Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. The disadvantage is that its methodology was based on the old waterfall model of product development and not the agile and lean methods that startups use today.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. They taped people using existing products. But he didn’t grow up with technology.

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Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 Waves of technology platforms I still remember the first time I switched to LAMP. That startup didnt turn out so well, but not for lack of technology. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Heres my take.

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

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Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

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. Would you mind sharing them?

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.” Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Talented product developers. Your most powerful growth engine is your existing customer. Customer content and engagement built rapid growth in the success of Intel ’s social media and Web-based marketing efforts, increasing “customer contacts” by a factor of tenfold and overall page views by 100x.

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Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Thats why eBay advertises on search engines, and Facebook doesnt. Labels: search engine marketing 0comments: New comments are not allowed. Thats where Id like to pick up the discussion.

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San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. why couldnt the engineer see the problem in their sandbox?

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

I was an engineer on the engineering team. For one, the engineers consider the artists stupid; the artists consider the engineers arrogant. The engineering team would then build that feature, mimicking the UI as close as they could using the current primitives supported by the system. The meeting was tense.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

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 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. It’s one of the subtle distinctions that at times gets lost in the process.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Its had tremendous impact in many areas: continuous deployment , just-in-time scalability , and even search engine marketing , to name a few. I owe it originally to lean manufacturing books like Lean Thinking and Toyota Production System. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process.

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San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Its inspired by the classic OODA Loop and is really just a simplified version of that concept, applied specifically to creating a software product development team. There are three stages: We start with ideas about what our product could be. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. An engineer who can talk intelligently about gender! hope to hear from you.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

As Ive written previously , lean startups are built upon three main trends: Technology commoditization. It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO).

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

The program has to be well staffed so it becomes a seamless and well integrated part of your entire growth engine. There are certain predictable mistakes companies make that can derail customer reference programs before they ever get off the ground. There’s so much more that customer advocates can do to grow your business.

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Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

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Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. Check your assumptions, what went wrong?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business. Later, when the company was much larger, we had everyone on our engineering team agree to sit in on one usability test every month. Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

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San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. Turns out, they were incredibly well-credentialed graduate students who had, in fact, developed some interesting new robotics technology. whos on the engineering team?

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

Do the engineers understand what they are building? 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? Processes are always deteriorating or self-regulating. Do they measure?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

In almost all Agile Development systems, thousands of automated tests are run against every change to the software. These tests are written by the engineers themselves, and they must all pass every time. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Among his ideas are that todays kids should be taught in class in a way that is relevant to their actual lives, which necessarily means allowing them to use technology. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

My most recent startup created a marketplace for customers to buy and sell virtual goods for their 3D avatar. So you can imagine how I expected some skepticism when pitching ideas about technology innovation to, say, the U.S. My most recent startup created a marketplace for customers to buy and sell virtual goods for their 3D avatar.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I thought Id share a little bit of that, too: I’ve been interested in different approaches to software development going back to 1987 when – in my first company Feld Technologies – my partner Dave Jilk and I started talking about “semi-custom software development&# (way ahead of its time).

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market.

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Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Things just stop working.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Playing with new technologies. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. What is customer development? Seeing whats possible.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

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? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60