Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Filed under: Customer Development.

San Jose 261

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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.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. At the time this was a pretty controversial decision. These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types. Years later he would become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital.)

Engineer 224

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. In a startup it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right 100% of the time. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 309

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about Customer Development and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. You can get away with effective behavior in a large company.

Silicon Valley 332

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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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. See part one for the first time it happened.

Silicon Valley 261

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

I was hired as a training instructor to teach microprocessor system design for the existing Z-80 family and to write a new course for Zilog’s soon to be launched 16-bit processor, the Z-8000. So our people in the field could correct any egregious design advice I gave to customers who mattered. How did I miss that?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 206

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. Stop annoying our game designers and start working on selling and marketing the games.” Customer Development says having a vision, faith and a set of hypotheses are a normal part of the startup experience.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. Your results may vary.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. Since there was very little documentation my time was split between the design engineers who built the system and the test and deployment team getting the system ready to go overseas. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S.

Agile 269

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 170

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 237

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. I used to always tell my development team, “you need to design a product that my dad could use.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. He showed me a little Korean hard drive portable music player, not much more than the Compaq reference design it was based off of. It was fun watching it happen. com Michael Robertson.

Video 190

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Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder? The other thing it helps clarify is that even at work, it’s the relationships that matter most (collegues, customers, partners, etc). The Adventure of a Lifetime.

Entrepreneur 295

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.)

Technology 145

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 208

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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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. You’re not joining a big company. Blog at WordPress.com.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 271

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. the “schedule fantasy factor,”) or his eleven rules of supercomputer design but also a real appreciation for how a technical visionary thinks. (I Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. The response from across the country? We’re building a supercomputer.”

North Carolina 133

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 213

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

The quintessential California couple, they stood out in our crowd as the engineer (in his late 20′s, respected by his peers and the customer) had hair down to his shoulders, sharply contrasting with the military crewcuts of the customers and most of the other contractors. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 215

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. When Terman said no, Sylvania, a tube company which built proximity fuse tubes in WWII, won the contract and set up its Electronic Defense Lab (EDL) in Mountain View California in the middle of an orchard.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 201

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

This year, with the kids grown, their choice was to fly up from Southern California and spend the holidays at our ranch. So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. California, where even the rabbits are bigger than life!

Silicon Valley 156

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

These damn models weren’t designed right so we’re fixing them on the line.” Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. I had a queasy feeling that perhaps this wasn’t the way to solve the car quality problem. Let me know what you think. Comments and brickbats welcomed.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

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. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

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. A partner allows me the flexibility to miss a session or two (my job as a California Coastal Commissioner meets three days every month up and down the coast of California.)

Business Model 236

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 236

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 133

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Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

So they systematically designed electronic devices called “jammers&# to shut down each part of the German air defense system. My first business trip to the valley was to visit California Microwave. Chaff used 3/4′s of all the aluminum foil in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 210

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Finally, since no one would believe a set of benchmarks named after our company, we needed a façade of independence, so we named them after the street the company was headquartered on in Sunnyvale California – they became known as the Potrero Benchmarks. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Next, we needed to focus our messages away from technology and onto what the customers told us they needed – performance solutions for four key publishing applications. Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw. Very much in addition to the text.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 161

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0, If your market is missing, just add it as we go through this discussion. 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. Blog at WordPress.com.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

We talked about some simple design rules and I remember him thanking me for coming, saying we were the only chip company who cared enough to call on him (little did he know.) Long gone from Zilog I saw the picture of the original Macintosh design team. I thought nothing about the meeting until years later.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I had no idea what I wanted to do next, and would get paid to think about it?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Facts are the rock on which you build your strategy and tactics In a startup second-hand facts are almost as useless as opinions. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 150

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