View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

We have a bias towards very early stage investing for a bunch of reasons, but it’s not easy. It’s often a good idea for founders to find a way to build something and get some early market validation before raising outside capital. I think this stage, more than others, is very dependent on the individual investor.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. The Pocket Negotiator is very early-stage attempt to aid in the negotiating process itself. . are using AngelMob.co

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

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

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

But here’s some examples or frameworks to consider. You’re obviously not showing charts of user growth, number of customers, or revenue. But even as a concept stage company there are ways to show progress with your business. A) Pre-Product Companies. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? familiar with Customer Development you should be. It’s very different than the traditional product development model.

Product Development 143

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 143

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

This simple three-part framework underlies almost all discussions about technical design today, and it was clearly on display in the recent debates over technical debt. When it becomes possible to build products "live" with customers, the cycle time changes and design becomes a much more dynamic process.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

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. Coming next Part 2: What’s Wrong with Product Development as a Model?

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

The framework has the team talking not just to potential customers but also with regulators, and people responsible for legal, policy, finance, support. This quick and dirty development results in software that can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. Lessons Learned.

Incubator 312

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 312

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. It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery. Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

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.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do some Customer Development instead.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

In 2010, Alex Osterwalder published his book, Business Model Generation , where he created a framework for what Tim called “business identity.” ” Blank’s main innovation here is what he calls Customer Development, which is a methodology for learning and validating market needs through detailed customer communication and follow up.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

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.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

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?" I mean a rockstar developer, you need a reliable, steady, bull-like technical partner.

Developer 42

Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

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

Tools that technical people have had for years (project management methods and tools, programming frameworks, etc.) are just emerging for business people (customer development, business model generation,). Developers who understand and can execute on a business model. Or maybe we can tempt you to a Seedcamp next year?

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Express : Express is built on NodeJS framework. Web frameworks. Zend Framework (PHP). Web Development Tools. open source framework for Ruby. a PHP open source framework.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53