Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

But we were meeting to talk about sales and marketing. They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So Why doesn’t this sound like the right thing to do for channel sales?” Hiring PR Agencies. They learned a ton.

PR 318

PR China Lean Channel 318

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2014

Customer] Retention is King (good insights on measurement) – crowdspring.co/1haiyJt. Jessica Livingston: Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing | WSJ – crowdspring.co/1h6bKMW. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Software Review 94

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. The head of the PR agency agreed that we would work together as a team.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 126

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. In the Roku case study we’ve chosen three execution branches: (1) delivery platforms, (2) sales channels, and (3) chip platforms.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

But we were meeting to talk about sales and marketing. They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So Why doesn’t this sound like the right thing to do for channel sales?” Hiring PR Agencies. They learned a ton.

PR 210

PR China Lean Channel 210

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes. The Customer Discovery lessons of “get outside the building and test your hypothesis with customers,&# and “the founders need to hear the results,&# came from this debacle. We all know how that ends up.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

I wanted to understand how customers bought our products. I knew we were selling through a multi-level indirect sales channel. That’s a mouthful to say that our sales people didn’t sell our products directly to a customer. Market messages to indirect sales channels are just like that.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 206

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. This is worthy of an open and honest discussion with sales up front. And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 134

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Wait a minute, what about the rest of Customer Development ? Aren’t you going to validate your hypotheses by first getting some customers?”. Now I was confused, and I asked, “Well what do you guys believe – Customer Development or launch on a schedule?” I was unprepared for what they said next. To Do list.

Customer Development 312

Customer Development Singapore Channel PR 312

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

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

It must cross boundaries, working cooperatively with other divisions in your business such as sales, marketing, social media, PR, product development, and the like. Someone may hand him a list of prospective references who may or may not be happy customers, or strategically significant, or even profitable.

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Find and engage customer advocates using a gamification platform that makes it interesting and enjoyable to advocate. Allow customers who identify themselves as promoters on surveys to immediately provide a recommendation on the spot. . This has resulted in dramatic increases in sales. Rock Star advocates can help.).

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Intellectual Property 175

Intellectual Property Aggregator Startup IP 175

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

People told me it was impossible to have our product launch featured on one of the top tech blogs without spending $3,000 on some fancy PR agency. Especially because I could have used this time on marketing, sales and customer development, and actually helped our business move forward.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. Later you will want to come back and create a proper sales forecast, cash flow forecast, and expense budget. The business model.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2020

Optimize Your Sales Pipeline For Engagement. Having a sales pipeline is nothing new. A significant issue I see in many sales pipelines is a failure to communicate effectively with prospects. As Gaetano Dinardi from Nextiva says: “Engagement is the number one spot that most fall short in closing sales.

SMS 134

SMS Campaign PR Sales 134

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Reply steveblank , on September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm said: Greg, The Google Group “Lean Startup Circle&# at [link] is a wonderful repository of Customer Development/Lean Startup success and failure. It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

The Startup Toolkit

DECEMBER 12, 2012

For example, succeeding at PR before you have retention is actively unhelpful. Customer Development and UX both have good tools for doing this. The entrepreneurial press is obsessed with upside — the exit, the big sale, the riches. When you talk to your team or VCs, bring them back to your own questions.

Lean 54

Lean Startup Metrics Retention 54

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 268

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 268

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. is an AI bot which helps companies refine their sales pitch to VCs. Numerous VC funds rely on more general CRM and sales funnel solutions like Pipedrive and Streak. Pitchbot.vc 3) Originate investments. 5) Due diligence.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

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. I put together a one-page website, a list of 100 people to reach out to, and a cold email script that would make seasoned sales professionals cringe.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

As the company gets larger and a large professional sales organization kicks in, its second priority is to generate qualified leads. Before you go to a trade show sales and marketing need to agree to measurable goals. Then offer those budget dollars to the VP of Sales.

Silicon Valley 199

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 199

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. While this may seem obvious to anyone not in sales and marketing, trust me, in a technology company this is a conceptual breakthrough. Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 130

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Although customers didnt flock to this offering at first, we had enough of a developer program active to start recruiting early adopters to start creating 3D objects for sale in our catalog. That engine of creativity has led to a catalog of something like 2 million virtual goods authored by a hundred thousand developers.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

It took hundreds of years for newspapers to learn to behave as worthy holders of this public trust and cover the news without fear or favour, and create a firewall between news and views and the ad-sales side of the operation. I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customer development can only do so much.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. However, the CEO as the “Rock Star&# always reminded me of why I fired any PR agency that was getting more press than the company it represented. I’ll show you the memo in a second.

Silicon Valley 182

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 182

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Because this language may lead you to believe this concept is for enterprise sales only, I thought Id walk you through an example from the world of consumer electronics. In a startup, these channels of communication are critical to understand for advertising, launch and PR purposes.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

market-by-numbers.com

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Market By Numbers on Twitter | Entries RSS | Comments RSS Market By Numbers High-Tech Marketing and Customer Development Home What is Customer Development? Sales or Marketing Company’s method of sales or marketing is unique or stands out compared to others who sell similar products. Please Share!

San Diego 40

San Diego RSS Lean Elevator Pitch 40

The Startup Toolkit

JUNE 27, 2012

Similarly, I think that working nights & weekends is an awesome way to start doing customer development and answering the big questions about your business. That’s because, historically, the default mistake was to do the opposite & over-commit too soon.

Burn Rate 35

Burn Rate PR Campaign Hiring 35

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

But this is actually the biggest news, and the thing I'm most excited about.

Lean 159

Lean San Francisco Houston Engineer 159

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. And I really believe I can do, on the sales part, so much more if I have additional people. Jason: That’s true in engineering; it’s true in sales; it’s true in marketing. Is it more the marketing/sales side?

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Ads drive awareness…to drive sales. PR and publicity drive attention…to drive sales. Social media drives communication…to drive sales. It is simply getting customers. And by the transitive property, anything that gets customers is marketing. […] Welcome to growth hacking.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Why do you think outsources have been happy to generate all this PR the past few years about people losing their jobs to India? Without a basis for comparison, you first have to drive home the need, then you will have an easy time making the sale (after all, youre the person who they trust to bring it to their attention).

San Francisco 89

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Ruby Lean 89

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

I wrote about this challenge for iPhone developers, in an essay on retention competition : the battle over what icon the user will click when they go to the home screen. At that point, theres no opportunity for marketing or sales; the battle is already won or lost in the persons mind.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Duct Tape Marketing

MARCH 1, 2016

A channel for lead generation purposes is simply a broad way to gain access to your prospective audience – so referral generation is a channel, sales is a channel, SEO is a channel, and speaking is a channel – and there are countless ways to master every channel. This is not a sales presentation; it’s an education and value add tool.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Channel Partner Campaign 28

www.rocketwatcher.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

customer development. customer retention. customer service. competition. content marketing. early adopters. innovation. lead generation. leanstartup. marketing framework. market strategy. positioning. product/market fit. productcamp. product launch. Product Management. Product Marketing. references. segmentation.

Naming 41

Naming Startup Product Name Framework 41

www.rocketwatcher.com

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

For those of us selling to businesses however, particularly where there is a sales team involved and a pipeline to track, the world is quite different and Dave’s metrics don’t cover everything you need to track. For long sales cycles, it is important to measure this to estimate marketing ROI for tactics in the short term.

B2B 42

B2B Metrics Marketing Startup 42