Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. A few investors suggested he add new product features, others suggested firing the VP of Sales. The Customer Development model that I write and teach about is the entrepreneur’s version of Boyds’ OODA loop.).

Business Model 332

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 332

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

My engineers say our website is old school, and we need to be on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, my VP of Sales says we’re wasting our marketing dollars not targeting the right people and my board keeps giving me their opinions of how we should describe our product and company. How do I sort out what to do?”. with a strategy.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

This integral element of most businesses is woven through every aspect of operations. From manufacturing to sales to finance, the supply chain routinely fails to command the respect it deserve. Develop Relationships with Supply Chain Partners. They allow the company to slash its inventory, which is a major cost-saver.

Management 145

Management Forecast Los Angeles San Francisco 145

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Is it that some CEOs are better than others? Are their people smarter?

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

The class was unique in that it was 1) team-based, 2) experiential, 3) lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). When we started this class, the concept of Lean (business models, customer development, agile, pivots, mvp’s) was new to everyone. Class Velocity/Depth.

Lean 248

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 248

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. I was an aggressive, young and a very tactical VP of marketing at Ardent , a supercomputer company – who really hadn’t a clue about the relationship between profound beliefs, customer discovery and strategy. What do you think?”

Business Model 305

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

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 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

We had closed four $100,000 deals for our customer relationship management software. Joe Dinucci, our VP of Sales, was hot on the trail of our next big order. After seeing the demo, the CFO walked Joe over to the office of Autodesk’s VP of sales, and said to her, “I think this product might solve your sales reporting problem.”.

Forecast 290

Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 290

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Defense and Intelligence organizations drove the pace of innovation in Silicon Valley by providing research and development dollars to universities, and defense companies built weapons systems that used the Valley’s first microwave devices and semiconductor components. and there were no books, blogs or YouTube videos about entrepreneurship.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2024

Salesforce, renowned for its robust customer relationship management (CRM) platform, serves as the nerve center for many businesses’ sales, marketing, and customer service operations. Why does Salesforce SMS integration matter?

SMS 122

SMS Customer Campaign Social Media 122

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 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes , the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland. Finnish private investors don’t yet have enough time-in-grade to have developed good pattern recognition skills, and most lack operating backgrounds.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

I''ve been thinking a lot lately about scaling sales. . Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. How do I build a repeatable, scalable sales process that is like an industrial machine - not a crafts project? 1) Enterprise Sales.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

I put together a one-page website, a list of 100 people to reach out to, and a cold email script that would make seasoned sales professionals cringe. These days, many agencies start as a lean operation. Conduct client development interviews. To my surprise, I closed my first client in under two weeks. Image source ).

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Will you opt for direct sales, subscriptions, or a freemium model? Optimising Your Operations Efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to operations. Whether it’s managing your supply chain or automating customer service, look for ways to optimise every aspect of your operations.

Intellectual Property 130

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 130

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO.

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Delivery platforms are the vehicles through which customers come to interact with your product. Sales channels.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). See this anecdote by Steve Blank on how a hotshot sales executive can sink your startup. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Insufficient capital, over investment, and low sales are just some of the reasons leading to this sobering statistic. Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. This reduces guesswork, time, money and effort.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

How do they make these transitions without alienating and losing their existing customers, distribution channels and partners? And how do they motivate their most important asset – their people – to operate with speed, urgency, and passion? Some of the teams even included some of their close partners. Are these the real problems?

Framework 389

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 389

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company’s operational performance. more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Solo founders take 3.6x less likely to pivot.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

If people aren’t coming into your physical store, consider whether you can refocus sales online. Now has never been a more important time to have a website – many physical stores have also started operating as online stores, allowing them to take in business during lockdown. Focus more attention online.

Marketing 246

Marketing Social Media PPC SEO 246

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 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). If you have thoughts on additional topics I should cover, please contact me. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). If you have thoughts on additional topics I should cover, please contact me. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. Tim started to change our processes.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Prior to his investing and advisory career, Evangelos spent 20+ years in high-technology industries, in executive roles spanning operations, marketing, sales and engineering. You need to be able to understand how to take advantage of the market you’re operating in, including how to take advantage of corporations. .

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Yet in our case the product, the machine as delivered from engineering, was a blank, featureless computer with just an operating system and compilers. In short order they learned how to transition from being customers on the receiving end of a sales pitch to giving one.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

We knew from back-of-the-envelope calculations that I would need 3 times the combined marketing and sales budgets of the incumbents for a head-on assault. (I It wasn’t until I found the extremely obscure Lanchester Strategy for market share that I realized that these ratios had their basis in operations research and the Lanchester’s Laws.)

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

You take that money and invest a good portion of it in traditional sales and marketing efforts — including product developers, creative people, and salespeople, all of whom are paid to figure out what buyers want and to say good things about your company — in a quest to get even more customers. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 19, 2017

In e-commerce, retaining customers is essential to the survival of your business. It has long been known that keeping a customer is much cheaper than acquiring a new one, as those customers tend to be far more receptive to sales and promotions after they have made an initial purchase with you. Make their lives easier.

Software Review 133

Software Review Technical Review Retention Channel 133

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

That died with waterfall software development. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? I won’t need to hire many engineers or customer support staff. 66% Net Operating Margins? Do so at your peril.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Supercomputers With the introduction in 1976 of the Cray-1 , supercomputers were defined as the fastest vector-processing computer , one in which a single instruction performed operations on an array rather than a single number. Cray’s first customers were the U.S.

Silicon Valley 147

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 147

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 2, 2013

You can’t just “decide” to avoid working on sales and marketing and still have a business that you can rightly claim is more stable than a job. But yes, in the words of Ben Horowitz , “Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions.” Does it mean you decide your working hours?

Cofounder 312

Cofounder Startup Founder Engineer 312