SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

Business Concept The key first part of the conversation with a developer is having a good capture of the business more broadly. The business canvas model is a good short list. You might also have a business plan, marketing plan, financials, competitor analysis or other kinds of background document.

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. And you’ll learn about how to build a minimal viable product to get feedback early and often from customers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2011

Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Market Types. .&# Turns out his birthday is in a week, September 7th. Happy birthday Max.

Software Review 300

Software Review Early Stage Technical Review Startup 300

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model.

Business Model 285

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 285

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. We were positing that 20 years of teaching “how to write a business plan” might be obsolete. Would we signs of success early?

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools. To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

In both cases, the answer was that the founder would go to find other ideas, turn those into paper descriptions and validate it with customers. Customer Validation 101. The Fallacy of Customer Development Hubris Versus Humility: The $15 billion Difference Less is More, More or Less Yes, but who said they’d actually BUY the damn thing?

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley Haas Business School is a leader in entrepreneurship education. It has replaced how to write a business plan with hands-on Lean Startup methods. The final deliverable for that class was a 30-page business plan. We had multiple business plan competitions. The Business Plan is Dead.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses. Lessons Learned.

Intellectual Property 290

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

The traditional model of how to turn scientific discovery into a business has been: 1) make a substantive discovery, 2) write a business plan/grant application, 3) raise funding, 4) execute the plan, 5) reap the financial reward. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Life Sciences National Science Foundation'

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital. The number of serial entrepreneurs is very low and until recently most of the talented sales and marketing professionals choose to work for Nokia.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Here’s the course announcement from Professor Vergara (in English): Customer Development Course in Chile – Lean Launchpad. The objective of this course is that groups of students finish with a completed software product that has real customers and an identified market.

Chile 241

Chile Silicon Valley Lean Agile 241

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

The class is designed for students who said they want a hands-on experience in what it takes to build a startup – not just writing a business plan or listening to lectures. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

Lean 286

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 286

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching. . —-. Part 2 – challenges and lessons learned – to follow.

Programming 301

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 301

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) It gets really tough when these projects are launched and have to fight for survival against current corporate business models.

Programming 273

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 273

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching. . —-. Part 2 – challenges and lessons learned – to follow.

Programming 293

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 293

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

- SoCal CTO , January 13, 2010 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 9 Reasons Why Many Smart People Go Nowhere - Life Beyond Code , March 29, 2010 No Accounting For Startups - Steve Blank , February 22, 2010 Startup Advice In Exactly Three Words - #StartupTriplets - OnStartups , January (..)

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2012

When Bob Dorf and I wrote the Startup Owners Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. for A Repeatable and Scalable Business Model. Pair Customer Development with Agile Development. Failure is an Integral Part of the Search for the Business Model. Not All Startups Are Alike.

Customer Development 331

Customer Development Developer Customer Cofounder 331

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. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Good stuff too.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Given the stock market was buying “the story and vision” of anything internet, inflated expectations were more important than traditional metrics like customers, growth, revenue, or heaven forbid, profits. Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Pivots and Iterations.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 10, 2014

We didn’t know it at the time, but with that investment we had paid for front-row VIP seats to witness the origins of Customer Development and the Lean Startup. Our initial business plan started with an incorrectly identified buyer, value propositions that were wrong, and guesses everywhere else.

Maryland 280

Maryland Lean DC Virginia 280

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. She posted her notes from the talk here.)

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 278

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

And while startups and entrepreneurship courses are now being added to the curriculum, “How to write a business plan” seems to be the state of the art. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The biggest lesson for the students this week was the entire reason for the class – no business plan survives first contact with customers – as customers don’t behave as per theory. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Customer 241

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 241

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Klout Puts Metrics Into Social Media Management - Tim Berry's Blog - Planning Startups Stories , May 21, 2010 I really like klout.com for three good reasons: 1.) it’s about measuring online influence and I’m big on metrics as a key element of business planning; 2.)

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 14, 2014

If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development. Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development'

Business Plan 324

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 324

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. This business plan was a static document.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

Most principles of Lean Startup remain true, as described by Steve Blank in The Lean Startup Changes Everything : Business Plans are dead: Startups a series of hypothesis that need to be tested. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. It made more sense than our 60 page business plan predicated on a B-school class and a supernatural ability to predict the future. Lessons Learned.

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

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

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. What plan says that?

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing , SuperMac , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , SuperMac « Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions Gravity Will be Turned Off » 17 Responses EricS , on May 11, 2009 at 11:05 am Said: I loved my Spigot. It was fun watching it happen.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

It starts with “Plan-As-You-Go” instead of detailed, formal business plans. Lean Planning started with Tim Berry ‘s 2008 “ Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan ” which was a new way for entrepreneurs to think about planning. The business plan should no longer be just a single event.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer – The 5.2 The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175