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.&# Context here.)

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Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 4, 2017

If you’re building an app for the use of customers you’re already serving, this sort of research can be easy. Just for a start, you can use customer surveys to zero in on the sort of hardware (smartphones or tablets) and operating systems (Android or iOS) that are more common among your target audience.

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Developer Software Review RSS Software Developers 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. An example of a reversible decision could be adding a product feature, a new algorithm in the code, targeting a specific set of customers, etc.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. After talking to its resellers and customers I realized that SuperMac was the only company that could be described as “fifth in a group of three.” They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

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 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

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

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

Place customer testimonials wisely. Using customer testimonials has long been an effective persuasion method that businesses have employed. Many websites put a lot of thought into creatively building customer testimonials right into their webpages. Placing your social and RSS numbers in prominent places.

Social Network 167

Social Network Web Development RSS Web 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. and “What did customers think of your prototype?”

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Up and Running

DECEMBER 19, 2013

It’s the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool we use on our biz dev/sales team and it helps us be more efficient with tracking prospects and partners. While Flipboard can also serve as a solid RSS reader, Feedly excels at skimming through tons of content and surfacing interesting content quickly.” Good Reads.

Small Business 109

Small Business Development Team Review RSS Software Review 109

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Oh, and since it was not code compatible with anything, we were going to have to port all the key scientific applications our customers needed (as soon as we figured out who they were.) Personal supercomputer s meant yet again learning something completely new; new computer architectures, new applications and customers, new markets.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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 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 217

Silicon Valley Technical Review IPO Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. People who aren’t current customers of our graphics boards will get to know our company and brand. All we had to do was tell customers they could get video into their computer – and not promise anything else.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Software By Rob

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

→ Free Website Feedback, Custom Card Designs, Finding Good Domain Names, and more… Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place. Join nearly 6,000 startup entrepreneurs by subscribing to my RSS feed. Or a custom card with your logo and message? Long Live the King.

Design 44

Design Software Review Customer RSS 44

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

She admits in the podcast that this can be difficult, since those same people might be relevant prospects or great customers for Mattermark … but simply don’t write things worthy of curation into the Daily, which aims to surface the very best VC or startup content that day.). RSS feeds for VC blogs
, subscribed to via Feedly.

Curation 120

Curation RSS Term Sheet Technical Review 120

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2020

Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. Refresh it often. Skip the Flash videos. Marty Zwilling.

Technical Review 401

Technical Review Customer Flash RSS 401

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. After more customer interviews, we have shifted our market type hypothesis to- entering an existant market. Families gather from across the country to spend time with each other and feast on a traditional turkey dinner.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 137

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. Two paragraphs, Five bullets. It didn’t take more.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

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.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

While we sometimes cut the price of graphics boards, it was only because we offered our customers no compelling reasons to buy one that was priced equivalently to the market share leaders. Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? And we lost money when we did so.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

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. A few successful ones do all these things.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 16, 2011

SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE AND AFFORDABLE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING Home About Consulting Products Programs Workshops Blog Resources Contact Subscribe by RSS Subscribe to Duct Tape Marketing by Email Small Business Week 2011 Our winners! Now that’s a happy customer! 3) Peer to peer events I’ve seen this tactic produce stunning results.

Customer 66

Customer Video Social Media Software Review 66

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. Order Here. Now In Print!

Customer Development 139

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 139

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions. How many are there?

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

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 18, 2016

That can be done with content marketing tactics such as: Writing blog posts that share the helpful information your potential customers want to know. Sign up for their newsletter or RSS feed. This allows you to see everything they send to their potential customers. Use review sites to see what their customers have to say.

Memphis 100

Memphis Marketing Social Media Technical Review 100

crowdSPRING Blog

AUGUST 6, 2018

Your website is designed for you, not your customers. Redesigning just a section of your site, or reevaluating how your customers get from point A to point B (also known as a “user flow”) might be all you need. The results: The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. You aren’t getting the results you want.

Mobile 48

Mobile Design Technical Review RSS 48

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Technology | Tagged: Customer Development , Tips for Startups « The Sharp End of the Stick Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions » 2 Responses links for 2009-05-06 « Blarney Fellow , on May 6, 2009 at 5:17 pm Said: [.] Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Analytics 121

Analytics Silicon Valley Customer RSS 121

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 18, 2011

Related Posts: Content As an Essential Strategy Installing a Selling System 3 Simple Ways to Empower Your Customers to Sell For You 5 Ways to Get Rockin Reviews Content is a verb, content is a strategy? Your SEO efforts actually marry with this type of content to make sure you are both found and found in abundance.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Alaska RSS Audio 76

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. Refresh it often. Skip the flash (and Flash). Marty Zwilling.

Customer 198

Customer Flash Technical Review RSS 198

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Not just relevance in the sense of improving Quality Score or Ad Rank, but improving the relevance of your search marketing keywords and ads to your potential customers. The Watch List you created in your industry deep dive exercise can be plugged into Google Alerts quickly to create a customized news feed that goes straight to your inbox.

PPC 111

PPC Widget Campaign Software Review 111

techland.time.com

JANUARY 16, 2013

All rights reserved Privacy Policy Your California Privacy Rights RSS Newsletter Mobile TIME For Kids Subscribe Contact Us Terms of Use Media Kit Reprints & Permissions Help Site Map Ad Choices Custom Content. Video Games. Apps & Web. Reviews & Features. Person of the Year. Search TIME. Innovation. © 2013 Time Inc.

Global 68

Global Technical Review Minnesota RSS 68

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 16, 2023

Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. Refresh it often. Make it fast. Provide multiple methods of access.

Web 240

Web Technical Review Marketing Flash 240

Up and Running

JANUARY 22, 2020

Doing so will, in turn, help you earn the trust of the public and distinguish your brand as a thought leader while also boosting engagement and customer reach. Schedule a few public speaking events to boost customer reach and loyalty. And when done right, it can have a remarkable impact on customer engagement and retention.

SMS 101

SMS Marketing Affiliate Social Media 101