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

The Startup Death Spiral: The Cost of Getting Product Launch Wrong By the time of first customer ship, if a startup does not understand its market and customers, failure unfolds in a stylized ritual, almost like a Japanese Noh play.

Customer Development 232

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 232

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? Therefore, no, we weren’t really equipped to be the low cost provider. Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? No, not really. And we lost money when we did so.

Silicon Valley 157

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 157

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Repaid 12-36 months with ability to prepay at reduced cost. Feenix focuses on companies in the consumer space across a number of industry verticals including: multi-unit Food & Beverage operators, hospitality, managed workspace (office or food halls), location based entertainment venues, and various direct to consumer online companies.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Lightspeed Venture Partners

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Today we’re announcing that Lightpseed and Accel are investing in Bonobos , a vertically-integrated men’s apparel etailer. Their growth was initially steady, but has really taken off in the last few quarters as they got a better handle on Customer Acquisition Cost versus Lifetime Value.

Vertical 114

Vertical eCommerce Curation Acquisition 114

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

It will cost you your job.” his next article on SuperMac, “Building the Killer Team – Mission, Intent, and Values&# , Steve further pounds the table on some principles of leadership that I think are [.] But do not walk into my office the day something was due and give me an excuse. That kind of accountable.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

He has a wealth of experience in the data vertical, having served in previous roles at companies such as Intel, AllScripts, and Vision.bi. In his 17-year career, Rosenberg has developed key insights into the minds of CFOs and FP&A teams, with strengths in both customer-facing leadership and data analytics itself.

Hiring 161

Hiring Software Review Customer 161

David Teten

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

laughter) Kappos: The current fees ($10-$15K) are way below our real cost ($30-$40K). Our process to process appeals is particularly bad; # appeals not yet heard forms a vertical line if we graph it. We got new leadership coming in. The union leadership have been stewards and team players. we just need more funding].

Intellectual Property 60

Intellectual Property Detroit Technical Review Software Review 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. This was just before the IBM PC hit the desktop so there were no “standard” operating systems or applications for desktop platforms.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Gorbachev, now the Soviet Premier, had to grapple with the spiraling cost of military systems that weren’t amortized by consumer purchases. Cold War strategy had gone from a “let’s be friends” to a “yes we can win” strategy. By the mid 1980s Ronald Reagan was cranking U.S. defense spending even higher. Arms control with the U.S.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Your best bet is probably taking an existing market and serving a portion of it better than the competition, through lower cost or a different set of features. Don’t spend time and money on getting the word out about your product beyond what you need to do discovery and validation. End of theory.&#

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

YoungUpstarts

MAY 12, 2014

Masterful execution makes up one of the triangle’s two vertical sides. (I If you cut 1 percent in cost or time, that’s not much. He is also the publisher of Forbes magazine, where he writes a column, Innovation Rules, known for its witty assessment of business and leadership issues. I call this the “hard edge.”).

Stock 157

Stock Memphis Balance Sheet Analytics 157

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) Not testing these hypotheses upfront is a fundamental and, in many cases, fatal error most startups make. Because it isn’t until after first customer ship that a startup discovers that their initial hypotheses were simply wrong (i.e.

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. A month or two before the QuickTime public announcement in May, the SuperMac hardware engineers (who had a great relationship with the QuickTime team at Apple) started a “ skunk works ” project.

Video 184

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 184

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

It’s a cost-effective method to explore new opportunities without risking failure simply due to a lack of experience or resources. This can be due to expanding your customer base, sharing resources and costs, or launching a collaborative product, among other things. Focus on companies outside of your industry or vertical.

Small Business 153

Small Business Reputation Partner Revenue 153

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

The university found government contracts profitable as the government reimbursed their overhead charges (their indirect costs.) This means they could fund other non-military academic programs from this overhead. The Stanford Applied Electronics Lab built prototypes which were handed off to the military labs for their evaluation.

Silicon Valley 155

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 155

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

She said, “Dad, one of the great things you and Mom did was never tell us how much things cost.” Now that I’m older, I’m starting to know what things cost. It was something I never thought about, and when I first heard it I thought it was a terrible thing to have taught her. For a minute it was a pretty depressing thought for a parent.

North Carolina 160

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 160

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs. Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 156

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 156

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 3, 2017

The leadership centers of the microcomputer world shifted from Albuquerque to the San Fernando Valley (LA), the Bay Area, and Seattle. Accelerator programs are becoming more and more vertical and pulling together corporate and institutional support that provides investment, purchasing power, and validation.

Atlanta 48

Atlanta Albuquerque Incubator Austin 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

corporation, and by extension Sloan laid the foundation for America’s economic leadership in the 20th century. The company was lucky to survive his later stage leadership, and would be gone today had Bill Ford not brought in the ex-Boeing fellow who turned it around and runs it today. One guy really did all of this.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

StoredIQ has rapidly gained traction with customers across several vertical industries, including financial services, healthcare and oil and gas. I am delighted to join StoredIQ’s leadership team and capitalize on the tremendous market opportunity that now exists to solve this critical information management problem.&#.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. We’re about to ship next week.” to look at: when the plan (or process!)

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

In all the Germans had over 7,500 radars dedicated to tracking and killing the allied bombers. Each allied bombing mission lost 2-20% of their planes. Bomber crews had to fly 25 missions to go home. The German objective was to make strategic bombing too costly for the Allies to continue.

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 203

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Reply Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. , AKPC_IDS += "1115,"; (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Posted in Leadership | Tagged [.] on September 28, 2009 at 11:55 am Said: [.] carry on reading.

Customer Development 253

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

As a private company you can decide that winning at all costs is your culture. You can decide that coming in first at all costs is your culture. Think through if you want to win at any cost. (I It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price. And we decided not to.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Who recommends a sale?

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Without a budget, costs can quickly spiral out of control (last minute impulse purchases to jazz up your booth, for example) and defeat your best laid plans. A rule of thumb is that your space costs represent about a quarter of your total show budget.

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 203

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

On first glance it appears as if they are spending to much energy in the vertical portion of the jump, relative to the horizontal portion. Stotting consists of fleeing via a jumping behavior that appears to be sub-optimal. Look at the drug warriors and the drug cartels. Eventually that whole struggle will have to go the way of prohibition.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 267