Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 2, 2024

At the time, the company’s management had accepted declining sales figures as, if not inevitable, at least highly likely. During his first meeting with the company’s global leadership, Truong made his case: “There’s no such thing as a mature market, there’s only mature business managers,” he asserted. “Of

North America 144

North America Artificial Inteligence America Valuation 144

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 219

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 219

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

” We were big practitioners of what we now call Customer Development, and our customer was typically the IT organization of large companies. I remember being immediately struck by how different we designed and built technology, versus how our customers did. 4) Staffing. 5) Funding. 7) Silos.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe 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. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? make-or-break. Sounds like handspring.

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. Reply Fred H Schlegel , on October 20, 2009 at 1:20 pm Said: I believe the MBA was originally developed with the idea of helping functional experts move more smoothly into upper management ranks. Blog at WordPress.com.

Engineer 221

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 221

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2014

Inaugural Class Academy of Innovation Management. The curriculum draws from Philadelphia University’s design, engineering, and business disciplines, as all are needed to make innovation relevant in the government. Business and Operations Models – How to describe, design, challenge, and evaluate innovation.

Government 307

Government Philadelphia Lean Customer Development 307

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

The first step was to recruit a new management team. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 165

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 165

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Too often, CEOs and small business managers suffer from analysis paralysis. That’s why startups are agile.

Silicon Valley 307

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 307

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. We four instructors would grumble and complain to one another about our lack of leadership. I had been teaching Z8000 design to customers for the last year and a half.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Let’s Fire Our Customers « Steve Blank (tags: product-management startup business) [.]

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.) And in the tradition of great startups, on the way out Perry took 6 of his best managers with him.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody. Being a manager didnt sound fun - deep down, who really wants to be held accountable for other peoples actions? So I wound up learning the discipline of managing other people.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. I hope we managed to teach our children compassion and charity for others. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 152

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 152

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

The company was having a noticeable customer retention issue several years ago. Retention rates had declined from the high 90s to the mid 80s, which senior management felt the need to address quickly. SAS software was doing an excellent job of keeping up with customer needs. SAS Canada is a good case in point. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

The design was actually a negative drag on selling anything off a retail shelf. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. From grumbling skeptics, they all became packaging design converts. And for sure they were never going to win any design awards.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

There is a wealth of resources that are unique to this town and a vibrant community of hackers, product designers, business people, and investors at various stages in their career. This guide is designed to help you hit the ground running and is a starting point for your entrepreneurial journey in Boston. Next major event?

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

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. All we had to do was tell customers they could get video into their computer – and not promise anything else. But the rest of the management team really skeptical.

Video 184

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 184

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e. the “schedule fantasy factor,”) or his eleven rules of supercomputer design but also a real appreciation for how a technical visionary thinks. (I Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

North Carolina 131

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 131

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Long gone from Zilog I saw the picture of the original Macintosh design team. I thought nothing about the meeting until years later.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Two studies have shown that only about 10 percent of promoters actually refer profitable new customers. Some of the most creative technology coming out of Silicon Valley is designed to do exactly that. Find and engage customer advocates using a gamification platform that makes it interesting and enjoyable to advocate.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

Your company needs the strongest product team possible, and if you don’t develop your team and provide growth opportunities, there are other companies that will. I have always been a big believer in the old adage that “people join a company but leave a manager.” Is he fully utilizing his project manager/ScrumMaster?

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

When the panicked manager of the magazine test lab would call under a last minute deadline, we would apologize profusely as we sent the cables over – with beer, pizza, and our product manager to help them through any testing “issues”. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 127

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. But I managed a few "good learning experiences" before throwing myself full-bore into IMVU. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Someone from your company has to be designated the official competitive intelligence officer for this show. Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. One of them is a loser. It isn’t going to be your booth. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 136

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Founders Pad. Bend needed its own venture firm.

Silicon Valley 317

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 317

Steve Blank

JULY 14, 2015

Alexander Osterwalder co-founded Strategyzer , a software company specializing in tools and content for strategic management and innovation. Leadership buy-in is actually not a big issue. That blows my mind because … managers who have to do these business plans don’t believe in them. What Was Value Proposition Design?

Channel 120

Channel Business Model Cofounder Business Plan 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan Foundation , the Sloan School of Management at MIT , the Sloan program at Stanford , and the Sloan/Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York. corporation, and by extension Sloan laid the foundation for America’s economic leadership in the 20th century. If you look around the United States it’s hard to avoid Sloan.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

PayPal, under the leadership of David Marcus and Bill Scott, re-defining and re-engineering itself by embracing Lean Startup to improve the product experience. Struggling to explain the successes and failures of those companies, I discussed principles like continuous deployment, customer development, and a hyper-accelerated form of agile.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

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. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

AUGUST 23, 2016

Stan Gloss , co-founder of BioTeam , consultants that design computer systems for life sciences companies. — Stan was an account manager at Blackstone Computing when the company was reorganized under a new CEO. Though they’d never done a startup before, Stan and some of his co-workers saw an opportunity in the leadership change.

Cofounder 136

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur San Francisco 136

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of SNAZZ, a cloud-based event management platform. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of engineers, world-class design studios, subject matter experts from supply chain to manufacturing. Could they excel at customer development with enterprises? Can the founders communicate well?

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60