Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. I couldn’t care less about those. The same was true for the Product Marketing group.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. Their pitch was unpolished, product vision unclear, they had little understanding of their metrics, and traction didn’t stand out from competitors.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. A decade later, I began to teach the foundations of Lean, first at UC Berkeley (Customer Development) and then at Stanford using cases and business plans. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering).

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? How do we create end user demand? An early indication that you’ve found the right business model is when you believe the cost of getting customers will be less than the revenues the customers will generate.

Balance Sheet 298

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 298

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. As I present in my blog, defining the MVP requires answering the following question: "Will our customers be willing to buy the product with these features - available at this date - at this price?"

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Financial progress is tracked using metrics like income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. Filed under: Customer Development.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. What are the 9 parts of a business model?

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. Demand creation for subsequent iPods can be about the features not about the new idea of iTunes+sync+iPod.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

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 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships. Customer Discovery. Metrics That Matter (Business Model Metrics). None of the students were domain experts in their areas, and each team had to figure out how to contact potential customers and channel partners. Did they describe lifetime value of a customer?

Intellectual Property 226

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 226

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

Or depending on your metrics for success, get users, grow traffic, etc.). A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. How do we create end user demand? Most of the time the darn customers don’t behave as you predicted.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Because five whys kept turning up a few key metrics that were hard to set static thresholds for, we even had a dynamic prediction algorithm that would make forecasts based on past data, and fire alerts if the metric ever went out of its normal bounds. What is customer development?

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

That’s because many of our reports feed us vanity metrics: numbers that make us look good but don’t really help make decisions. Yet even among those who have access to good actionable metrics, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that prevents taking maximum advantage of data. Too much of this data is non- actionable.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Is that a lot?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

3) An experienced board brings an extensive network of customers, partners, help in recruiting, follow-on financing, etc. The Wrong Metrics. Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. Not Real-time.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

What if customers actually like the “crap&# product? Or what if the features they demand we build are different from the ones we were planning to build? No vanity metrics should be looked at. What if customers actually like the “crap&# product? No vanity metrics should be looked at.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Thanks to Suns amazing PR blitz, there was tremendous demand for experts on Java, and I did my best to convince people that I was one of that mythical breed. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Customers kept demanding that we add this or that IM feature, and we were routinely refusing. We were afraid that this was just the tip of the iceberg, and that once we “gave in&# to these five demands there would be five more, ad infinitum. Every time you listen to customers, you fear diluting your vision.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

By delegating and training, we create a corps of leaders who could step in to provide CTO-like services on demand. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Was it an important or irrelevant fact that most of our web code was procedural and not object-oriented?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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. Thus, these pages.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

It provides a basic introduction to analytics as they apply to Lean Startup, including sections on what metrics to use and how to interpret them. For instance, Ben lists out the worst of the “vanity metrics,” a term that describes appealing but meaningless or misleading numbers. Alistair: There are plenty. Consider a restaurant.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

An investor had few hard metrics other than the actual financials, and little technology to make the process scaleable. Over the past few decades, better metrics became available, and investors could take a more analytical, data-driven approach. ” Historically, investing was a manual, artisan process.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

It’s important to note that system I’m about to explain evolved organically in response to new demands on the system and in response to post-mortems of failures. Nobody gets here overnight, but every step along the way has made us better developers. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly. Related articles.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. What is customer development?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

Ive been blown away by the level of demand you all have expressed in having a forum for the whole community to come together and share what were learning. Ive been blown away by the level of demand you all have expressed in having a forum for the whole community to come together and share what were learning.

San Francisco 122

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

Alistair Croll, Eric Ries and Danielle Morrill take an in-depth look at the hardest metrics question. Leanne Pittsford and Sarah Milstein look at one of the most in-demand topics of last year’s Lean Startup Conference: applying Lean Startup principles in mission-driven orgs. What’s customer development?)

Lean 165

Lean San Francisco Cofounder Hosting 165