Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. Lessons Learned.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." But because paid traffic is fundamentally a bidding war, its important that you have a differentiated ability to monetize customers better than other people who are bidding for the same traffic.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Hippoland

OCTOBER 9, 2016

Demonstrate that you can pull the trigger on things quickly — whether it be getting customers, hiring / firing employees, or product development. Being in a competitive space isn’t a bad thing — Google was like the 8th search engine to enter the scene and they turned out ok. And convey this in your pitch.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage CTO Hire Email Later Stage 48

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

After seeing success in our pricing and purchase flow, we then moved on to test our free-trial model, which is the way that free users can experience the paid product before fully committing. This was one of the harder tests to execute and had a high level of risk and reward because we were tinkering with the company’s core revenue engine.

Revenue 121

Revenue Conversion Programming eCommerce 121

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Yet, where a company can *really* differentiate itself is in its ability to identify and recruit top talent. Top talent drives revenues, business development, great product development. Oh, you're going to hire 15 engineers with my $5mm?

Hiring 111

Hiring PR Differentiation Acquisition 111

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

Focus on Product Development First. We prioritized validation from our customers by listening carefully to what our customers wanted and focusing on early-stage product development. During the ten years we spent as a self-funded company, we worked tirelessly on product development.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping Pre-Money Valuation 85

ConversionXL

JANUARY 24, 2017

As Ronny Kohavi , Distinguished Engineer, General Manager, Analysis and Experimentation at Microsoft, put it: Ronny Kohavi: “Experimentation is getting more recognized as essential to guide product development, when it is applicable (not always, as you can see in Section 6 in this paper ). Image Source.

Conversion 48

Conversion Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Analytics 48

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

In most startups the competitive analysis feature comparison ends up morphing into the Marketing Requirements Document that gets handed to engineering. Product development salutes and gets to work building the product. Too often competitive analysis drives product requirements in startups. Lessons Learned.

Customer Development 259

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 259

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

Nanea help leadership roles at EA (SVP, COO Global Online), Gaikai (Chief Product Officer, Chief Strategy Officer), JAMDAT (SVP), Machinma (COO) and currently textPlus (President & COO – including leading engineering and product). Here are some things we discussed: User experience focused product management.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Leadership Engineer RSS 315

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Lean, when used in the context of lean startup, refers to a process of building companies and products using lean manufacturing principles applied to innovation. That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Up and Running

MAY 22, 2013

In a consumer product category such as household cleaning products, the industry success rate is a dismal 15 percent to 20 percent according to a Bloomberg Businessweek interview with former Proctor & Gamble CEO, Alan “A.G.” Half the companies in our survey experience budget overruns in new-product development.

Product 75

Product Marketing Forecast B2B 75

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 14, 2010

He should then bootstrap his product development by using the consulting fees. I asked her not to spray and pray, and focus on her core, differentiated products - stretch mark and c-section mark removal creams for new mothers. Ma Mi Skin Care. There are 110,000 monthly search queries looking for "stretch mark(s) removal."

Bootstrapping 114

Bootstrapping Marketing Angel Investor Silicon Valley 114

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Wikipedia puts it well: “…in empathic design techniques, users are almost as involved in product design as designers and engineers. Therefore, such technique, when used effectively, can achieve breakthrough designs in potentially shorter product development cycles.

Design 48

Design Distribution Framework Naming 48

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

And so that would be where I would draw those differentiations. The one side, I think it’s a really interesting point you bring up, which is does it immediately lean toward to creating new products and services? They have more skews than Amazon.com, they sell electronics geared to engineers.

