Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

For decades this revered business magazine described management techniques that were developed in and were for large corporations – offering more efficient and creative ways to execute existing business models. The Four Steps drew the distinction that “startups are not smaller versions of large companies.”

Technical Review 331

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

Therefore we needed them to think and learn about two parts of a startup; 1) ideation - how to create new ideas and 2) customer development – how do they test the validity of their idea (is it the right product, customer, channel, pricing, etc.). Hawken students practicing Customer Discovery in a mall.

Lean 335

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Surprisingly if you’ve filled out the business model canvas you already know who you need. I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. Filed under: Customer Development. Customer Development'

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 323

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 323

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Get Out of the Building and test the Business Model. This post is part one. to get hard-earned information.

Lean 308

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 308

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 Valley-sized VC funds don’t work.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

At best I think business plan competitions are a waste of time. Business Plan Versus Business Models. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A simple way to think about it is that in a startup no business plan survives first contact with customers. What did you build/do?

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2010

One of the principles of Customer Development is to get out of the building and understand the smallest feature-set customers will pay for in the first release.). Soon you have a ten page feature list just to sell ten customers. Most customers will not want a product with a minimal feature set. Lessons Learned.

Customer Development 313

Customer Development Business Model Developer Search 313

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 253

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 253

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Vision Synching in a Lean Startup The Fallacy of Customer Development Entrepreneurs, Lower Investors’ Risk by Validating your Start-up Company’s Business Proposition Lessons Learned: What is customer development? billion dollar mistake. billion dollar mistake.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 291

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 291

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. Come up with a business model canvas for their startup.

Incubator 311

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 311

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

For decades this revered business magazine described management techniques that were developed in and were for large corporations – offering more efficient and creative ways to execute existing business models. The Four Steps drew the distinction that “startups are not smaller versions of large companies.”

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 334

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 334

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes , the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

What we found is that during the class almost all of them pivoted - making substantive changes to one or more of their business model canvas components. In the real world a big pivot in life sciences far down the road of development is a very bad sign due to huge sunk costs. Class starts Oct 1 st and runs through Dec 10 th.

SBIR 322

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 322

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. ———-.

San Jose 262

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 262

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” More importantly they showed how any company’s business model could be defined in 9 boxes.

Customer Development 333

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 333

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 310

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 310

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

They start with an innovation, search for a repeatable business model, build the infrastructure for a company, then grow by efficiently executing the model. outpace an existing company’s business model. You want to start executing the business model. Companies have a fairly predictable life cycle.

Search 251

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 251

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Here’s the course announcement from Professor Vergara (in English): Customer Development Course in Chile – Lean Launchpad. The objective of this course is that groups of students finish with a completed software product that has real customers and an identified market. The syllabus for the Stanford course can be seen here.

Chile 241

Chile Silicon Valley Lean Agile 241

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Before students are admitted, they formed teams, applied as a team with a business model canvas , had homework and were expected to be presenting their business model canvas hypotheses on day one of the class. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. It washes out the others.

Lean 287

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 287

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

The teams present what they learned talking to 10-15 customer/week, and get comments, suggestions and critiques from their teaching team. We’ve recorded these panels for each part of the business model canvas. It turns out that for commercialization, the business model (Customers, Channel, Revenue Model, etc.)

Lean 267

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 267

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. Teaching In the Big Apple.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 278

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

clinical utility, customer, quality of data, reimbursement, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of CRO’s , and partners, etc.,) you make substantive changes to one or more parts of your initial business model, and this new data affects your biological and clinical hypotheses. They cannot be done by proxies.

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 10, 2014

Over 44 classes have embedded the business model canvas and/or Customer Discovery including a year-long course taken by every single one of its bioengineering majors. We didn’t know it at the time, but with that investment we had paid for front-row VIP seats to witness the origins of Customer Development and the Lean Startup.

Maryland 281

Maryland Lean DC Virginia 281

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

It will “sell itself” A business is much more than just good science: it is about customers seeing value and being willing to pay and proper validation and reimbursement coding and … A successful business is the sum (and integration!) of all the parts of the business model canvas.

Lean 251

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP 251

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 239

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

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. We had validated our new assumptions by a set of orders, and we had pivoted on our business model.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) They had 16 interviews with target customers (Zynga, Yahoo, VMware, Walmart, Zeconder, etc.)

Customer 241

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 241

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. It usually doesn’t end well.

China 329

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 329

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

It may just be that the message of building companies that have predictable revenue and profit models hasn’t percolated through the VC business model. Unfortunately, regardless of a VC’s age, their business models are suffering and IPOs seem to be a thing of the past for at least a while longer.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2014

It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses and agile engineering to build minimum viable products. Teaches you how to use Customer Development to test it. Integration with Customer Development and Lean Startup.

Business Model 335

Business Model Design Customer Development Lean 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model. Learn how to put together a business model , not a business plan. Class Logistics. As described in the previous post , this is a hands-on class.

Business Model 237

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 237

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Luckily Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas presents a visual overview of the nine components of a business on one page. They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers). customer segments, such as users and payers or moms or teens. Testing Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120