Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 321

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 321

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 21, 2013

Startup Tools here Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching Venture Capital' You can follow the talk along using the slides below. If you can’t see the slides above, click here. Additional videos here.

Video 286

Video Oakland Lean Venture Capital 286

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Filed under: Customer Development. Customer Development' Can these skills be outsourced to partners or are they integral to the DNA of the company? If they’re integral to the company’s success, they should be part of the founding team.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

One of the fundamental benefits of being so active in building the FoundersPad accelerator (a 12-week, Lean Startup program focused on customer development) is working with the cohort participants on refining their business models. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Venture Capital.

Early Stage 293

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 293

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Filed under: Customer Development.

San Jose 260

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Science and Industrial Policy Teaching' Class starts Oct 1 st and runs through Dec 10 th. Download the all three parts of the Life Science series here.

SBIR 321

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 321

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Family/Career.

Agile 334

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 334

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 12, 2012

Filed under: Customer Development. Thanks to: Alexis Finch, Sketchnotes / UX Research Consultant @agentfin.

Customer Development 316

Customer Development Developer Customer 316

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Torch was the rare government program that was run like a startup – iterating and pivoting as it learned and discovered.

Programming 286

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 286

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , National Science Foundation. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Life Sciences National Science Foundation' The answers to commercialization questions are outside the lab. They cannot be done by proxies.

Lean 276

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 276

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

It was only after returning to Stanford and taking the Lean Launchpad class that I became convinced that a radically different, customer-centric approach was the solution. I returned to the Air Force Academy as an instructor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, intent on spreading the gospel of Customer Development and Lean.

Lean 270

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 270

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Life Sciences Teaching' of all the parts of the business model canvas. It includes reimbursement, regulation, IP, validation, channel access, etc.

Lean 250

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP 250

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. And since the rest of the slides were about Customer Development, I taught those.

Incubator 308

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 308

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. One of the key tenets of Customer Development is that your business model is nothing more than a set of untested hypotheses. Business Model Design.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching' Commitment is the first step in building a startup team. It washes out the others. Setting a high bar saves a ton of grief later.

Lean 285

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 285

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

- SoCal CTO , January 13, 2010 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 9 Reasons Why Many Smart People Go Nowhere - Life Beyond Code , March 29, 2010 No Accounting For Startups - Steve Blank , February 22, 2010 Startup Advice In Exactly Three Words - #StartupTriplets - OnStartups , January (..)

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum.

Intellectual Property 289

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 289

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital. The number of serial entrepreneurs is very low and until recently most of the talented sales and marketing professionals choose to work for Nokia.

Finland 328

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 328

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

Filed under: Air Force , Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture. Unless you’ve had a ton of experience (which includes failing) in a broad range of areas you’re only guessing. Great careers start by peeling potatoes.

Thailand 333

Thailand Engineer Customer Development SEO 333

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Filed under: Customer Development , Life Sciences , Teaching. Customer Development Life Sciences Teaching' The Lean Startup process and the Lean LaunchPad class can save years in commercialization in these domains. This can be taught.

Lean 265

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 265

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 10, 2014

We didn’t know it at the time, but with that investment we had paid for front-row VIP seats to witness the origins of Customer Development and the Lean Startup. Twenty years and 100,000’s of copies of those books later, my life has fortuitously intersected with Steve Blank once again now that we’ve both become educators.

Maryland 279

Maryland Lean DC Virginia 279

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. And they’re just getting started. Congratulations. Download the full Startup Genome report here. ——-. I can’t wait to see what Max does by the time he’s 21.

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' They are the signs of a leadership frightened not by external enemies but by their own people. It usually doesn’t end well.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

Filed under: Customer Development , E.piphany , Marketing. Understanding the saboteurs in a complex sale is as important as understanding the recommenders and influencers. We needed a selling strategy that took all of this into account. In a startup not losing is sometimes more important than winning.

Forecast 298

Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 298

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 329

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 329

Steve Blank

JULY 24, 2012

Filed under: Customer Development , E.piphany , Marketing. Your reality distortion field may hinder your ability to realize that you’re the only one marching in the parade. If there’s only one passionate party in a deal it’s unrequited love.

Seattle 264

Seattle Cofounder Engineer Sales 264

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2023

Flexible – listen to allow flex hours and customization. Develop a strong feedback loop to allow responsiveness in improving team member’s day-to-day-experience. Establish a schedule for your own accessibility, so that employees can find you easily, and see that you care about them and know their challenges early.

Employee 282

Employee Matching Customer Leadership 282

Steve Blank

JANUARY 15, 2017

It’s curriculum is built on a framework of business model design, customer development and agile engineering – and its emphasis on evidence , Lessons Learned versus demos, makes it the worlds most advanced accelerator. It’s success is measured not only by the technologies that leave the labs, but how many U.S.

Lean 273

Lean Technical Review Government Washington 273

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

The Customer Development process is a simple methodology for taking new venture hypotheses and getting out of the building to test them. Customer discovery captures the founders’ vision and turns it into a series of business model hypotheses. If you’re a scientist the answer is easy: you run experiments.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology. Back in 2004 when Eric and his IMVU co-founder Will Harvey approached me about investing in IMVU, I agreed on one condition – they had to take my Customer Development class at UC Berkeley Haas Business School.

Lean 120

Lean Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder Channel 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique.

Lean 416

Lean Security Asia SBIR 416

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Science and Industrial Policy. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120