Cost 37

Cost Marketing Audience Media 37

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Another great way to test your idea is to create a minimum viable product, or MVP. This is the simplest version of your product minus the frills and frosting. It’s a particularly popular strategy in the world of product development and is used to quickly and quantitatively test a product or a product feature.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Overall, here are the lessons I take from (the imaginary) Steve Jobs: Hold your team to high standards, dont settle for products that dont meet the vision, iterate, iterate, iterate. Be disciplined about which vision to pursue; choose products that have large markets. Good taste and common sense goes a long way. 1) RE: 'At Pixar.We

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

The benefits of looking at marketing through the lens of the product lifecycle are multifold: Provides a broad understanding of how your product fits into lifecycles for the product class, form, or brand (e.g. petrol-engined cars, people-carrier, and Ford, respectively). How are you positioning your product?

Product 124

Product Marketing Differentiation Harvest 124

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

September 2013 – Ryan Holiday publishes Growth Hacker Marketing and urges people to build growth into the product itself so that it’s a self-sustaining, scalable growth machine. An Epic List of 100 Growth Hacks for Startups by Search Engine Journal. Because growth should be built into the product itself for maximum ROI.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 27, 2010 Good enough never is (or is it?) So which is it?

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

The more work youve sunk into a product or vision, the harder it is to let it go. As the CTO/VP Engineering, I was the worst offender. That means that I (and other engineers) were able to participate in the problem team discussions. Such discussions would have been impossible in our execution-oriented engineering team meetings.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 167

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He should then bootstrap his product development by using the consulting fees. I asked her not to spray and pray, and focus on her core, differentiated products - stretch mark and c-section mark removal creams for new mothers. There are 110,000 monthly search queries looking for "stretch mark(s) removal."

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He should then bootstrap his product development by using the consulting fees. I asked her not to spray and pray, and focus on her core, differentiated products - stretch mark and c-section mark removal creams for new mothers. There are 110,000 monthly search queries looking for "stretch mark(s) removal."

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

What differentiates this model from "free serves paid" is that the free users dont need to consciously do anything special to be valuable. Here the key is for your free customers to get value from the site that is greater than the costs they perceive by the fact that youre selling access to them.

San Francisco 148

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Identity value - This is the strongest source of value of all, and its a little tricky to differentiate from the preceding two sources. This is the benefit you get from incorporating a product into your self-conception. When they buy an Apple laptop, they are doing more than enjoying a premium product and showing off. .

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 102

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 1, 2009

We have certain advantages that we are confident will differentiate us, but these may not be apparent if we just released as soon as the basic functionality of our app was ready. Recording is now available as a YouTube video: [link] May 4, 2009 6:26 PM Major_Grooves said.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 60

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 1, 2013

This is the art of conversion: improve your site’s conversion and you simultaneously increase operating leverage AND increase competitive differentiation – a truly powerful combination. Think about customer acquisition as buying fuel, and customer optimization as measuring the fuel efficiency of your engine.

Metrics 93

Metrics Conversion Internet Acquisition 93

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

I firmly believe that in this age where the product development life-cycle is so short and user feedback comes so quickly, you will know within a year whether you are focusing on a worthwhile one thing. Very hard to do, but it’s what differentiates great companies from good companies. You’re never as right as you think you are.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Companies are investing in enterprise software not just as a platform to run their business on, but the engine that moves it forward. Typically, this value falls into one of three categories: Differentiation: The features you’re looking to build or acquire will help you stand out among your competitors.

Software Review 96

Software Review Technical Review Software Acquisition 96

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2008

The companies that own those brands work hard to differentiate their offering so that people who wear their clothes will be perceived in a certain way. We wanted to let our developers do the same thing, so we opted not to go the gameplay route. The government doesnt assign each clothing brand its own level of benefit.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Vanguard decided that focusing on customer experience would help them differentiate from their competitors: Set up experimentation around customizing and personalizing the customer experience. recommendation engines, chatbots, automated suggestions for collaboration). People closer to the product have more pull in the business.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

It is right that Google and Facebook pride themselves on being engineering organizations (note - so did Microsoft). It is interesting to see the emphasis that both Twitter and Quora have put on product design, not just engineering. Note: in a non-tech environment these would be R&D, product development, and sales/marketing.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51