VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

1) It all starts from the Growth Hacking Funnel - in the early stages, startups should not just focus on top/bottom line metric like unique users and revenue. Customer Development Labs recently shared a great experiment on using mTurk to interview 100 customers in 4 hours for less than $200. Distribution Hacks.

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API Viral Startup Retention 167

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. However we find using the book to teach and in early stage venture problematic. Filed under: Customer Development.

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Customer Development Business Model Early Stage Channel 216

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter : Customer Discovery in Digital Health. Look at their Lesson Learned slides below.

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Lean Customer Development Video Early Stage 239

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Yet at their early stages, they are not small versions of larger established companies. In this mission-centric Transition stage, hierarchy is added, but responsibility and decision making become more widely distributed as the span of control gets broader than one individual can manage. Scalable Startups at Adolescence.

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Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Filed under: Marketing , Technology , Venture Capital | Tagged: Steve Blank , Venture Capital , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « Customer Analytics – From Those Who Should Know SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot » 14 Responses Michael F. I now think that was a mistake.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 143

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. Partnership Opportunities At any show you are attending there has to be tons of opportunity for business to business relationships you hadn’t thought about. Go to trade shows like it matters.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

It’s the kind of thing you can repeat in an elevator, simple to understand , universally applicable , and, most importantly, doesn’t burden your tech team with a lot of custom development. Often times, that comes in the form of analytics, which is what a biz dev partner would want in order to check on the success of the deal.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 21, 2018

I wish I knew how critical good distribution channels are, particularly in the early stages of a company. You can have the greatest product in the world but if it can’t get into customers’ hands efficiently and effectively it is meaningless.

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Lean Early Stage Customer Distribution 178

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The people who are the lifeblood of an early-stage startup are earlyvangelists. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The distribution discussion also leads to some assumptions about pricing.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Some of the conversations went like this: Startup 1 Entrepreneur -“I’m competing against Company x and have been following the Customer Development process and I’ve talked to lots of customers.” Do you know have they distribute their product? Do you know the archetype of their customers? This is easy to test.

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Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. We spoke with the head of innovation at one Fortune 500 company who told us his only metric for early-stage innovation is “how many assumptions have you tested this week?”

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Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Employ customer development.

Silicon Valley 219

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 219

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. This was actually a great piece of advice, because ideas change and evolve in the early stages of the startup, it’s about the other person not the idea as much.

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Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you’re working closely with partners who are helping you distribute your product, it’s especially important to make sure they understand who you are, how you speak, and who you serve. Konstantinos says, “As we were validating the value of our solution and recruiting early adopters, we started talking to a few VC firms.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

turtlebarbeque I always believed the equity distribution is primarily based on the worth of the contribution. Early stage funding often bets subsatntial equity because the founders have liitle choices and thus the worth of the investor is really quite high. Thank you and great post bud. The same is true of employees.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

I have come to believe during my time as an operator, entrepreneur and investor that the balance of these skills is so important to the long-term health of a business that if balance is not achieved early then the impact later can be profound - sometimes terminal. Developers who understand and can execute on a business model.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

So I got out out of the building to meet and understand our customers and distribution partners. I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners.

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 142

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. free, distributed source code control management system. Customer Development. It used to be hard to find information about early stage startups. VC & Startup Resources.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

When it comes to early stage investing – it’s all gut. Does it make sense to spend this time speaking about your early stage start-up when your product has not even entered Alpha testing? Only if you’re doing it with the intention to learn about the market and customers. A few nuggets. 1) Hire A’s.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" => I have not bothered to put up a landing page, survey to test customer demand, or done any customer development whatsoever. "Where is the best place to find a rockstar developer to bring it to life?" to echo Yyz earlier you need to prove early stage market traction!

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. I too am looking for someone to work with that knows the manufacturing and distribution end of a solid product. Twitter is an excellent distribution channel for us. (B)

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84