Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners. Steve I have to tell you some bad news, I just showed our potential channel partners and customers a few completed pieces of the games we had. Founders need to validate their vision in front of customers early and often. Make sure they are.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

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.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2014

However, I will then argue that while these methods are necessary to managing new ventures inside a company, they are insufficient. This leads to two key points: Point 1: You have to fight – and win- on two fronts (both outside and inside), in order to succeed in corporate venturing. As Steve would say, this is a big idea.

Startup 327

Startup Business Model Lean Russia 327

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Task Management. Project Management Tools. Subscription Payments / Management. Managing APIs. Customer Relationship Management. Contractor Management. About VC Cafe.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

I used a freelance web designer and I only created the core functions to create, send, and manage invoices. Further functions such as expense tracking, recurring invoicing, and quoting were on my development list but I waited with the implementation until I was able to prove that my customers were interested in these additions.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. And that most of the post on trade shows was describing how to prepare and manage a physical presence in a trade show booth. What didn’t? Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I responded to their RFP by proposing that Ardent build the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center a distributed supercomputing environment with hundreds of Ardent personal supercomputers rather than a monolithic Cray supercomputer. As one could imagine this was the last thing the supercomputer center management wanted to hear.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 185

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

Now with over 750 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.) By the time they reach the top, they are excellent managers of processes and procedures needed to deliver a consistent and repeatable execution of the current core mission (and typically excellent political players as well.).

San Diego 142

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 142

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.

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

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. Opportunity Management: Now that I had a few people of interest, the courtship began. Prior to Sorced, Elizabeth worked in business development at SecondMarket.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

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. Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 156

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Ampex’s first customer was Bing Crosby who wanted to record his radio programs for rebroadcast (and had exclusive distribution rights.) Meanwhile on the West Coast – “The Group” 1950’s When Ampex was raising its money, in 1952, an employee of Fireman’s Fund in San Francisco, Reid Dennis , managed to put $20,000 in the deal.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 125

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working on. In the end, the CEO couldn’t get his board to give us the cash in exchange for the Japanese distribution rights and some equity.

Silicon Valley 149

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 149

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Good human resource management practice can see you motivate your staff to give their very best without necessarily turning them into intrapreneurs, because when all is said and done, most people looking and taking up jobs do so because the don't to get into the intricacies of company ownership. Thank you and great post bud.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

Product management is a fulltime job and if your product needs work before you want to throw people at it, it’s worth the time investment and focus. 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.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 120

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. I too am looking for someone to work with that knows the manufacturing and distribution end of a solid product. Maybe you can be the project manager and team up with someone else who is a prgrammer.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84