Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

In it Shackleton defined courage and leadership. 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. This would be one of the most heroic journeys of exploration ever undertaken.

Silicon Valley 239

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

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

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. business models. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military. They are the signs of a leadership frightened not by external enemies but by their own people. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

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

OCTOBER 15, 2019

They’ll use government regulation and lawsuits to keep out new entrants with more innovative business models. This typically plays out in three ways: Often the first plan from leadership for innovation is hiring management consultants who bring out their 20th-century playbook.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

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. By now the company may have found and settled on a repeatable business model.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

They were trying to keep up with providing the core services necessary to run the current business and at the same time deal with a flood of well-meaning but uncoordinated ideas about new features, technologies and innovations coming at them from all directions. Most have concluded that “business as usual” can’t go on.

Incubator 319

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 319

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Market segments drive your business model.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. business models. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military. They are the signs of a leadership frightened not by external enemies but by their own people. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

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

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

My answer to that was to be part of the team whose whole is better that its individual parts as its mentioned in the article, a team leadership rather that a point leadership. However, they insisted on using a platform that totally contradicted their business model. How can I remain effective. Very good and informative.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

The dysfunctional family theory may explain why founders who excel in the chaotic early phases of a company throw organizational hand grenades into their own companies after they find a repeatable and scaleable business model and need to switch gears into execution. Let me know what you think. Comments and brickbats welcomed.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Ps: my limited perspective comes with self recognition of a lack of hands on experience always enjoy it when I stop in to read here Steve Reply Aamir , on July 2, 2009 at 10:18 am Said: Awesome post Steve… but isn’t drawing the business model for a gaming company going to be easy? Make game, market, sell, profit?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

“vertical&# works perfectly fine in quickly telling you about a general direction of a company’s business model. What is it that’s unique about the market I’m in? We’ll talk about the implications of what vertical market you’re entering in the next few posts. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

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

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Rob Adams, the director of MootCorp, is doing an amazing job at providing value to all participants, whether it’s feedback on their business model or making the right introductions. MootCorp in particular has an impressive track record of putting early stage tech companies on the right path towards funding.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

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. Hype before shipping any product is an obvious flaw, but what about hyping products that have shipped but have zero business model?

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

The good news is this team found a business model, product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. What lies ahead, however, is a different set of challenges: finding the new set of mainstream customers on the other side of the chasm and managing the sales growth curve. Planning is another key distinction.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Rather, they did these things because a) SAS software really was doing a terrific job, and b) getting the word out to their peers helped the customer champions build social capital. Your customers make better salespeople than you do, precisely because they don’t have any (obvious) skin in the game. Close the sale.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

So the firm unleashed those two assets: a brilliant internal expert, along with those passionate customers, to take a position of thought leadership in its space. The firm started putting on live seminars around the world, attended by many of those passionate customers, and unleashed Yoshida with his own blog.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Even if they become part of the founding team, it’s not a given that the founder, having come up with the idea has a “guaranteed” leadership role (CEO or VP) in the new company. It’s the courage, passion and tenacity of the founding team that turn ideas into businesses. Customer Development Family/Career/Culture'

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2014

Innovation Leadership – How to develop innovative teams and culture. We built on this theme teaching the students opportunity finding, concept development, stakeholder mapping, systems dynamics, research, and business models perspective, culminating with a capstone workshop where they bring it all together.

Government 310

Government Philadelphia Lean Customer Development 310

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Fixing the Missing Pieces of Infrastructure.

Silicon Valley 320

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Angel Investor 320

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2018

We describe their efforts as “heroic” because all the established procedures and processes in a large company are primarily designed to execute and support the current business model. Some examples of innovation tools are Customer Development, Design Thinking, User-Centric Design, Business Model Canvas, Storytelling, etc.

Programming 326

Programming Incubator Leadership Silicon Valley 326

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

If our school is to retain its current standards in terms of access and excellence we think it is of paramount importance that we develop an overarching campus strategy that enables and supports online innovation. We believe our Departments play an essential leadership role in the design and implementation of online offerings.

Portfolio 329

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 329

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process.

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 236

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

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

So we dedicate the beginning of each of our week to our leadership team meetings and then an “all hands” meeting. Filed under: Customer Development. Here’s how he makes sure the Tachyus team works well together: Companies really thrive on rhythms in the same way that people, or families, or relationships do.

Cofounder 283

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 283

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

So we dedicate the beginning of each of our week to our leadership team meetings and then an “all hands” meeting. Filed under: Customer Development. Here’s how he makes sure the Tachyus team works well together: Companies really thrive on rhythms in the same way that people, or families, or relationships do.

Cofounder 283

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 283

Steve Blank

APRIL 26, 2010

It was an all day event devoted to the theory and practice of Lean Startups and Customer Development. It wasn’t until Eric Ries sat in my class and had the insight – that to actually implement Customer Development engineers needed to couple it with an agile methodology – that the theory turned into practice.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean Startup 151

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

In addition, they’ve created an entirely new $85+ billion subscription business model; the App Store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV. launched a product in 1990 called PhotoCD.

Search 302

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 302

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

” As the managing editor of Bplans, I’ve had the good fortune to learn about business via the content we share; through interviews with LivePlan customers and other business owners; and thanks to brilliant, informal coaching from people like Tim Berry, Noah Parsons, and the rest of the executive leadership team at Palo Alto Software.

Curation 60

Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016

— Alice and her team made it point to not just get customer insights but to understand all aspects of their business model. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 272

Cofounder Entrepreneur Hawaii Massachusetts 272

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Cray called two years ago and bought it back for parts for an unnamed customer still running one. Was Ardent’s business model flawed from the start for being so short on potential customers with deep pockets? I liked to fail fast, move on, and not [.] [.] Was it your error or cruel fate?

Silicon Valley 214

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 214