Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 212

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.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite if you don’t have any. Then march through the rest of the business model.

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Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

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.&#.

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Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Founders innately believe they understand a customers problem and just need to spend their time building a solution. You can test your hypotheses with a series of experiments with potential customers.

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Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

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. I’m going to save that for a future blog post.

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PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

I just had lunch (at my favorite Greek restaurant in Palo Alto forgetting it looked like a VC meetup) with a friend who was technical founder of his company and is now its chairman. No,” my friend replied, sadly shaking his head, “the rest of the board said it sounded like a good idea.”. It Seems Logical.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Hmm, I asked, “Can you go back to the beginning and tell me about your Customer Discovery process? The rest of his story was mostly a blur.

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Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

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.

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Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. Personal branding helps founders and executives establish credibility, which is crucial for launching successful businesses, especially if they start multiple companies. Custom development. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By 1923, 2/3rds of the courses at Harvard were taught with the case method, and the pattern was set for business education for the rest of the 20th century. The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. Cases and plans are useful for teaching managers of process, not founders. experiential.

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Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

He would go on to be a co-founder of two mechanical engineering software companies.) The rest of the vertical marketing recruits had similar backgrounds (and similar careers.) (I never could find one from the petroleum industry so I wore that hat along with the VP of Marketing title.)

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

If you can just be friendly enough and get your users to party with you, the rest is really easy. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. Consultants Don’t Pivot, Founders Do - Steve Blank , May 13, 2010 Consultants can help startups leverage their limited resources. It is to out friend.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

When I first read about the Investment Readiness Level (IRL) on Steve’s blog, I was excited by Steve’s attempt to bridge the capital-efficient Lean Startup process for founders with the capital-raising process for funders. But the ‘ah-hah!’ Since I began incorporating the Investment Readiness Level framework I’ve made three observations.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

I teach potential founders a hands-on, experiential class called the Lean LaunchPad at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and Caltech. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. The Founder’s Workbook.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

They had this great architecture, and Apple had figured out to get movies into their own computers for a demo, but for the rest of us there was no physical device that allowed an average consumer to plug a video camera or VCR into and get video into a Mac. But the rest of the management team really skeptical. Little did we know.

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Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. startups ignore the rest of the world until they scale in their own country. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

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Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. As start-ups scale, this agility will be lost unless the founders maintain a consistent investment in that discipline. Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Steve Blank

MARCH 13, 2018

Co-founder magazine just interviewed me about the current state of entrepreneurship – in startups and large companies – and how we got here. click here to read the rest of the article. I thought they did a good job of capturing my thoughts. Take a read here.

Cofounder 194

Cofounder Restful Founder Startup 194

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 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. Andy Cunningham , founder and CEO of Cunningham Collective. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were. Andy Cunningham. They don’t know what you do.

Washington 285

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 285

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

but rest assured they would be. Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything. I say this as a founder: the contribution of founders is always overestimated. And funding delays are a big distraction for founders, who ought to be working on their company, not worrying about investors.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

You can read the rest of the posts in the series by clicking here *. 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. Now it’s time to set the stage with the early traction you have.

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Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model. Lean Launchpad.

Agile 250

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Communism being a bad science experiment) ESL’s founder Bill Perry was moving the chess pieces. The “customers’” contracts funded the company. And the rest is history. And no one who really knew could tell you.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand. so at least some parts are being run by people who know what they are doing.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? This is the speed-up-or-slow-down moment.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) But what NYU did with the rest of their grant dollars was simply brilliant. Make it Better. So Frank did.

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Lean New York City New York Customer Development 269

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 19, 2009 Support the Startup Founders Visa with a tweet Its been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. 2gov.org will take care of the rest.

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San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

I remind my students that I’m teaching them a methodology they can use the rest of their careers, not running an incubator. Take a look through the slides below and see how their business model evolved with feedback from customers, channels and partners. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching.

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North America Lean Customer Development Distribution 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

” So we did. – most founders It’s a common refrain, and I suppose this is what all founders should think! Surely your product is “better” than the rest… for someone. We looked at all the products in the space and thought, “We can do it better.”

Distribution 267

Distribution Differentiation Lean Restful 267

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2015

A month ago, Jason, one of my founder friends, shut down his startup. 1 rule every founder hears over and over: Nobody wants your product until you prove it. How come so many founders still wake up to this horrible truth, after months or years of hard work? Customer Development for us meant a lot of hard-won learnings.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Lean Customer Development Startup 120

Steve Blank

JULY 19, 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. Peter Arvai , co-founder of Prezi , an interactive presentation platform. Peter and his co-founders were committed to making Prezi a global company.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Sweden 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119