2010, Product Development and Vertical

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Vertical Markets 2: Customer/Market Risk versus Invention Risk.

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students.

Vertical

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer

The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part.

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

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. Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Raising Money Using Customer Development

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Reply Charlie Crystle , on April 8, 2010 at 12:31 pm Said: brilliant post.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The Customer Development Model is designed to minimize the risk of launching a product for a market that does not exist. It encourages a startup to invest in customer discovery and validation in parallel with product development prior to product launch.

Lean

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS

Let's Fire Our Customers

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

on July 9, 2010 at 12:50 pm Said: [.] Fire might be a strong word. Reply Play Wack-a-Mole – gently, now – With Your ‘Bad’ Customers | CityOf.com – More Local… FASTER. ,

Customer

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California

Founders and dysfunctional families « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.

Founder

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China

Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores.

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Thank you, Jerry Sheridan Reply Amazing Posts « Shashank ND , on February 11, 2010 at 5:48 am Said: [.]

Technology

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE

The End of Innocence

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS

Out of the Ashes - Something Isn't Quite Right

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development

He's Only in Field Service

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.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development

Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. If you’re text averse like i am, try to diagram these key items and then write-up the diagrams.

Business Plan

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital

Lessons Learned: Sharding for startups

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

In this scheme, all of the data related to a specific feature of a product are stored on the same machines. For example, Friendster was famously vertically partitioned at one time in its growth curve. This type of vertical partitioning sharding scheme wont work in most cases. Key-based partitioning. to store it.

San Francisco

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database

The curse of prevention

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It could be fixed by refactoring the code itself, or by partitioning the data horizontally or vertically, or by adding additional capacity at the point of the bottleneck, or by shaping end-user demand, or even by removing the feature itself. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Bring your questions.

San Francisco

San Francisco Architecture Lean Continuous Deployment

The Product Development Model « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. That’s in stark contrast to the traditional Product Development Model where it’s expected a customer is already there and waiting and it’s simply a matter of [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product

Marching through quicksand

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, My blog has over 14000 subscribers, for example. Is that a lot? I have given more than two-dozen paid speeches this year – is that a lot? Is that good?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution

Innovation Outposts and The Evolution of Corporate R&D

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

These growing national companies were challenged to figure out how to organize an organization of increased complexity that resulted from their large size, and geographic scale as well as their horizontal and vertical integration. and to develop professional managers and management hierarchies to run them.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review

Vertical Markets 4: Putting it All Together « Steve Blank

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

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Use of a Product Development Model to Measure Sales Using the product development diagram for startup sales activities is like using a clock to tell the temperature.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer

The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product.

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

Silicon Valley Product Startup RSS

Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners.

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. This post describes such a model.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) « Steve Blank

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. Market Type also affects the market size as well as how you launch the product into the market.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Selecting value-added angel investors and advisors can also help with the camaraderie issue, as they can provide advice and counsel during the solitary period of hard-core coding and product development.

CTO Hire

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting

Unintended Lessons

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

North Carolina

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut

Retirement and Redemption « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Reply steveblank , on March 8, 2010 at 4:29 pm Said: Thanks! steve Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Redemption

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California

Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Reply David Locke , on May 12, 2010 at 7:01 am Said: Yes, the Durant meme moved to Silicon Valley, as did the tradition of boards ousting founders. Reply The Durant School of Entrepreneurship « Theory to Practice , on May 20, 2010 at 10:41 am Said: [.] is the Durant School of Entrepreneurship (DSE)?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development

There's a Pattern Here « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. I call this process “Customer Development,” a sibling to “Product Development,” and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not. Looked up for a kindle edition.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California

The Sharp End of the Stick « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Later on in this same company’s life, sales will become the pointy end and product development moves to a supporting role. Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California

Startup Tools

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics

StartUpRoar

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Vertical Markets 2: Customer/Market Risk versus Invention Risk.

Trending Sources

The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part.

Raising Money Using Customer Development

Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Let's Fire Our Customers

Founders and dysfunctional families « Steve Blank

Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores.

The End of Innocence

Out of the Ashes - Something Isn't Quite Right

He's Only in Field Service

Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions

Lessons Learned: Sharding for startups

The curse of prevention

The Product Development Model « Steve Blank

Marching through quicksand

Innovation Outposts and The Evolution of Corporate R&D

Vertical Markets 4: Putting it All Together « Steve Blank

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

The Leading Cause of Startup Death – Part 1: The Product.

Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners.

Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) « Steve Blank

Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business

Unintended Lessons

Retirement and Redemption « Steve Blank

Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1

There's a Pattern Here « Steve Blank

The Sharp End of the Stick « Steve Blank

Startup Tools

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