Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, December 14, 2009 Business ecology and the four customer currencies Lately, I’ve been rethinking the concept of “business model&# for startups, in favor of something I call “business ecology.&# The amount of traditional business modeling will vary.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

For example, how are you going to explain that component drive architecture like.NET isn't going to work for cross platform open open source business models? However, they insisted on using a platform that totally contradicted their business model. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

Because that’s the audience they’ve dedicated to serving, which happens to be a segment of the market that nobody else was directly talking to when they first launched. They developed features with their specific audience in mind. Invite your customer segments to an interview. Without a purpose, this USP wouldn’t exist.

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Wrong message, wrong audience. While its B2B social media team was attracting large audiences in its market, it failed to engage them because it lacked credible, regularly refreshed content. It’s a little like hawking a ‘get rich quick in real estate’ scheme at a TED conference.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

One of Microsoft’s ‘MVP’ (Most Valuable Professional) customers is known as Mr. Excel to his followers. On some days, his website gets more visits than Microsoft’s Excel page — representing an audience of obvious importance to Microsoft, which supports Mr. Excel’s efforts with ‘insider knowledge’ and previews of new releases.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Every generation of new technology seems to find a willing audience in naïve journalists and eager readers. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Because P&G knew TV and print ads made its young audience uncomfortable, it enlisted experts to provide content. His Lee Consulting Group specializes in strategy, organizational performance improvement, execution, customer community building, market analysis, international growth, and business model innovation.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The class teaches the three basic skills all entrepreneurs need to know: business model design. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. Use it to keep your team on track and ensure you have completed each critical task as you search for a scalable business model.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Of course this is not at all true of many profitable small businesses, but they are not what I mean by startups.) Most importantly, they have lots of data about the unit economics of their business.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In cohort one, 25 teams chosen from a field of 100+, worked fulltime for eight weeks to take their ideas from a “cocktail napkin” business idea to a viable, scalable business model. Second, technology education is more skill-based, graduating lots of smart coders and IT managers, but not a lot of true development visionaries.

Colombia 327

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 327

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

I suggested, “Why don’t you guys take a first pass and draft a positioning brief with target messages, think through who you think the audiences are, and you take a first pass at who you think the press should be. Not understanding the other parts of your business model is a reason investors hire an operating executive.

PR 321

PR China Lean Channel 321

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In cohort one, 25 teams chosen from a field of 100+, worked fulltime for eight weeks to take their ideas from a “cocktail napkin” business idea to a viable, scalable business model. Second, technology education is more skill-based, graduating lots of smart coders and IT managers, but not a lot of true development visionaries.

Colombia 292

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 292

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Our Lean LaunchPad class teaches scientists and engineers that starting a company is another research project that can be solved by an iterative process of hypotheses testing and experimentation built around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Silicon Valley 247

Silicon Valley Lean Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2013

Lean Start-up Connection: Business Model Canvas. Lean Start-up Connection: Customer Development. Thousands, then millions of new customers were coming to the site through SEO, just like we’d guessed with our customer acquisition hypothesis. Our customers had identified a flaw in our original plan.

Lean 302

Lean Agile Customer Development SEO 302

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

Christensen, writing for a corporate audience, explained that there were two classes of products – sustaining and disruptive. Over time, I realized that was wrong – large companies executed known business models, while startups searched for them. I never got to say thank you. Eye Opening.

Lean 332

Lean Business Model Government Agile 332

Steve Blank

JULY 23, 2014

million to educators who want to bring their classroom innovations to a wider audience. Their goal was to train University scientists and researchers to use Lean Startup methods (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) to commercialize their science. million to fund the next 24 teams.

Lean 291

Lean Minnesota Jordan Agile 291

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

I suggested, “Why don’t you guys take a first pass and draft a positioning brief with target messages, think through who you think the audiences are, and you take a first pass at who you think the press should be. Not understanding the other parts of your business model is a reason investors hire an operating executive.

PR 213

PR China Lean Channel 213

ConversionXL

APRIL 30, 2014

Audience data (ie demographic data). From here, Image-O might build a campaign that explains the benefits of logging-in to a registered user OR if they find there’s little incentive for logging in, use basic customer development techniques to find better reasons for registered users to want to sign into their account.

Analytics 97

Analytics eCommerce Software Review Campaign 97

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation. This presentation will empower entrepreneurs and managers to: -Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Startup 60

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

This isn’t just about having a eureka moment; it’s about understanding the problem you’re solving and why it matters to your potential customers. Take the time to research your market, identify your target audience, and refine your idea until it’s both good and compelling.

Intellectual Property 158

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 158

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Me – “Have you used Company x’s product? Do you know have they distribute their product?

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 210

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

By getting out of the building on a team project, the class helped students viscerally understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 128

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 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

VC Cafe

JANUARY 15, 2012

Any time you start is right, whoever showed up is the right audience and the format is open – you define it at the beginning of each session. Topics include sessions such as startup fundraising, customer development, business model generation, lean startup metrics, visual note taking and much more: [link].

Lean 96

Lean Europe New York Business Model 96

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

Pre-launch customer development data is another way, sometimes in the form of user surveys for consumer companies or interviews with potential beta customers for B2B businesses. One of our portfolio investments, a B2B SaaS company, was a pre-product startup at the time of the seed round. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

No MBA business model would ever come out with, “Hey we’re going to go target the academics.” Everyone comes up now — the VCs, the market – and they say, “Hey wow, that was a beautiful business model. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 151

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 151

Steve Blank

JULY 19, 2016

Jim lectures at University of California Santa Barbara and elsewhere on the process of discovering successful business models. Unfortunately we came in second place, but within five minutes of introducing Prezi, the moderator asked the audience, “How many of you would be willing to pay for this?”

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Sweden 120

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

It means you're relevant to the business, and if your trip around the cycle is successful, you'll have helped the organization get closer to its goals. Another way to find the metric you want to change is to look at your business model. The business model also tells you what the metric should be.

Metrics 157

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 157

VC Cafe

JANUARY 15, 2012

Any time you start is right, whoever showed up is the right audience and the format is open – you define it at the beginning of each session. Topics include sessions such as startup fundraising, customer development, business model generation, lean startup metrics, visual note taking and much more: [link].

Lean 68

Lean Europe New York Business Model 68

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

No MBA business model would ever come out with, “Hey we’re going to go target the academics.” Everyone comes up now — the VCs, the market – and they say, “Hey wow, that was a beautiful business model. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

” I wrote a second business plan and it showed how I would pay them. (It The third business plan was a for-profit showing an actual business model. It’s an audience of people sitting around these 2 barber chairs. I moderate and then there’s a Q&A between you and the audience.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Channel Programming Founder 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I reminded her that all the Lean tools she learned in class–Customer Discovery, business model and value proposition canvases– contained her answer. Audience(s), Message, Media, Messenger. Craft the message for that specific audience. Step 1: Who’s the Audience(s)? Here’s how.

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

In particular, we would cover customer development, continuous deployment, minimum viable product, and actionable metrics. I love the business model. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

Lean 102

Lean Programming San Francisco Continuous Deployment 102

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. few years ago I also started following Alexander Osterwalder in his blog about his Business Model Generation -mantra.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167