Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. And market your brand, not your personality.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

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.

Lean 334

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 334

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 250

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 250

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

We see this all the time at Forward Partners where we invest right from the idea stage and most of the companies get a first version of their product live for less than £30k (that generally includes founder salaries and time spent doing customer research). We add value in different areas and should compliment each other nicely.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We Don’t Need Domain Experts When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Worse, there wasn’t a single person on our executive team who had come from a game company.

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 213

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

The Scene Developers Nailing that elusive technical co-founder. Just last week, start-up supremo Naval Ravikant of AngelList wrote how the “oversupply” of founders starting companies is making it harder to hire for the average startup. Are there any ‘Founders Dating’ events coming up?”. Thursday, 8 March 2012.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

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. Is there founder/market fit? How authentic is this idea to the founder’s experience? I’ll dig into this a bit further… Founder/Market Fit.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of SNAZZ, a cloud-based event management platform. Her work included heading Nokia’s location-based services business and app portfolio for emerging markets, which she built from a back-of-a-napkin idea to a 100-person organization with over 10 million users.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs , Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.

Lean 295

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Science and Industrial Policy. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. Startup Insights From Paul English, Co-Founder of Kayak - OnStartups , May 10, 2010 I’m just wrapping up several weeks of attending conferences across both coasts. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Founder Dialogues : Eric Paley plays talk show host on this recurring fireside chat style event that has featured Boston’s BEST founders. OnStartups: One of the largest online startup communities founded by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah. Boston Hardware Startup Meetup – Meetup organized by the founders of BOLT.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Because kaChing prefers its portfolio managers to have a long track record, the marketplace launch (i.e., A portfolio manager’s entire track record & holdings had to be disclosed.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

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. Founders should understand what the customer hopes to accomplish , or what their job to be done is. Final Thoughts.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Version One Ventures

APRIL 20, 2021

Filebase is very much an API-as-a-marketplace – similar to our portfolio companies Shippo and Patch. Decentralized storage networks are among the most distributed and secure networks in the world, but they can also require custom development and complex integration. It’s not simple.

API 100

API Portfolio Distribution Networking 100

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. What are the terms of their relationship with the founder? Currently, I think the following points should be considered: The optimal structure is one that equalizes the contributions of the development shop and investors.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. It was a long way from Ellis Island.) Surprisingly, I enjoyed seeing other startups from an outsider’s perspective.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I’ve primarily seen quantitative analytic techniques used in origination , filtering , and in portfolio company recruiting , but technology can be used throughout the nine steps of the private company investing process: The 9 Steps of the Private Company Investing Process. 9% (1 / 12). Source: Knowledge.VC , based on scraping firm websites

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

We have a portfolio of more than 500 brands and 4000 products and people invite us into their lives more 1.8 For most big, established companies like us, our business models were developed years—even decades ago. in developing these new models. to create exponential growth. Innovation sounds easy. It never is.

Lean 329

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 329

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 424

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 424

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

Pre-launch customer development data is another way, sometimes in the form of user surveys for consumer companies or interviews with potential beta customers for B2B businesses. One of our portfolio investments, a B2B SaaS company, was a pre-product startup at the time of the seed round. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

We also cavalierly lampoon the “suits” that get brought in to run startups after the founders are fired by callous VC’s. They have the ultimate responsibility in a venture-backed company of deciding whether to fire the founders and bring in “professional management.” I also frequently see the reverse. And there’s a worse fate, too.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 329

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 329

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. 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.”

Vertical 148

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 148

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

That’s why they invest in a portfolio. New market problems call for visionary founders, not consensus committee members. Solutions are found by betting on a portfolio of low-cost experiments. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Teaching.

Portfolio 327

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 327

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

Great founders are always recruiting. A sales and marketing tactic as much (or even more) than a customer development one, try setting up a Customer Council Advisory Board. Highlighted Homebrew Portfolio Jobs. Plaid is a developer-first company making it easy for financial data to move between apps.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 148

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 148

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. Managers in this area have to take a portfolio approach, promoting ideas that work and might make good candidates for further investment. Some companies and founders refuse to serve existing customers, and are always lurching from one great idea to the next.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. They’ve created virtual IPO’s for founders and employees via late-stage private financing. In either case Customer Development provides entrepreneurs with a methodology for being capital efficient.

Venture Capital 302

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 302

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 13, 2014

On Tuesday night Michael Breidenbruecker , founder of Last.fm, RJDJ and all round nice guy gave a talk for around 50 of our friends and portfolio company staff (thanks again Michael). As regular readers of this blog will know I’m a big fan of methodologies like lean, design thinking, and customer development.

Lean 122

Lean Portfolio Design Customer Development 122

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 19, 2013

This opportunity looked juicy: two founders we knew previously, mission-driven, attacking a big market. The product was still evolving but their execution ability and customer development had accelerated nicely during the startup’s first few months. I wanted to see how their thinking evolved from the initial hypotheses.

Cofounder 105

Cofounder Term Sheet Seed Stage Portfolio 105

Version One Ventures

MAY 22, 2018

Some of the best later-stage investors walk founders through an institutionalized “reverse” pitch. Are you looking for help and expertise in hiring, product strategy, customer development, fundraising, coaching, therapy, etc.? What are the experiences of other founders in the investor’s portfolio?

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 60

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

As a founder, you and your team are building value every day, but there are certain step-function moments where the value creation significantly increases. Regardless of check size, the reality is that the earlier a company is in its lifecycle, the more time we tend to spend with founders.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. In the average VC portfolio … 1 in 10 companies (they invest in) will turn out to be a big hit. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Government 120

Government Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Silicon Valley 120

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

The idea is to build a hit that would make the founder(s) an appealing and quick talent acquisition (sometimes referred to as an acq-hire). This is lean development without any customer development. Creating quick buzz and social proof is not the same a developing long-term customer development, but it pays off.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144