ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013

Most startups fail. The product or website (be it software, e-commerce, or a service) might be awesome , but if it puts itself in front of the wrong market, or packages itself so the right market can’t figure out why it’s awesome, the startup will fail. Same goes for e-commerce, SaaS or any startup really.

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 126

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

This is a guest post by my Startup Owner’s Manual co-author Bob Dorf. While statistics are weak on startup success rates, the worst one I’ve seen suggests that 2 in 1000 venture backed startups will ever achieve $100-million or more in valuation. ——————-. Does anybody care?

Startup 332

Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 332

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way. Heres the catch.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Can this methodology be used for startups that are not exclusively about software?

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Startups are the search to find order in chaos. At a board meeting last week I watched as the young startup CEO delivered bad news. Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. He turned to the other VC’s and added, “That’s why we write the checks and entrepreneurs run the company.”.

Business Model 332

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 332

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference The Lean Startup Conference is next week--and now that we can step back and see all the speakers and mentors, we have to say: Wow. Experienced entrepreneurs We’ve got speakers who are justifiably respected by a lot of entrepreneurs.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. Jim Murphy is a long-time agile practitioner in startups. But startups sometimes have trouble applying agile successfully. Enter Jims post.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

The email continued, &# The problem I’m working on is that many founders are either making uninformed decisions or inefficiently learning the new skills they need. The solution I’m exploring is a just in time learning methodology that accelerates founders’ learning curve by aggregating relevant content, peers and mentors.&#.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Evangelos Simoudis’ is the founder and managing director of Synapse Partners. He was the CEO of two startups. ” We certainly did.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 6, 2013

Once again, along with my partners at 500 Startups, we are proud to present the most substantive track at SXSW: [link] There was a running joke last year that "the Lean Startup track was the only place at SXSW you couldn't get out of the building." Juan Diego Calle CEO Dharmesh Shah Co-founder & CTO Ross Snyder Sr.

Lean 165

Lean Cofounder Startup Software Engineering 165

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). Clay Hebert , founder of Crowdfunding Hacks. Clay Hebert.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, establishing a personal brand through a website is critical to success. If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. Here’s the entrepreneur’s guide to getting your first website off the ground. Custom development.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. For startups, social media and color printers have essentially replaced the need for external public relations and marketing services.

Cost 405

Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

I don’t recommend anyone become an entrepreneur. And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Part 1: Bend, Oregon Ecosystem and Entrepreneurs. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. As a startup owner, what can you do to improve your chances? Customer development (the understanding of customer needs) must be married to agile development (a process which drives waste out of product development).

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

I don’t recommend anyone become an entrepreneur. And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology. Taking My Class.

Lean 120

Lean Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Channel 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

A startup is not a part-time activity. Trying to do a startup while keeping your day job may doom you to failure. So will failing to understand your customers. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were: Reetu Gupta , co-founder and CEO of CirkledIn , an online platform that compiles students’ school life achievements.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder India Entrepreneur Maryland 120

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

Kauffman just launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. “ Startups” introduction is here. Module 1, What We Know About Startups.

Founder 327

Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 327

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2015

Successful entrepreneurs show up a lot and make their own luck. Both of these traits made all the difference for the two latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on Sirius XM Channel 111. Steve : … entrepreneurs make their own luck. … Phil Randazzo. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were.

Las Vegas 120

Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder Nevada 120

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." " Today I had two conversations with early stage startups (see Free CTO Consulting ). Customer Validation 101. billion dollar mistake.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. The next customer segment we tried was startup founders.

Lean 315

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary. Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.”

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

One of the attributes of great entrepreneurs is that they are tenacious and relentless. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s our story: We started like most entrepreneurs — an idea, an opportunity, and very little money.

Customer Development 230

Customer Development Developer Customer California 230

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. This year, for the first time, we've added a day of workshops and site visits to The Lean Startup Conference. The Lean Entrepreneur: Embrace the Unknown to Go Big with Patrick Vlaskovits and Brant Cooper.

Lean 154

Lean Cofounder Analytics Startup 154

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.&# If it stuck to this theme then I would stand by my top 11. Domain Experience – “Domain experience&# means that the founders have worked in the industry before. I met the CEO Brian Malewicz several times.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 The lean startup Ive been thinking for some time about a term that could encapsulate trends that are changing the startup landscape. After some trial and error, Ive settled on the Lean Startup. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. What motivates all these entrepreneurs? What do entrepreneurs look like?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161