Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention.

Vertical 165

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 165

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.

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 213

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. They taped people using existing products. Back then it seemed foreign. But they went one step further.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Convergent Technologies was one of those OEM suppliers.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization. But there’s nothing like in-person interaction to find out what your startup/product/messaging REALLY should be.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 144

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

New York, California different toilet, same s#@t. Today, brands are hiring social media specialists for customer support, crowdsourced product development, promotions and even leads generation. To that point, I’d been talking about Lean Startup concepts only on a seldom-read blog and with people in my immediate network.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. If you’re text averse like i am, try to diagram these key items and then write-up the diagrams.

Business Plan 158

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 158

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Use of a Product Development Model to Measure Sales Using the product development diagram for startup sales activities is like using a clock to tell the temperature.

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Product Startup RSS 271

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, Im expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations. Truth be told, we've got defense contractors here just like California does too. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. There are and we do.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And here’s where life gets really interesting, as the reality of product development and customer input collide, the facts change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

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.

Customer Development 255

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 6, 2012

Four months ago, T he Lean Startup debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. On Monday, I’m taking The Lean Startup across the pond to the UK to launch the first international edition. The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that's being adopted around the world. Now is the time to think Lean.

Ireland 157

Ireland North America Lean Taiwan 157

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

It ended with a large layoff and a transfer of jobs from NY to California and Bangalore. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 83

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Market Type also affects the market size as well as how you launch the product into the market.

Customer Development 221

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 221

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

Redemption 132

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 132

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

North Carolina 163

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 163

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Execution by Vertical Market As the class progressed, students asked how the activities/functions of a startup; (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Product Development, etc.) How does product development differ in communications hardware versus enterprise software, etc. Waterfall, Agile, Lean?

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. I call this process “Customer Development,” a sibling to “Product Development,” and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 134

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

October 2012 – Erin Turner and Gagan Biyani host the first Growth Hackers Conference in Menlo Park, California. And you need to understand the potential impact of product-economic fit so that you can be better prepared for it.”. Growth hacking is done best when it begins at the start of product development.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

It is interesting to note that some advocates of lean management and accounting (including Waddell and Bodek in *The Rebirth of American Industry*) have a strong dislike of Sloan/Brown management cost accounting.

Silicon Valley 182

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 182

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Later on in this same company’s life, sales will become the pointy end and product development moves to a supporting role. Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 132

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Silicon Valley’s development is intimately entwined with the long history of industrialization and innovation in the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Mapl.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Steve Blank’s Lean Startup Resources. Lean Startup Circle â?? Great for visualizing work of product development. Lean project management. agile product management. Lean Startup Machine.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Israel Startup 53

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I lived through the time when working in my first job in Ann Arbor Michigan we had to get out a map to find out that San Jose was not only in Puerto Rico but there was a city with that same name in California. The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle.

Restful 247

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 247

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

AgileZen – project management visually see and interact with your work Kanbanery – Simple online team or personal kanban board LeanKit Kanban – Great for visualizing work of product development Kanban Pad – “Nice and lean” and free online Kanban tool Banana Scrum – A tool simple as Scrum itself.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110