Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. In the 20 th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder’s vision of what customers wanted. Finally the board would fire the VP of sales.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. Insufficient capital, over investment, and low sales are just some of the reasons leading to this sobering statistic. In the US, about 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. This reduces guesswork, time, money and effort.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. You can learn about customer development, and quite a bit more, in Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany. It slices, it dices.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

Successful collaboration between a company’s business development and product development requires mutual understanding and purpose. Practice Agile Development. Make sure your business development team knows where the product is in its production and that they are in line with its development cycle.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 11, 2019

All of us know in software companies that scrum is the most significant agile methodology for handling software projects. In spite of its well-known advantages (flexibility, quick feedbacks, adaptability and better communication), we might be uncertain whether to use this framework or follow a traditional way for the development.

SCRUM 121

SCRUM Software Review Technical Review Framework 121

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

Ideally, by the time I code it up, we'll have many customers using the platform which means I'll be working on a product I know is viable, and that's paying for the time I'm spending to automate it. Agile Development, meet Agile Business. After your product launch. Point #1: Developing a Proof of Concept.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

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. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 14, 2014

As companies strive to stay agile and innovative, they’ve discovered that units of 8 to 12 people work best as the natural size of high-performance teams. This is the magic number for leadership teams, product teams, research teams, design teams, and more. I definitely know that those jerks from Sales have their own selfish agenda.

Agile 196

Agile Leadership Architecture Product Development 196

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 4, 2024

Customer Satisfaction: Improve customer satisfaction scores by 15% in the next year through enhanced support and product improvements. Revenue Growth: Achieve a 25% increase in annual revenue by entering new markets and boosting sales efforts. Positive cash flow is essential for business expansion.

Technical Review 146

Technical Review Agile Audience Employee 146

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

This gets me into trouble, because it conjures up for some the idea that product development is simply a rote mechanical exercise of linear optimization. You just constantly test little micro-changes and follow a hill-climbing algorithm to build your product. Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team. We set sales targets from day one, $300 the first month. As the experiments progressed, day-in-day-out we werent making sales.

San Francisco 98

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 98

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

To get to this Transition stage, the company needed passionate visionaries who can articulate a compelling vision, agile enough to learn and discover in real time, resilient enough to deal with countless failures, and responsive enough to capitalize on what they learned in order to secure early customers. Planning is another key distinction.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 7, 2021

These are the four stages of a product we’ll be focusing on. . However, on a more granular graph, the introduction phase would be preceded by a product development stage. This stage is used to determine the viability of your product and confirm when it should go to market. Rapid skimming. Take Netflix.

Product 142

Product Marketing Software Review Social Media 142

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

Explore sales figures to customer interactions with various web pages and so much more. Agility, Adaptiveness, and Responsiveness. You might find your audience is a little off from whom you were targeting or that your audience thinks your product is overpriced. To Round It Up.

Software Review 125

Software Review Management Early Stage Startup 125

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

In an enterprise sales context, this is called a "repeatable and scalable sales process" - once you know how to do this, your company can graduate from early adopters and make an attempt at the mainstream. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? Expo SF (May.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile Learning from Obama: maneuver warfare on the campa. Expo SF (May. Conference streaming, sponsors, discounted tickets.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

To acquire new money managers, the company makes traditional sales calls, which means they’ve interviewed many, many professionals and gotten a strong sense of their needs. .&# says Rachleff. At the same time, whenever a customer closes an account, kaChing contacts the person to find out why; most agree to a short phone interview. .&#

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Sometimes, a great hacker has the potential to grow into the CTO of a company, and in those cases all you need is an outside mentor who can work with them to develop those skills. At the end of the day, the product development team of a startup (large or small) is a service organization. Does this sound familiar? Expo SF (May.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Women Entrepreneurs Can

JULY 18, 2024

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales strategies have radically reshaped how companies approach the market. Key Advantages of Direct-to-Consumer Sales The model’s unique advantages make it an appealing option for many businesses. Below are some key benefits of adopting a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) sales strategy.

Sales 40

Sales Technical Review Agile Analytics 40

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2012

Keep the team small, agile and up-to-date. One person cannot be the best lawyer, product developer, finance person, user experience designer, visual designer, business developer and sales person all at once. KPI’s are different for each start-up. The trick is to find yours as quickly as possible.

Bankruptcy 121

Bankruptcy Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 121

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

This process forced companies to release and launch products by model years, and market new and “improved” versions. In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. The Old Days – Waterfall Product Development.

Continuous Deployment 332

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 332

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Is it that some CEOs are better than others? Are their people smarter?

Incubator 419

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 419

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. These companies produced over $52 billion dollars in sales in 2005, and employed 450,000 workers that year. Substantial research shows that immigrants play a key role in American job creation. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

For example, I quickly learned that when I twittered about the event, more often than not I would make a sale. So the product development team was busy creating lots of split-tests for lots of hypotheses. And here is the howto for your sales bell: [link] Have fun! :-) June 9, 2009 1:42 AM David Skillern said.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Tesla has always put a huge emphasis on product development and technological advancement. Shopify swiftly came in with solutions that allowed these firms to turn their point-of-sale terminals into e-commerce storefronts and begin online operations the same day. For me, it's a live example of agile and sustainable business.

Technical Review 139

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review SEO 139

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

The first, according to Dr. David Travis at UserFocus , was agile development : Dr. David Travis: “‘Development’ teams morphed into ‘design’ teams. To use the agile terminology, design teams wanted to get a ‘shared understanding’ of their users and they were suspicious of any attempt to set requirements in concrete.”.

Software Review 115

Software Review Design Agile Analytics 115

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. 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?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

ConversionXL

MARCH 7, 2017

The first, according to Dr. David Travis at UserFocus , was agile development : Dr. David Travis: “‘Development’ teams morphed into ‘design’ teams. To use the agile terminology, design teams wanted to get a ‘shared understanding’ of their users and they were suspicious of any attempt to set requirements in concrete.”.

Software Review 102

Software Review Design Agile Analytics 102

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.

Customer Development 255

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Venture Chronicles

AUGUST 2, 2013

3) It all starts with the product: Companies can overcome a great many challenges with band-aids, duct tape, and bailing wire. but one aspect of a startup and/or growth stage company that cannot be glossed over is the product. It all starts with the product.

Product 62

Product CTO Hire Architecture Startup 62

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

The consulting firm suggested that they organize these 15 topic areas as a matrix organization, and the ballroom was filled with several hundred people from across their company – action groups and subgroups with people from across the company: engineering, manufacturing, market analysis and collection, distribution channels, and sales.

Framework 401

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 401

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2020

Initially, you may be able to do everything in your startup, including product development, marketing, and shipping orders. As you move from development to rollout, a team effort is required, including marketing, sales, funding, and customers. Look for tools to automate and simplify strategy execution.

Advisory Board 308

Advisory Board Agile Social Media Metrics 308

Occam's Razor

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

My career spans customer service, engineering, finance, product development, marketing, sales, and corporate functions. The web demands immense agility and flexibility within every company. The web has broken down traditional job silos in companies.

Saudi Arabia 167

Saudi Arabia Green Leadership Web 167

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Key attributes of an entrepreneur on a founding team are passion, determination, resilience, tenacity, agility and curiosity. They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. If any of the answers are “Yes,” then hire them a bit later as an early employee. And what is critical is trust.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335