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

JANUARY 28, 2013

In 2006, as a new employee of the Fortune 100 provider of wireless technology and services, San Diego’s Qualcomm , I volunteered to salvage a fledging idea management system (fancy term for an online suggestion box) by turning into a comprehensive corporate entrepreneurship program. Part 1 outlining the program is here. The origin.

Programming 301

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 301

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. There isn’t much of a killer instinct among the masses.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

In 2006, as a new employee of the Fortune 100 provider of wireless technology and services, San Diego’s Qualcomm , I volunteered to salvage a fledging idea management system (fancy term for an online suggestion box) by turning into a comprehensive corporate entrepreneurship program. Part 1 outlining the program is here. The origin.

Programming 293

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 293

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

An example of a reversible decision could be adding a product feature, a new algorithm in the code, targeting a specific set of customers, etc. An irreversible decision is firing an employee, launching your product, a five-year lease for an expensive new building, etc. to see if they need to make a Pivot to find a better model.

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

With fewer than 10 employees but almost $2-billion dollars in the bank, they plan on jumping right in. First Movers” didn’t understand customer problems or the product features that solved those problems (what we now call product-market fit). But NewTV doesn’t plan on testing these hypotheses. It’s the antithesis of the Lean Startup.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Turnover of employees in capital in Beijing is very high. Employees work here for a few months and are suddenly gone. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. By now the company may have found and settled on a repeatable business model.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. Your product is designed with natural tripwires to trigger other pricing ( Freemium model ), or not (business model left as an exercise to your future self).

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In theory when you went public, everyone’s shares were now tradable on the stock exchange, but usually the underwriters required a six month “lockup” when company insiders (employees and investors) couldn’t sell. 2009 – Back to The Future The bad news is that since the bubble most VC firms haven’t made a profit.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

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 236

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 236

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. sustainable business.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Turnover of employees in capital in Beijing is very high. Employees work here for a few months and are suddenly gone. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Lean Planning is a set of tools for discovering a business model that works, building an action plan to test your assumptions, creating financial models and a plan for a viable business, and tracking your performance so you can adjust your plan on the fly, quickly and easily. Do startups have a manual?

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. And in particular I’m not suggesting that every employee who joins a startup fits this profile, it just seems more prevalent in the founder(s). Nor am I suggesting that everyone who does so turns out well.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first, the notion of the “ ambidextrous organization ” from O’Reilly and Tushman , posits that companies that want to do continuous innovation need to execute their core business model while innovating in parallel. Horizon 1 activities support existing business models. Horizon 1 is the company’s core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany." It's hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Try innovating inside a large company where 99% of the company is executing the current business model, while you’re trying to figure out and build what comes next. And they also recognize that simply exploiting their existing assets, capabilities, and business models is insufficient for long-term survival.

Incubator 419

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 419

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. Making Money From Social Games - ArcticStartup , August 23, 2010 Games Developer Conference Europe 2010 (GDCE) took place last week in Cologne, Germany. As most, if not all, of the games on social networks use the freemium business model (i.e.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Your customers don’t. This makes them far more credible to other potential customers than agencies or internal employees. The company was having a noticeable customer retention issue several years ago. How about local customers ? Believably promote your product. It’s this simple: You’ve got something to sell.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). And going for crowdfunding before you do customer discovery with customers can lock you into the wrong idea too early. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

So his team developed a ‘Facebook-like’ platform called Chatter. Among other uses, it serves as a superb customer community-building tool. That has substantially raised participation in Dreamforce.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. We eventually discovered (via five whys ) that we also had to get each new employee acculturated to a fearless way of thinking. We didnt have that many customers, after all.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

These are just a few of the powerful, growth-fostering impacts “Rock Star” customers are creating for a variety of companies. And engaging customers in such ways is generally much less expensive than hiring costly employees or agencies. But it does require some new thinking.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of this century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. This new framework can act as the front-end of Customer Development.

Lean 334

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 334

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Every large company, whether it can articulate it or not, is executing a proven business model (s).

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

They used Customer and Agile development to search for a scalable and repeatable business model to become a large company. They hired a world-class team with co-founders and early employees who shared their vision. After that, there was no doubt to existing employees and new hires what the company was aiming for.

Hockey Stick 303

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 303

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Now most of the businesses are small to medium- sized businesses. Jason: What do you mean by a medium-sized business? How many employees would a medium-sized business have in your definition? They are so happy that they finally have a tool to manage their business. Edwin: Oh sorry, so the business model.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. You have to know your business model. Most startups launch before theyve figured out what business theyre in. If the product needs to be tweaked just a little bit in order to convert users into customers, you want to figure that out before the launch. Gattiker said.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Thats what business is designed to do.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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.) Labels: agile , customer development 15comments: Scott Shapiro said.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

Finally to have a better chance of a viable enterprise, they need to test all the other hypotheses in their business/mission model (pricing, demand creation, revenue, costs, etc.). The key principles of customer development are: There are no facts inside the building so get the heck outside. Which changes are temporary?

Customer 422

Customer Business Model Restful Video 422

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

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

JULY 29, 2013

Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335