Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. Blog at WordPress.com. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

I forget that other people actually read this blog. I think that one of the good themes of this blog is that years != “dog years&# in deep industries. To Steve B: thanks for a great blog, and connecting so many outlying or just plain uncorrelated dots. Say that gives 15 years in business. I’m not quite 40.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. Below we copy from Steve Blank’s blog. Blog at WordPress.com. Reply Are You Ready?

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

No internet, no blogs, no books on startups, no entrepreneurship departments in universities, etc. Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. Reply Process for the Enterprise » Blog Archive » People, Staffing, and Steve Blank’s SuperMac Series , on April 17, 2009 at 11:40 am Said: [.] Blog at WordPress.com. Thanks so much for sharing such stories. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Reply Tim Pham , on July 20, 2009 at 11:03 am Said: Love reading your blog, Steve. Blog at WordPress.com. Lessons Learned No one will tell you to work fewer hours You need to be responsible for your own health and happiness Burnout sneaks up on you Burnout is self-induced. You created it and own it. while doing 2 jobs.

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing , SuperMac , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , SuperMac « Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions Gravity Will be Turned Off » 17 Responses EricS , on May 11, 2009 at 11:05 am Said: I loved my Spigot. Great blog, just now found it. Blog at WordPress.com.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Blog at WordPress.com. There are some great lessons in your experiences here, and I feel like I can keep getting more in my post-MS&E273 life! Ben Reply Dmitriy Kruglyak , on March 20, 2009 at 10:48 am Said: Steve, I look forward to a similar backstory on E.piphany marketing! Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Your blog post has provided a lot of useful insights for me which I’ve been implementing. Blog at WordPress.com. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. Would you mind sharing them?

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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.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Glad to see you blogging! thanks Reply Denis , on March 27, 2009 at 7:05 pm Said: Steve, is this blog in addition to the book or instead of it? What part of this blog should I read if I am also reading the book? Steve Blank has started a blog. A key lesson is that as an entrepreneur, you get to choose your segment.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Darcy Murphy , on March 21, 2009 at 9:46 pm Said: I’m really impressed with your stories – in fact, that’s what I like about this blog the most, you’re writing stories. I’ve never said this before on a blog, but I can’t wait for your next post. i have your book, but stopped at the 4th chapter.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. Blog at WordPress.com. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

The effect was discussed before WWII even started, and in 1942 the British and Germans independently developed their own version of it (“window&# and “dueppel&# ). Shelton | Blog » Blog Archive » Links: April 29th , on April 29, 2009 at 12:02 am Said: [.] Blog at WordPress.com.

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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.

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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.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Blog at WordPress.com. Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

For example, Friendster was famously vertically partitioned at one time in its growth curve. I normally recommend you just store this directory on your master database, but you could use a standalone vertical shard (or even a key-based partition!) This type of vertical partitioning sharding scheme wont work in most cases.

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I asked that question because I several months ago I had just spent a week re-writing our plan and some VC blog talked about it being a “luxury.&# And the rest of the advice on this blog is irrelevant. Blog at WordPress.com. So, as you have said we spend more time diagramming and power-pointing out the b-plan now.

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

I’ve built my company using the Customer Development Model from Day One. I recently completed the Validation step (less the industry analyst presentations) and am ready to move on to Customer Creation. Blog at WordPress.com. Can I buy you lunch to share it with you? &# Yes, I’m serious.

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Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. Eric blogged about the talk on Wednesday, which was too late for me to get to Startup2Startup. Can you make a blog post with a calendar on where you’ll be speaking? steve Customer Development is Hard. It starts at ~40:30 in the video. Order Here.

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

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. era&# , but really interested in your take on these “free&# models through the prism of Customer Development. We all know how that ends up.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Unfortunately, this content-less decision-making process is inhibiting the ability of media companies to develop interesting new content at the very time when this supposed expertise should serve as their one true competitive advantage. My blog has over 14000 subscribers, for example. And how could they possibly review a blog?

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Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that. However, for the Web 2.0

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ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Turns out, getting high-quality blog content delivered consistently was a big one. In our initial calls, we uncovered our clients were struggling not only with getting high-quality blog content , but the time it takes to edit and polish it and, if necessary, find a new supplier. Choose to expand vertically or horizontally.

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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.

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David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Similarly, customer introductions are invaluable in the early days, but become less valuable once a company has a fully-formed go to market function.”. A well-organized library of best practices for founders in your vertical, which you can share as appropriate. I have developed a founder curriculum on my blog.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Much like my career, in the last two years this blog has traveled a serendipitous path. Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Reply Donna White , on June 6, 2009 at 1:40 am Said: I found this post through a comment on Fred Wilson’s blog. Put faith in facts!

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Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

From the king of customer development, Steve Blank: [.] Blogged the exact quote when it was published in Feb. Blog at WordPress.com. You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. You just get successful. No one has to tell them to do that.

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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. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” It’s an impressive portfolio.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2009

My ideas about Customer Development started evolving around these concepts. Henry , on June 18, 2009 at 10:42 am Said: I stumbled across your blog on Hacker News and I’m really digging this series of posts. When I moderated my behavior it was when they were my startups.) I looked at my kids and never went back.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was glad to find your blog and look forward to reading it. a customer before you try and build a business. familiar with Customer Development you should be. It’s very different than the traditional product development model. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

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