David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I’ve recently advised a number of emerging private equity and VC funds who are wrestling with the question: What are the highest impact steps they can take to support their portfolio companies? . Almost every private equity and venture capital investor now advertises that they have a platform to support their portfolio companies.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

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

JANUARY 10, 2011

I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.)

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. Reply steveblank , on July 2, 2009 at 12:22 pm Said: Aamir, The game business is different from the tech business in some obvious and non obvious ways. - Make game, market, sell, profit?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

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

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Last night at the NY Tech Meetup, John Britton of our portfolio company Twilio showed how it is done. Making Money From Social Games - ArcticStartup , August 23, 2010 Games Developer Conference Europe 2010 (GDCE) took place last week in Cologne, Germany. If you do a lot of pitches, spend the six minutes to watch this. 10 cents per DAU.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Enter the Business Model Canvas. With the business model canvas in hand, we can now approach rethinking corporate innovation strategy and structure. Existing companies and their operating divisions implement known business models. Operating divisions execute the known business model.

Business Model 334

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

We have a portfolio of more than 500 brands and 4000 products and people invite us into their lives more 1.8 For most big, established companies like us, our business models were developed years—even decades ago. We’ve built up strength in executing our business model, not creating new ones.

Lean 331

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery. We focus on evidence and trajectory across the business model.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It was also found that “Engaged” customers received 3-4 (or more) reviews of their portfolios and were taking part of on-going conversations where their advisor was soliciting feedback and asking for actual input. Why Are They Referring New Customers Completely Unprompted? Read the full case study here.).

Programming 107

Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

Fixing our business model to fix our budget crisis. That’s why they invest in a portfolio. Solutions are found by betting on a portfolio of low-cost experiments. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Teaching. Doing well by our enrolled students.

Portfolio 329

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 329

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21 st 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.

Customer 427

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 427

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. 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.). Lessons Learned.

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 306

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Shawns guest blog post describing describing the MVP Tree is below. Step 5 and 6 leads you to selecting the right MVPs.).

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves.

Lean 295

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. Edwin: Oh sorry, so the business model. Edwin: The business model is that the organizer has to pay. Do you think that’s a good business model? We kept it simple, the business model.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

Pre-launch customer development data is another way, sometimes in the form of user surveys for consumer companies or interviews with potential beta customers for B2B businesses. One of our portfolio investments, a B2B SaaS company, was a pre-product startup at the time of the seed round. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

Unlike Lean startups, their priority isn't to learn in order to create a scalable business model. This is lean development without any customer development. Creating quick buzz and social proof is not the same a developing long-term customer development, but it pays off.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Lane Merrifield is a co-founder and CEO of FreshGrade , a learning collaboration and portfolio tool focused on enhancing teachers’ lives and making students’ learning visible. No MBA business model would ever come out with, “Hey we’re going to go target the academics.” If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 151

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 151

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Lane Merrifield is a co-founder and CEO of FreshGrade , a learning collaboration and portfolio tool focused on enhancing teachers’ lives and making students’ learning visible. No MBA business model would ever come out with, “Hey we’re going to go target the academics.” If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Hippoland

JUNE 19, 2018

One of our portfolio companies called The Pill Club, for example, sends women birth control right to their doors. For us as a fund, the tricky thing about this category is that the business model is a bit rough / not straightforward. The flip side is that we are now also seeing a number of women go through IVF.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco California Cost Software 48

Hippoland

JUNE 19, 2018

One of our portfolio companies called The Pill Club, for example, sends women birth control right to their doors. For us as a fund, the tricky thing about this category is that the business model is a bit rough / not straightforward. The flip side is that we are now also seeing a number of women go through IVF.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco California Cost Software 48

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

After that company failed, I went on and interviewed a bunch of investors that I had met and also some other CEO’s who had failed companies prior to their successes now and asked them, “Why did these companies fail in your portfolio?” Our business model was Pinterest. Pinterest didn’t exist at the time.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. broken vc model. Business Culture. Business Model Canvas. Business plan. business symbiosis. Customer Development. VC Portfolios. Read post Why Learning should be your top 2013 new year’s resolution  for a full list.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Israel Startup 53