Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

I was driving home from the BIO conference in San Diego last month and had lots of time for a phone call with Dave, an ex student and now a founder who wanted to update me on his Customer Discovery progress. Customer Discovery. He worked hard to deeply understand the customer problems of these two customer segments.

Cofounder 336

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Coder 336

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. He just hired Meg Whitman.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. Who can I hire later? Activities define the unique expertise your company needs to deliver the value proposition, customers, channels, customer relationships and/or revenue. (If

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Finally, I’ll write about 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.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) The news from customers was not good. talk to more customers? Which value added services do public clouds want to attract customers for?

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. Talented product developers. No one can truly understand your customers or genuinely share their interests unless she is a customer herself. Your most powerful growth engine is your existing customer.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

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

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 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. These don’t require coding skills—they’re usually visual templates that are easy to use but don’t allow for great customization (that would require technical skills). Custom development. Website builders. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Either way, custom software development is an effective way to build brand awareness and give your business a competitive edge. In order to bring the most value to your business, it’s important you explore ways to enhance your customer experience. The Rise of App Development in the Business World. Source: Pexels.

Developer 93

Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

Seed Stage Startups Don’t Hire Fulltime For These Roles, And Certainly Not Senior Hires. You’re trying to build a software product, do customer development and find PMF. Hiring Marketing or Comms Consultants/Agencies At Seed Is Often a Terrible Idea. It’s just not worth their time.

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

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

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 19, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 19, 2009 Lean hiring tips In preparing for the strategy series panel this week, I have been doing some thinking about costs. And all of that cost was caused by one activity: hiring. Hiring is no different from any other company process. Sounds a little abstract, though, doesnt it?

Lean 140

Lean Hiring San Francisco Continuous Deployment 140

Steve Blank

AUGUST 22, 2011

Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten involved in hiring for two startups, a public agency and a non profit. In the last week I had four separate groups through the ranch all wanting to talk either about hiring a senior exec or a senior exec looking for a new job. Are you hiring for search or execution skills? Draw a pie chart.

Hiring 290

Hiring Non-Compete Search Customer Development 290

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. it is an art) and again hired professionals. Some men see things as they are and ask why.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&#

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Teams that build continuous customer discovery into their DNA will become smarter than their investors, and build more successful companies. Local crop dusters meant they could hire existing planes and simply attach their Hyper-spectral camera to any crop dusting plane. So we’ve learned to live with our customers. Crop Dusters.

Customer 316

Customer Algorithm Customer Development California 316

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

The benefits of customer and agile development and minimum features set are continuous customer feedback, rapid iteration and little wasted code. But over time if developers aren’t careful, code written to find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

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 Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

This person may be an extraordinary communicator, who rallies employees, customers, and colleagues around the vivid future he sees. What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. Corporate elephants can dance.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. This typically plays out in three ways: Often the first plan from leadership for innovation is hiring management consultants who bring out their 20th-century playbook.

Government 315

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 315

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

They’ve stopped hiring the best talent, and startups are not looking so risky compared to large companies. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Nokia was blind-sided in a classic disruptive innovation. Nanny-Culture, Lack of Risk Taking, Not Sharing.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Here are just a few things you might look for: Reducing risk in young companies Bringing innovation to the enterprise Designing and running experiments Customer development strategies All conference passes are on sale right now, and you can compare them here.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2014

The importance of the customer feedback cycle & the role it plays for AWeber. How to get your software business to the point where you can hire a business development director. Hunter shares some extremely valuable insights that will prove useful in building beneficial relationships and getting highly qualified customers.

Developer 104

Developer API Cofounder New Jersey 104

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. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

This person may be an extraordinary communicator, who rallies employees, customers, and colleagues around the vivid future he sees. What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

At Tekes, government employees (and their hired consultants) – with no equity, no risk or reward, no startup or venture capital experience – try to pick startup winners and losers. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

ConversionXL

JULY 1, 2014

Conversions are mostly about being relevant to your customers. If what you offer and the way you present it is relevant to your visitors they will convert to buying customers. Then again if you don’t understand who your customer is or worse it’s “everybody” then you have very little change of being successful at it. Demographic.

Customer 76

Customer Design Software Review Lead Generation 76

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 10, 2012

Spoiler: You can’t hire out sales because in the early days it’s about learning, not selling, and hired guns can’t bring back bad news. It’s as big of a deal as getting your viral loop working — it’s how you’re going to acquire customers at scale. It takes time to get the roadmap solid.

Hiring 51

Hiring Founder Viral Early Stage 51

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. It’s hard to believe these are the methods and tools of a profession designed to attract and persuade us to become customers — especially when “we the buyers” increasingly ignore them. Pushy salespeople.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? I care about the thought that you’ve given to the customer problem.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 10, 2014

Today, you need ways to keep customers coming in the door. It’s the ability to “stalk” your potential customers all over the web. The customer saw your ad on a totally unrelated web search or a website. It can also annoy customers if they catch on that you’re following them all over the web. Incentivize Customer Loyalty.

Customer 244

Customer Retention Programming Customer Development 244

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They close on the $750k, hire a buddy or two, buy some Macs, and get to work. Things start to get a little fuzzy in terms of priorities, but not to fret, the new office is coming along really well with all of the hiring! Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152