Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. Now, 4 years after I arrived at BerkeleyHaas, we don’t teach business plan writing in any of our entrepreneurship classes or in any of our dozens of programs and competitions. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

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

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission? In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue?

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

By 1923, 2/3rds of the courses at Harvard were taught with the case method, and the pattern was set for business education for the rest of the 20th century. Entrepreneurship Becomes a Subject in Business Schools. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering).

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 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

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2020

We’re holding a series of 5-day online classes at Stanford where teams will learn how to develop new business models for an economy that’s getting back to work and on the road to recovery. The Covid-19 virus has upended traditional ways of doing business, travel, education, entertainment, healthcare, etc.

Lean 436

Lean Business Model Affiliate Incubator 436

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). ZenDesk, Box) or performance-based (e.g.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

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

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

To be honest I built the class out of frustration watching schools teach aspiring entrepreneurs that all they need to know is how to write a business plan or how to sit in an incubator building a product. using the business model canvas as the framework. in order to validate/invalidate their business model hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. startups ignore the rest of the world until they scale in their own country. They intended to get scale for their business by growing in the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. He got my attention when he said, “following your customer development stuff is making my company fail.” Then I asked, “Satish, what’s your business model?

Customer 330

Customer Business Model Customer Development Startup 330

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. The tools and techniques available to small businesses on Main Street are the same ones that were being used for the last 75 years. Serendipity.

Silicon Valley 313

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 313

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The class teaches the three basic skills all entrepreneurs need to know: business model design. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. agile engineering. The Entreprenuers Checklist.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. data that investors, accelerators and incubators can use to inform selection.

Sacramento 314

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 314

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

A place to start would be by recognizing the fundamental difference between an existing company and a startup: existing companies execute business models, while startups search for a business model. (Or Therefore the very foundations of teaching entrepreneurship should start with how to search for a business model.

Agile 256

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 256

Steve Blank

APRIL 3, 2012

We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. I didn’t change a few business model components, I changed all of them.”. I just saw our entire new business model in a flash, all of it at once.

Flash 320

Flash Customer Development Business Model Developer 320

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A business plan has a set of assumptions (who’s the customer, what’s the price, what’s the channel, what are the product features that matter, etc.) that make up a business model. Yet by first customer ship most of the business model hasn’t been validated or tested. Pivots Versus Crises.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 252

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. But businesses are finding that Continuous Deployment not only changes engineering but has ripple effects on the rest of its business model. Lessons Learned.

Continuous Deployment 332

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 332

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

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, 2009

In the Fall of 2008, the credit crisis wiped out mergers and acquisitions as a path to liquidity as M&A collapsed with the rest of the market. 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. So what’s left?

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 236

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

I listened as he told me the rest of the story. “I I thought our new Sales VP would be out in front helping us lead Customer Validation and help us find the Pivot. Even when we went out to dinner before we hired him he said, he said he read the Four Steps and couldn’t wait to try this Customer Development stuff.”. “So

Startup 319

Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 319

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

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.). In contrast, startups search for a business model. (Or Their objective is to get users, orders, customers, etc.

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model. We trying to teach students a methodology that combines customer development, agile development, business models and pivots. Yet this isn’t an incubator.

Lean 263

Lean Business Model Agile United States 263

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2012

In a university, the Lean LaunchPad class teaches a methodology the students can use for the rest of their careers. In an incubator, the Lean LaunchPad develops angel or venture-funded startups. 2) Get the teams out of the building to test their hypotheses with prospective customers. Methodology. Lessons Learned.

Lean 260

Lean Incubator Business Model Georgia 260

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 14, 2012

The class was designed to teach educators (and the entrepreneurs that support them) the Lean LaunchPad approach (Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) for teaching entrepreneurship. Instead, we should first focus on searching for the best business model and validating our assumptions.

Developer 308

Developer Arizona Lean Business Model 308

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Don’t share the details of your manufacturing process with customers until you’ve locked up your intellectual property.” Government Regulations I turned to the class and said, “The rest of you can keep building your company and shipping your product because you don’t need to worry about government regulations. Order Here.

Vertical 158

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 158

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

If you can just be friendly enough and get your users to party with you, the rest is really easy. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. " In fact, 3 of the 10 selected companies from the past two years has followed this business model. Now, thanks to social media, you don't have to outspend.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

In general, successful startups do three major things: They understand who their customers are, what they want and clearly define the product or service Unique Selling Point(USP). However, the key difference between a successful and unsuccessful startup rests on the shoulders of the entrepreneur themselves. By customer development.

Startup 114

Startup Acquisition Business Model Finance 114

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

I remind my students that I’m teaching them a methodology they can use the rest of their careers, not running an incubator. The question was: Could we get these companies to pivot and learn when they already thought they had an existing business model?). What Do You Mean You Only Spoke to 1 Customer?

North America 120

North America Lean Customer Development Distribution 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. That means in their core business, large companies have a series of knowns. Often failure is the norm not the exception.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Wait a minute, what about the rest of Customer Development ? Aren’t you going to validate your hypotheses by first getting some customers?”. Now I was confused, and I asked, “Well what do you guys believe – Customer Development or launch on a schedule?” Filed under: Ardent , Customer Development.

Customer Development 316

Customer Development Singapore Channel PR 316

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. So I met the entrepreneur and asked him how his search for a business model was going. Great, but we’re having a bit of a problem getting traction.” Hmm, I asked, “Can you go back to the beginning and tell me about your Customer Discovery process?

Founder 229

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 229

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) But what NYU did with the rest of their grant dollars was simply brilliant. Make it Better.

Lean 277

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 277