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. Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. 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 162

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. What kind of objectives would a startup want or need for sales and marketing?

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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 253

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems.

Silicon Valley 131

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 159

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 159

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. For me this was one of the joys of entrepreneurship – constant learning and new insights.

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

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 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

This is a quote from Leander Kahney’s recently published book on Apple design chief Jony Ive: “In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Product 84

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery.

Silicon Valley 133

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Unintended Lessons « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/09/28/unintended-lessons – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40?

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North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 160

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. 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 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

Redemption 132

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Lean, when used in the context of lean startup, refers to a process of building companies and products using lean manufacturing principles applied to innovation. That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines. auto market with 60% of the U.S. car market. When Sloan took over as president of GM in 1923, Ford and its Model T was the dominant player in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Build your own Startup Death Clock - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , November 1, 2010 A few months ago I created a fun device at WPEngine to focus everyone's attention the most important thing. Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

A description of the problem you’re solving for your customers, and your solution to the problem, which is usually your product or service. A description of your target market or the different market segments you’re targeting. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. And even if they did – customers don’t ask to see your business plan. as one attempt to clearly define how exactly the company is creating value in the market.

Business Plan 156

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

On the other hand, it’s a whole universe and you’d need an interesting perspective on why you should go attack that market and face all that competition and noise and everything that’s in the market. So when you’re thinking about marketing positioning to me, that side of it is the interesting side of it.

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David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve seen a range of options for supporting entrepreneurs, which I can rank from least to most involvement in companies by investors: financier VCs, e.g., Correlation Ventures. portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. Raising Money Using Customer Development……… 47. Lessons Learned – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch……… 52. Stories from the Trenches.

Silicon Valley 228

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 228

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.

Founder 310

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 310

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Too often people abandon their ethics because “hey the other guys is doing it, I have to to do it to compete.&# I’m not buying it… literally.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

At some point in my career as I began to formulate thoughts about mission and intent , I started to think about the broader role of marketing in a growing technology company. It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales.

Silicon Valley 132

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. Not everybody can, especially if they need to run with the idea to get to market. By now it is useless except bragging rights as traction and market disruption have been lost. Johnny Good post.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of venture capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally. Compressing the Product Development Cycle. The New Structure of the Venture Capital industry.

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. And to today, when its major product is simply innovation. The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle.

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

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www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Whether you’re wondering what site search you should use or what is the best email marketing tool, knowledge is power. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Inbound Marketing vs Interruption marketing. Email marketing.

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53