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 124

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 124

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story. That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. What happened?

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 137

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. Trip 2 to the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. How to move from a free to a paid product without losing all your users. Jason: get into customer development and it’s a big waste.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

We are heavy users of DocSend , a secure content sharing and tracking platform that can be used to seamlessly share recurring materials with potential LPs. One VC said, “ I’m a heavy user of Streak which is a CRM that lives in your Gmail and allows you to create contact pipelines, snooze / track e-mails, save snippets, etc.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

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 267

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 267

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery. It’s a process that doesn’t exist in large companies with existing customers and markets.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 130

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 129

news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

We already have some competitors in the vertical and while there is no point in trying to hide the actual idea, there are differences in the way we implement stuff that can get us an advantage over the competition. >> I would say you need customer feedback or maybe expert feedback. Our idea is boring and not revolutionary.

Stealth 41

Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

In fact, according to our Potrero benchmark suite this new board ran our customer applications ten times faster than our current products. This turned out to give our customers immense value. Now we could give customers lower price boards without Engineering spending 12 months to design new ones.)

Silicon Valley 140

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 140

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

For example, if a client says a challenge of theirs is “converting more users who visit product pages,” ask them what they currently do, what’s worked, and what hasn’t. Interviewing your customers can reveal the priorities they’re aware of. Choose to expand vertically or horizontally. Respond to shifting market priorities.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120