Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 156

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 156

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much?

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post. Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

When we looked at the color graphics board market, our competitors had defined the market as one measured by technical metrics: screen resolution, number of bits of color, screen refresh rates, acceleration, etc. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that what we had to do was to tell our story around one key metric performance ?

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Labels: product development Speed up or slow down? Well-functioning teams just dont make these kinds of mistakes, right?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 8, 2010 Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Review) The next article in my series on entrepreneurship for Harvard Business Review is live today. Once again, we revisit the topic of Actionable metrics and their nemesis: Vanity metrics. Remember "metrics are people, too."

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

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). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Entrepreneurs should always communicate their business’ very latest stage of customer development as part of their investor presentation.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

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. 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. experiential.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

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. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , May 21, 2010 I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.) Here’s why.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Behind this analysis is a spreadsheet model, complete with detailed metrics for a set of customer behaviors that show just how valuable the new product will be. They are long-term bets on the development of a new line of business, a new technology platform, or the creation of a new market. Read the rest here.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Don’t share the details of your manufacturing process with customers until you’ve locked up your intellectual property.” Government Regulations I turned to the class and said, “The rest of you can keep building your company and shipping your product because you don’t need to worry about government regulations.

Vertical 149

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 149

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In the Fall of 2008, the credit crisis wiped out mergers and acquisitions as a path to liquidity as M&A collapsed with the rest of the market. My own metric is that you need experience >= 1.5 The formula for exits was a variation of the formula they used in the Internet bubble, morphing into: brand, hype and sell the company.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

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.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

The Startup Toolkit

DECEMBER 12, 2012

And if you focus on those metrics, you will go out of business too soon. Cohort analytics and funnel metric (start with Pirate AARRR Metrics if you are new) are priceless once you have a website live. Customer Development and UX both have good tools for doing this.

Lean 54

Lean Startup Metrics Retention 54

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

Luckily for the rest of us, he was able to find his path to a green card, and now employs 24 Americans in West Lafayette, Indiana. Read the rest of The New Startup Arms Race at Huffington Post. Luckily for the rest of us, he was able to find his path to a green card, and now employs 24 Americans in West Lafayette, Indiana.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

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

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. There are financial metrics (Return on Investment, Hurdle Rate, etc.) Lessons Learned.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. image source.

Analytics 98

Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customer development?

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

You can read the rest of his posts on his blog : Introduction , Part 1 , Part 2.) When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. You can read the rest of his posts on his blog : Introduction , Part 1 , Part 2.) We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2009

No experiment can affect more than a specified number of customers (usually expressed as a % of total). Every experiment has to be evaluated based on a single standard report of 5-10 (no more) key metrics. Either way, the team learns immediately whether their assumptions about how customers would behave were correct.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Metrics Continuous Deployment 133

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

And the final lesson was that we were keeping score on our packaging with the wrong metrics – it wasn’t about awards, it was about sales in the retail channel. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

but rest assured they would be. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And the rest is history: Google Maps was a huge success. After all, how would Craig Newmark’s life (and the rest of ours, too) be different today if he had waited to build something with a high-quality design before starting his famous list? No vanity metrics should be looked at. No vanity metrics should be looked at.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. The opportunity was just mind-bogglingly huge.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

This technique rests on three things: identifying the kinds of work that need to get done, creating the right type of teams for each kind, and steering the company by allocating resources among them. Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Unfortunately, this content-less decision-making process is inhibiting the ability of media companies to develop interesting new content at the very time when this supposed expertise should serve as their one true competitive advantage.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue? Customer Segments is changed to Beneficiaries. Customer Relationships is changed to Buy-in/Support. The rest of this blog post explains the how and why of these changes to the canvas. Lessons Learned.

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

.&# In 2002 I became exposed to the idea of “agile software development&# and subsequently was a first round investor in Rally Software which is now the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management software. Read the rest. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. What are the 9 parts of a business model?

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

I met one recently that is working on a really innovative product, and the stories I heard from their development team made me want to cringe. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

So if youre new, consider not paying any attention to the rest of this post, and just diving into the archives, if you havent already. 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

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

For the rest of us, there is an alternative: to create credibility by building a lean startup. The core of the article is my first attempt to articulate the key metrics (in graph form) that I believe demonstrate customer value. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60