Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It was an educational mission to tell the story of who our customers were (and by inference who all the graphics board customers were) and why the current reviews of these graphics boards weren’t adequately measuring what was important to this large market. Theoretically, that’s why I hired them.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Hire the absolute best and the brightest, true experts in their fields, who in turn can hire the smartest people possible to staff their departments. Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. Here are a few: We know what customers want. We can capitalize on new customers.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

These are just a few of the powerful, growth-fostering impacts “Rock Star” customers are creating for a variety of companies. And engaging customers in such ways is generally much less expensive than hiring costly employees or agencies. But it does require some new thinking. Rock Star advocates can help.).

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Do some Customer Development instead. Spend your time with renewable sources of customers and iterate.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. After all, if you already have an all-male startup, you’re already at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring the very women that could fix that imbalance. Thats understandable - its embarrassing!

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Lean Business: Capacity Management, Overhead, and Your Business – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. What to do when you hire someone better than yourself…. |

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. You’ll never have to do it again.) Trade Show Post Mortem Evaluate the experience.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

A major angel group used Influitive , an advocate management tool, to track, activate and motivate their members. 4) Manage deal flow. For example, we created a pipeline management tool that automatically adds deals along with relevant information (such as attachments received) to our funnel. Pitchbot.vc 5) Due diligence.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

And when you look at the tools that we use, I mean we’ve made so many technological advances, but really to manage a meeting there’s not a practical tool available. We use email; we use Word; we use task manager; we use a file sharing tool. They are so happy that they finally have a tool to manage their business.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. A startup’s first hires: What to look for | Fortune - [link]. Managing Your Own Psychology | ben’s blog - [link]. Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Thanks to Suns amazing PR blitz, there was tremendous demand for experts on Java, and I did my best to convince people that I was one of that mythical breed. But I managed a few "good learning experiences" before throwing myself full-bore into IMVU. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Journalists, PR firms, investors, and the public at large love a scrappy come-from-behind story about two guys in a garage who figured out how to take down Goliath. These successful startups managed to have enough tries to get it right. Customer Development Engineering : techniques for accelerating your product development.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Other companies accomplish this by hiring a large staff of content production experts - and get a very good result. Plus, we saw some of the intrinsic limitations of supporting such a large staff: slower cycle times, higher cost basis, and - most importantly - the ability to serve only a limited number of customer segments. Great post!

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

And so, the concept for a digital PR service was born. Using my existing skills and resources (including an old domain name), I tested a productized digital PR offer. About 18 months later, we pivoted our messaging to evolve beyond digital PR. Conduct client development interviews. Image source ).

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. For more on how to figure out which question applies in which context, see Business ecology and the four customer currencies.) and for which customer? and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

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. Lastly, large companies that seek new talent will likely hire promising individuals through a small exit.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Whats striking about these stories, if you get past the PR hype, are two very important themes: These prodigies were self-taught, and had a fundamental fascination with technology from a very young age. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo (and a call for he.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. That’s what you pay PR firms for: to get an article written that is entirely factual and yet still provides positive spin for your company. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.)

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

It got bigger by inventing new test and measurement equipment and it hired people who knew how to execute that strategy. General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation. You cannot say it is the people (owners, manager or workers). Steven Blank: Managers need to be more entrepreneurial.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

The Message Sitting around a conference room table brainstorming messages that might resonate with customers, or worse having a PR agency doing that for you, is a firing offense in a small company. You should be brainstorming messages with current and potential customers. I know that, so why do I need you?

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. And companies crave positive PR and control over their message – all for rational reasons. The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. It sells newspapers and magazines.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Metrics PR 167

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Very useful way to think about “Management By Objectives.&#

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? 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 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

In a startup, these channels of communication are critical to understand for advertising, launch and PR purposes. But beyond the obvious, its also important to know where customers go to get answers to pressing questions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

It takes advantage of the idea, which I owe to Clayton Christensen , that customers buying a product are really "hiring" it to do a specific "job" for them. Its as if every customer, whether they are an enterprise, a small business, or an individual consumer, is actually an employer who wants to get things done. Remember Java?

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. I need money for the servers.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

She just missed "hire a name-nerd like @denvan" ;c{)} RT @aprildunford: How to Name A Startup [link]. Why Your Startup Shouldn't Hire a Marketer from Microsoft 139 comment(s). customer development. customer retention. customer service. Product Management. Good points. Good post April.

Naming 41

Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage. We go to mixers, buy fancy offices, focus on PR, and try to one-up each other. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94