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. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Was the sales revenue model based on actually testing the hypotheses outside the building? Greg Boutin Founder, Growthroute Ventures, [link] Reply TO REVENUE » Talking on Techie-Biz Divide at Communitech Guelph on Sept. All of this is usually a bad idea. No one asks, “Why are we executing like we know what we are doing?

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. What happened?

Silicon Valley 143

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point. Worry about the sales results. What did we learn? To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Once the product begins to ship, startup sales execs use orders and revenue as its marker of progress in understanding customers. Well, because the revenue plan we promised the investors shows us generating customer revenue from the day of first customer ship.” Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Corner Cases and Consensus are For Large Companies Carefully considering each and every possible outcome before you proceed with a decision is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do. Unlike large corporations, startup meetings are not about achieving consensus for every objection raised.

Silicon Valley 201

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

corporation, and by extension Sloan laid the foundation for America’s economic leadership in the 20th century. The company was lucky to survive his later stage leadership, and would be gone today had Bill Ford not brought in the ex-Boeing fellow who turned it around and runs it today. One guy really did all of this.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. steve Elephants Can Dance – Reinventing HP » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. ,

Silicon Valley 186

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

As you stated, the VCs only want to hear about product development and, I would add, revenue models. Would you agree that your model, customer development, requires a lot more listening than talking? To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 133

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Scalable: The goal is not to get one customer but many – and to get those customers so each additional customer adds incremental revenue and profit. Lets see why.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Most startups following the Product Development Model never achieve their revenue plan and burn through a ton of cash not knowing what hit them. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter? End result?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. What about a world in which Steve Blank and RSS have taught us not to do that? We had no clue what our market was when we first started. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

A Progress Graph on the right visually shows how far you’ve come (in whatever units of goodness you’re tracking – revenue, units, users, etc.) Good if you have your own money, better if the cash comes from investors, but best if it’s revenues from customers. Get back up and running.

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 156

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 156

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. If you’re a startup raising money or just want to see your name online, there’s not a better blog on the web. Reply Chris Neumann , on August 26, 2009 at 9:41 am Said: I think you need to look at the incentive system for TechCrunch. Mike Arrington is a capitalist. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 210

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Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

You can be an Independent studio or do “work for hire&# (either a revenue share or buy-out model) - If you’re an independent studio you have a set of choices for distribution channel and marketing models. - We understood none of this. More detail in future posts. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

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 132

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Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. Marketings job is to take engineering products and use them to maximize revenue and profit. We did that when we surveyed our customers. We would use this same idea 10 years later at E.piphany. Now In Print!

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