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 162

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 304

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 304

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. Handspring’s customers understood what a Personal Digital Assistant was.

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. Most startups are facing unknown customer needs, an unknown product feature set and is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

Business Plan 317

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 317

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 327

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 327

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

As an agenda for each meeting, I suggest: – How can we most add value, in addition to helping with financing? For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. You might hire a really amazing designer, and perhaps even charge companies for their service for cost recovery purposes. Advantages.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. They are gaining valuable customer data.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 219

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 219

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

This isn’t just about having a eureka moment; it’s about understanding the problem you’re solving and why it matters to your potential customers. Designing Your Business Model Crafting a business model is like building a blueprint for your venture. It outlines how you plan to create, deliver, and capture value.

Intellectual Property 135

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 135

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 253

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 253

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 ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 324

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 324

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. ARM, a competitor, not only had a better, much lower power processor, but a better business model – they licensed their architecture to other companies that designed their own products. But it’s not over for Intel.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In this time, building a successful business meant building a company that had paying customers quarter after quarter. It did not mean building a startup into a company to flip or hype on the market with no earnings or revenue, but building a company that had paying customers. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

After a year and a half of running training and teaching the new Z-8000 and its peripheral chips, I began to figure out that one of the jobs of marketing was to translate what engineering built into a description that our salesmen could use to talk to potential customers. I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy. B y Cindy Alvarez.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. I use the Investment Readiness Level as part of my sessions to help the students understand that being ready for investment means that besides having a pretty PowerPoint, they need to do real work and show Customer Development progress.

Sacramento 312

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 312

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

By 1991, 70% of the Torch funded startups were getting bank financing for expansion and later stages of the new ventures, with local governments acting as guarantors. Being designated as a Torch Program startup gave banks comfort to provide loans to these ventures for technology commercialization. Like the U.S.

Venture Capital 276

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 276

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. The most common mistake startups make is assuming they can operate the same way big companies do, and expect success with little to no feedback from potential customers. This is a customer development problem. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. For most companies it feels like innovation can only happen by exception and heroic efforts, not by design.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

In short, I find that authenticity helps a founder more quickly find product/market fit, recruit and inspire teams, and resonate more deeply with customers. On top of this, I just love companies that take a very methodical approach towards customer discovery in order to get to the heart of users’ needs and thought process. (If

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. Companies must pay a medical device excise tax of 2.3%

Startup 300

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 300

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

There is a wealth of resources that are unique to this town and a vibrant community of hackers, product designers, business people, and investors at various stages in their career. This guide is designed to help you hit the ground running and is a starting point for your entrepreneurial journey in Boston. Ruby specialists.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In Customer Development the goal of a minimum feature set is to pare the features of the first product release to the minimum necessary for early customers. The finance system didn’t talk to the sales system which didn’t know the manufacturing system even existed. All the Data and Not a Drop to Think.

San Francisco 230

San Francisco Database Advisory Board Silicon Valley 230

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

By 1991, 70% of the Torch funded startups were getting bank financing for expansion and later stages of the new ventures, with local governments acting as guarantors. Being designated as a Torch Program startup gave banks comfort to provide loans to these ventures for technology commercialization. Like the U.S.

Venture Capital 168

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Its a gross number, not per-customer: one hit each from a million people is a very different thing than a million hits from just one person. So its reasonable to ask: whats wrong with vanity metrics, at least as a proxy for customer behavior? If you never have, you can create your own using Google Finance.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2018

From my years of experience working with many entrepreneurs, including technology companies, finance and real-estate, product and coaching, I have found that there are 4 main categories of business meetings that occur when building a business. You may have an amazing idea and need a technology partner to help you develop it.

Stealth 198

Stealth Partner Developer Networking 198

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

understand who their core and tertiary customers are, and the sales and marketing process required for initial clinical sales and downstream commercialization. assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build. identify financing vehicles before you need them.

San Diego 265

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 265

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.) There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) Their objective is to get users, orders, customers, etc.

Wiki 316

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. We want to teach our students to think about how their “idea” for a business translated into a business model and then to see if that business model will survive first contact with customers. Customer Discovery.

Intellectual Property 257

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 257

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Please design a logo for me. ?With Is there a junior or senior developer from a previous gig who will respect you for a previous role and be ready to build their own baby with you? Rob Carter on finance. Design by Scheybeler+company. Development by Message and Adrian McShane. With pie charts. Columnists.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

He has a good team, and theyve shipped a working product to many customers. But they are pushing for the things that matter to customers - features. And they are cognizant that their funding is limited, and if they dont find out which features are absolutely critical for their customers soon, they wont be able to survive.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

In 1960’s and ‘70’s few MBA’s would give up a lucrative career in management, finance or Wall Street to join a bunch of technical lunatics. In the real world a startup is about the search for a business model or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Engineer 311

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 311

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

This is a quote from Leander Kahney’s recently published book on Apple design chief Jony Ive: “In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84