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Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customerdevelopment? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.
Startups with huge burn rates – building leases, staff, PR and advertising – ran out of money. This allowed startups to build Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) – incremental and iterative prototypes – and put them in front of a large number of customers to get immediate feedback. Then one day it was over. IPOs dried up.
I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole CustomerDevelopment processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. I see many CEO’s, product managers and marketing types out in the field talking with customers and users.
But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires.
Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Do some CustomerDevelopment instead. Spend your time with renewable sources of customers and iterate.
Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. Expo SF (May.
Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.
This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. 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 agiledevelopment.
Journalists, PR firms, investors, and the public at large love a scrappy come-from-behind story about two guys in a garage who figured out how to take down Goliath. CustomerDevelopment : a disciplined approach to finding out if there is a market for your product before its too late. Expo SF (May.
Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. Diversity is not the only requirement for making good group decisions.
While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.)
Whats striking about these stories, if you get past the PR hype, are two very important themes: These prodigies were self-taught, and had a fundamental fascination with technology from a very young age. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.
Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agiledevelopment, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customerdevelopment that the founder needs to understand. Or by a VP of Marketing who talks “branding&# , SEO/SEM, PR agency, etc.
Over time, open source software the rise of the next wave of web startups and the embrace of Agile Engineering meant that startups no longer needed millions of dollars to buy specialized computers and license expensive software – they could start a company on their credit cards. Rules For the New Bubble: 2011 -2014. Tools in the New Bubble.
What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. For more on how to figure out which question applies in which context, see Business ecology and the four customer currencies.) and for which customer? and for which customer?
In the meantime, I think we have a good explanation for what all those PR dollars are being spent trying to obscure. Labels: product development 2comments: Anonymoussaid. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Dont fall for it - its a trap. Great post! Expo SF (May.
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In a startup, these channels of communication are critical to understand for advertising, launch and PR purposes. But beyond the obvious, its also important to know where customers go to get answers to pressing questions. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup?
Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers. Develop a landing page, do some lightweight advertising, and generally reach out to as many potential customers as you can.”. Use a development methodology. Noah says, “Agile is what most software companies use.
The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers. carry on reading.
Flip startups are agile startups that aim to exit quickly. This is lean development without any customerdevelopment. The development part is similar to a lean startup: you want to be agile. The development part is similar to a lean startup: you want to be agile. The focus is on building.
Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. That’s what you pay PR firms for: to get an article written that is entirely factual and yet still provides positive spin for your company. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.)
Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customerdevelopment. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”
The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. And companies crave positive PR and control over their message – all for rational reasons. The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. It helps companies with PR. It sells newspapers and magazines.
This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May.
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond" Six streaming locations Interviews ► March (7) New conference website, speakers, agenda Two new scholarship programs for lean startups Speed up or slow down? Expo SF (May.
You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? So you decide to try to reposition around a different value proposition, one that more closely matches what your product is best at.
This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers.
What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? Learn why you dont want to do premature press, despite all the pressure youll feel to "launch" early. Expo SF (May.
We go to mixers, buy fancy offices, focus on PR, and try to one-up each other. Instead, lets focus on building companies that matter , on creating real value for customers, and learning. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? I think its wasteful. Expo SF (May.
Market By Numbers on Twitter | Entries RSS | Comments RSS Market By Numbers High-Tech Marketing and CustomerDevelopment Home What is CustomerDevelopment? CustomerDevelopment Help Affordable CustomerDevelopment Support! Please Share! Feel free to Contact me.
Launch with a PR blitz, including mentions in major mainstream publications. Without conscious process design, product development teams turn lines of code written into momentum in a certain direction. This is why agility is such a prized quality in product development. We can capitalize on new customers.
I agree that listening and communicating is a key to success, but customerdevelopment can only do so much. Have you personally visited the Content Creator forums and read through the PR thread? When new changes roll out that aren't anticipated or expected - like the whole PR deal that became a PR mess - people PANIC.
Why do you think outsources have been happy to generate all this PR the past few years about people losing their jobs to India? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to CustomerDevelopment ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Expo SF (May.
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