Customer Development, Distribution, Sales and Vertical

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development

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Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” It’s an impressive portfolio.

Customer Development

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SuperMac War Story 9: Sales, Not Awards « Steve Blank

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. SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc.

Sales

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Vertical Markets 4: Putting it All Together « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical

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Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 2

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. This is worthy of an open and honest discussion with sales up front. this may be a useful read.

Silicon Valley

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Born Global or Die Local – Building a Regional Startup Playbook

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

However, most countries don’t have sufficient population to support scale with just their local market and ultimately need to be global players – from day one. Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. sales office. Regional Ecosystems. Establish U.S.

Global

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Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

From 1979 when pensions funds began fueling the expansion of venture capital, the way VC’s sold their portion of your company was to help you take your company “public.” billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales. For the next four or five years, technology M&A boomed, growing from 50 in 2003 to 450 in 2006.

Silicon Valley

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Marching through quicksand

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

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Closure

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

However, in catching up with the VP of Sales of Ardent last night, I was reminded one of the few times I did return for closure. We had support from the scientists and researchers who had bought one of our machines and were beginning to see that distributed computing would ultimately triumph, but bureaucracy marched on, and we lost the bid.

Silicon Valley

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The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product.

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.

Silicon Valley

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Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them. Lets see why.

Lean

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Coffee With Startups

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 have they distribute their product? This is easy to test.

Silicon Valley

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Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Known as the “Inventor of the Modern Corporation,” Sloan was president of General Motors from 1923 to 1956 when the U.S. Sloan transferred responsibility down from corporate into each of the operating divisions (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac). Sloan In the middle of the 20th Century Alfred P. There’s the Alfred P.

Silicon Valley

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How to Find a Market? Use Jobs-To-Be-Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Customer

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Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice - Discussion

news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

We already have some competitors in the vertical and while there is no point in trying to hide the actual idea, there are differences in the way we implement stuff that can get us an advantage over the competition. >> Weve got a little funding from VCs. From "Think and Grow Rich". Isnt it? >> But, so does vision.

Stealth

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The Secret History of Silicon Valley 12: The Rise of “Risk Capital.

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Terman sat on the HP board from 1957-1973. Ampex made the first tape recorders in the U.S ( copied from captured German models ,) and Terman was on its board as well. Ampex’s first customer was Bing Crosby who wanted to record his radio programs for rebroadcast (and had exclusive distribution rights.)

Silicon Valley

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