Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

You take that money and invest a good portion of it in traditional sales and marketing efforts — including product developers, creative people, and salespeople, all of whom are paid to figure out what buyers want and to say good things about your company — in a quest to get even more customers. Your customers don’t.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 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. Helsinki photo by Timo Newton-Syms.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

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. billion for a company with less than $50 million in sales.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Little Indians and Big Indians At MIPS Computers , my second semiconductor company, I was the VP of Marketing and defacto head of Sales. Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?

Customer Development 287

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 287

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

It must cross boundaries, working cooperatively with other divisions in your business such as sales, marketing, social media, PR, product development, and the like. Someone may hand him a list of prospective references who may or may not be happy customers, or strategically significant, or even profitable.

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

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. This has resulted in dramatic increases in sales.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). It means someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business.

Hockey Stick 303

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 303

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. One of the challenges facing the demand gen industry now is developing a steady stream of interesting content that will attract buyers and move them through the sales funnel.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

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. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

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.) For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. They are closing orders.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Fifteen months later eight of Shockley’s employees (three physicists, an electrical engineer, an industrial engineer, a mechanical engineer, a metallurgist and a physical chemist) founded Fairchild Semiconductor. So the engineers taught themselves how to become marketers, sales people and CEO’s. Medical Researchers Get Entrepreneurial.

Engineer 313

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 313

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.). New, agile and adroit venture firms with new business models have emerged to deal with the reality that 1) web 2.0

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 306

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

But all that investment in growth and sales force didn’t have a long-term payback, and the actual value of the product to small businesses wasn’t as high as claimed, even though the simplest of customer development reveals this fact (ask any restauranteur).

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. I’ll show you the memo in a second. But first some background.) It was still a year away from its IPO.

Silicon Valley 192

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 192

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

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

They can make good money consulting or working as an employee of another company. If you start framing the technology solution, then you’re not looking for a CTO or a tech co–founder, you’re looking for a contractor or employee to implement that solution, which is perfectly fine if you know what you’re doing. Music Gear for Sale/Trade.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Hippoland

JUNE 19, 2018

Is there a way to spread this cost of say $40k-$200k across time while simultaneously improving employee retention? But, I don’t think everyone needs to become a developer. Is there a way to teach people sales online? In the old days, we had apprenticeship models. Outbound sales?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco California Cost Software 48

Hippoland

JUNE 19, 2018

Is there a way to spread this cost of say $40k-$200k across time while simultaneously improving employee retention? But, I don’t think everyone needs to become a developer. Is there a way to teach people sales online? In the old days, we had apprenticeship models. Outbound sales?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco California Cost Software 48

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

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

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

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2013

Lean Start-up Connection: Business Model Canvas. We hoped to start acquiring customers mostly through responsible, focused SEO, where we would target a variety of high-value search terms and provide relevant, useful content to users. Lean Start-up Connection: Customer Development. Filed under: Customer Development.

Lean 302

Lean Agile Customer Development SEO 302

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

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do some Customer Development instead. You have to know your business model. Help you raise money. But dont be too sure.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2010

If you read the academic literature or business press, you might believe that large companies and their business models are brought by the stork. This series of posts are going to offer a new three-stage model of how startups grow into large companies. would be inside the box to the left. Posted in Durant versus Sloan.

Laos 295

Laos Startup Business Model Early Stage 295

ConversionXL

APRIL 30, 2014

They’re using ecommerce tracking to measure revenue and sales, and they’re using Goals to measure a number of macro and micro conversions. Plus they want to give more employees access to the data. They also want a simple way to combine all of the data in one system that anyone can use (sales, marketing, analysts, etc.).

Analytics 97

Analytics eCommerce Software Review Campaign 97

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Do that – nothing else but one product / company / focus and get to $1M in sales with atleast $15% net profit. what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? do something else.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

Q: “What will be your best channel for customer acquisition?&# We’re testing a viral loop, direct sales, and affiliate marketing.&# If I can steal your idea by just hearing it, there is no defensible business model there. Ask Apple employees if they enjoy not knowing what they’re building.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder NDA Founder Sweat Equity 47

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Some have been as co-founder, most have been as a consultant with the possibility of becoming an paid employee, “as soon as we close our funding round.” While it’s flattering that someone might think I’m capable of immediately grasping all the complexities of the business instantly, it’s a bit unrealistic.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Also, for the full time coder, you may violate your employee contract especially in the area of non-competes or just plain piss off your boss when he finds out how much time you have been putting into a side project when deadlines were looming. Nosake From nothing to losing money every month with no business model in sight.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Reply steveblank , on September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm said: Greg, The Google Group “Lean Startup Circle&# at [link] is a wonderful repository of Customer Development/Lean Startup success and failure. It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

" Saul Klein • Nov 16, 2010 I think the important part of the under-appreciation of the distribution part is the lack of formal structure in business activities and the lack of proper communication arising from it. are just emerging for business people (customer development, business model generation,).

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. turn customer feedback into action. turn customer feedback into sales and relationships. customer feedback, vote, comment, manage. live customer chat. BambooHR -Â Employee Records, Benefit Information, Payroll Data, etc. SaaS Sales Team Compensation â??

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53