Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios. And to be honest, VC’s in this bubble really didn’t care.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

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 felt the same way.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Part 3, the next post describes the rise of Chinese venture capital. Torch was the rare government program that was run like a startup – iterating and pivoting as it learned and discovered.

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Part 3, the next post describes the rise of Chinese venture capital. Torch was the rare government program that was run like a startup – iterating and pivoting as it learned and discovered.

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Customer Development There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom. The mistake isn’t having a vision and taking risks. Make sure they are.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Her work included heading Nokia’s location-based services business and app portfolio for emerging markets, which she built from a back-of-a-napkin idea to a 100-person organization with over 10 million users. They act in the interest of their portfolio companies like any investor would.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Science and Industrial Policy. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Rather than pitching their powerpoint idea to potential technical co-founders, solo-founders who take investment from us pair with our developers and customer development team to quickly validate their idea and launch a site. We recently published a case study of how that played out for our portfolio company Snaptrip.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

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. How to map stakeholders and systems’ dynamics?

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Because kaChing prefers its portfolio managers to have a long track record, the marketplace launch (i.e., A portfolio manager’s entire track record & holdings had to be disclosed.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. It was a long way from Ellis Island.) Surprisingly, I enjoyed seeing other startups from an outsider’s perspective.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

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? What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Version One Ventures

APRIL 20, 2021

Filebase is very much an API-as-a-marketplace – similar to our portfolio companies Shippo and Patch. Decentralized storage networks are among the most distributed and secure networks in the world, but they can also require custom development and complex integration. It’s not simple.

API 102

API Portfolio Distribution Networking 102

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I’ve primarily seen quantitative analytic techniques used in origination , filtering , and in portfolio company recruiting , but technology can be used throughout the nine steps of the private company investing process: The 9 Steps of the Private Company Investing Process. 8) Accelerate portfolio company value. 9% (1 / 12).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

portfolios. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Unfortunately this was reinforced by the many conferences that rushed to espouse the benefits of Web 2.0 and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!,

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

We have a portfolio of more than 500 brands and 4000 products and people invite us into their lives more 1.8 For most big, established companies like us, our business models were developed years—even decades ago. in developing these new models. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Customer Development'

Lean 326

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 326

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

One of our portfolio companies Scratch first tested their buying concierge concept by replicating the service strictly through email and humans on the back-end. As a firm, we build a portfolio of companies, so we can tolerate a handful of companies that require more time and capital to get to market.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Custommade – Marketplace for Customer Products (NextView Portfolio Company). GrabCAD – 3D Community and Collaboration (NextView Portfolio Company). Plastiq – Payments (NextView Portfolio Company).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

When I do a quick mental query of headcount across our entire portfolio of ~30 companies, I think at least 50% and maybe as much as 60% of the entire headcount of our portfolio is in either product or engineering. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. This is a great configuration for a starting team.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Customer 420

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 420

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. To get started, we draw our tree out using Whimsical , a product that I’m a big fan of.).

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

It only emerges after an intense business model design and search activity based on the customer development process. Companies will have to maintain a portfolio of new business model initiatives, not unlike a venture capital firm, and they will have to accept that maybe only 1 out 10 initiatives might succeed.

Business Model 333

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 333

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. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

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. One of our portfolio investments, a B2B SaaS company, was a pre-product startup at the time of the seed round. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It was also found that “Engaged” customers received 3-4 (or more) reviews of their portfolios and were taking part of on-going conversations where their advisor was soliciting feedback and asking for actual input. Why Are They Referring New Customers Completely Unprompted? Read the full case study here.).

Programming 107

Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

That’s why they invest in a portfolio. Solutions are found by betting on a portfolio of low-cost experiments. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Teaching. After 50-years even the smartest VC firms haven’t figured out how to pick one company as the winner.

Portfolio 325

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The Renminbi funds have fewer restrictions on what industries the fund can invest in, less regulatory oversight and access to listing a portfolio company in China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

David Teten

APRIL 8, 2013

My coauthors and I just published in the Journal of Private Equity the first-ever research study on best practices of venture capitalists in creating portfolio company value through operational support, exploring exactly these questions. Analytics and Data Contributed Articles Portfolio Operations Private Equity Venture Capital'

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Hungary IRR Venture Capital 114

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

A sales and marketing tactic as much (or even more) than a customer development one, try setting up a Customer Council Advisory Board. Highlighted Homebrew Portfolio Jobs. Plaid is a developer-first company making it easy for financial data to move between apps. Things I’m Enjoying. Etta + Billie soaps.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

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