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 248

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 4, 2019

Oracle aims to help customers develop their operations and enhance their experience with the cloud. Oracle helps the customer get started by familiarizing them with the available cloud options. They can simply subscribe to a larger storage option whenever their customers increase.

Cloud 82

Cloud Artificial Inteligence Matching Hosting 82

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.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. Corporate elephants can dance.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

It was a lifelong lesson that taught me to never start a business where you hate your customers. You don’t want to do Customer Development with them. So you and your team need to feel comfortable being in this business with these customers. It never goes well. You don’t want to talk to them.

Cofounder 325

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 325

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

They’re a match for the “How to write a business plan” classes that are offered. Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies , Teaching. Tags: Customer Development Manifesto Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies Teaching.

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) However, they need to match a top-level (board, CEO, exec staff) agreement on strategy and structure. Lessons Learned.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

It’s a really big idea because what you build needs to match the hypothesis you want to test. The minimum viable product you’ll need to build to find the right customers is different from the minimum viable product you need for testing pricing, which is different from an MVP you would build to test specific product features.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

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.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

I’ve watched other world class consumer product companies make the same mistakes: Come up with amazing hardware that creates entirely new capabilities Forecast demand based on volumes of their previous consumer products Confuse consumers by defining a new category without a frame of reference Discover the hardware doesn’t match their existing consumer (..)

Search 256

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 256

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The Agora team started the week wondering whether they were 1) a true marketplace for cloud computing, where they provide both matching and exchange capabilities for real-time trading. Or were they 2) an information exchange, providing matching services for cloud computing buyers and sellers, providing matching services.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

These don’t require coding skills—they’re usually visual templates that are easy to use but don’t allow for great customization (that would require technical skills). Custom development. This means hiring/contracting a freelance web developer or an agency to design and develop your site from start to finish.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers. Module 2, Getting Out of the Building: Customer Development. 0:24: What is Customer Development? 1:09: How Do You Start the Customer Development Process?

Intellectual Property 328

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 328

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves. Take a look below.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2014

It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses and agile engineering to build minimum viable products. Teaches you how to use Customer Development to test it. Integration with Customer Development and Lean Startup.

Business Model 335

Business Model Design Customer Development Lean 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Step 2 – Make Sure Your Ad’s Message Matches The Landing Page. If they’re too high and conversions are too low, you may have a message match problem. image source. Image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. Fire might be a strong word.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

A decade later, I began to teach the foundations of Lean, first at UC Berkeley (Customer Development) and then at Stanford using cases and business plans. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). Let’s Teach Lean Via Experiential Learning. experiential.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. But for startups, business plans fail to match the chaotic reality they encounter in the real world. Yet year after year, decade after decade, VC’s would watch as no startup business plan survived first contact with customers.

Business Model 263

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. And these changes may have unintended consequences leading to customer dissatisfaction and confusion. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing , Tesla.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Andela selects and trains world-class tech talent from Africa and matches them with U.S. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. You have to wonder: does the VC you have on your board today have the right skill set to help you succeed in today’s economic environment?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

APRIL 3, 2012

We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. I’m feeling guilty because I was using Customer Development and the Startup Owners Manual until I had that insight. Often they match a pattern from a different industry or field.

Flash 313

Flash Customer Development Business Model Developer 313

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Andela selects and trains world-class tech talent from Africa and matches them with U.S. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

For example, an agile software development lifecycle model encourages self-organization and motivation rather than the delegation of authority and a seniority hierarchy. Other benefits include: Access to a larger talent pool with professionals who might be a better match with your project.

Developer 93

Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

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

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Generate end user demand (to match our revenue goals) Drive that demand into our sales channels Value price our products to achieve our revenue and margin goals (create high-value) Educate our sales channel(s) Help engineering understand customer needs That was it. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

If we tried to match them on their playing field we’d never catch up. Reply steveblank , on March 28, 2009 at 7:27 am Said: Denis, Over time the blogs tagged under the “customer development&# category will build up a narrative of illustrative stories of how customer development evolved in practice.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. dumped Détente and embraced a new strategy to counter the Warsaw Pact by not matching them tank for tank or solider to solider. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. Yet while the U.S.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. but it is so important to see what your customers do in their daily lives. Back then it seemed foreign.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money. Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. Pivots By Firing Executives. No one gets fired.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247