Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2013

At dinner last week, my long time friend Dave Jilk (we just celebrated our 30th friendship anniversary) tossed a hypothesis at me that as people age, they resist adopting new technologies. People working in information technology tend to take a producer perspective. The essay follows. I think he totally nails it. What do you think?

Technology 168

Technology Coder Semantic Social Media 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 6, 2020

We just held our third session of our new national security class Technology, Innovation and Modern War. Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy.

Technology 397

Technology Afghanistan Iraq Vietnam 397

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

While he correctly understood how to frame his hypotheses with a business model canvas, and he was doing a good job in customer development – the third component of Lean is using Agile Development to rapidly and iteratively build incrementally better versions of the product – in the form of minimal viable products (MVP’s).

Cofounder 336

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Coder 336

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. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 21, 2013

15:22 NASA and Technology Readiness Level (TRL). Startup Tools here Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching Venture Capital' 3:36 The 3 Components of the Lean Startup. 11:31 Instrumenting Startups: Via Launchpad Central Software.

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Video Oakland Venture Capital Lean 279

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. Technology in search of a market. The next customer segment we tried was startup founders.

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Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. In the last decade it’s become clear that companies are facing continuous disruption from globalization, technology shifts, rapidly changing consumer tastes, etc.

Technical Review 327

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 327

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. She posted her notes from the talk here.)

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 270

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

Other pivots involved moving from a platform technology to become a product supplier, moving from a therapeutic drug to a diagnostic or moving from a device that required a PMA to one that required a 510(k). For example when one team found the right customer, they changed the core technology (the basis of their original idea!)

SBIR 314

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 314

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. While the technology gap is closing, what’s still missing in local regions is early stage capital.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 212

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

But as Carlota Perez has so aptly described, all new technology industries go through an eruption and frenzy phase, followed by a crash, then a golden age and maturity. Then the cycle repeats with a new set of technologies. Some have labeled this period as irrational exuberance.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

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.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. In the last decade it’s become clear that companies are facing continuous disruption from globalization, technology shifts, rapidly changing consumer tastes, etc.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

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. Stay tuned. He runs H4X Labs.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? This is the first step before you zoom in and design the business model, engage in focused customer development or test your minimal viable products. Here’s how.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

Over the last two and a half years the National Science Foundation I-Corps has taught over 300 teams of scientists how to commercialize their technology and how to fail less, increasing their odds for commercial success. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , National Science Foundation.

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

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

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? Sounds like handspring.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking. steve Customer Development is Hard. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak. It starts at ~40:30 in the video.

Customer Development 139

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 139

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

corporation – starting a new technology division bringing disruptive technology to market at General Electric. One of GE’s new divisions – GE’s Energy Storage – has been given the charter to bring an entirely new battery technology to market. He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

In 2007, I graduated United States Air Force Academy as a computer engineer and entered the Air Force’s acquisition corps , excited and confident about my ability to bring technology to bear for our airmen. In the first year, they had developed a proof of concept around the Xbox Kinect – and Ryan had high hopes for the future.

Lean 262

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 262

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. The result of monopolist behavior is that innovation in that sector dies – until technology/consumer behavior passes them by. By then the company has lost the ability to compete as an innovator.

Government 315

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 315

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

Over time, innovations outside the company (demographic, cultural, new technologies, etc.) The company loses customers, then revenues and profits decline and it eventually gets acquired or goes out of business. valued by their existing customers – fairly well. outpace an existing company’s business model.

Search 242

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 242

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

Because of increased competition, changing customer expectations and innovative technology breakthroughs, the introduction of new equipment/merchandise, or updated versions of existing merchandise, can help drive sales and differentiate your business. Introduce New Merchandise As It Becomes Available.

Customer 168

Customer PPC Software Review Finance 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. Bill Gross founded Idealab in 1996, making it the longest-running technology incubator alive today. He’ll talk about making a profit and making a difference in a conversation with New Media Ventures’ Christie George.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

“As we’ve grown we’ve become less and less responsive to changing market and customer needs. While our revenue is looking good, we can be out of business in two years if we can’t keep up with our customer’s rapid shifts in platforms. Filed under: Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2011

After 50 years of technology entrepreneurship it’s still an art. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Market Types. For the less than 10% of startups that do succeed, most encounter several near death experiences along the way.

Software Review 292

Software Review Early Stage Technical Review Startup 292

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

—— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship.

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Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

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

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. The young entrepreneurs I met are bringing impressive energy and intelligence to their goal of building one of Europe’s leading technology hubs in Helsinki.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Fear of Failure.

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China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 Waves of technology platforms I still remember the first time I switched to LAMP. That startup didnt turn out so well, but not for lack of technology. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. 19 of the 21 teams are moving forward in commercializing their technology. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. billion U.S.

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Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301