Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

I wanted to know if marketing was getting any bang-for-the-buck in spending its demand creation dollars. I wanted to understand how customers bought our products. I knew we were selling through a multi-level indirect sales channel. That’s a mouthful to say that our sales people didn’t sell our products directly to a customer.

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever. The Wedding Channel. Shopping.com. Commission Junction.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Learning could be about product features, customer needs, the right pricing and distribution channel, etc.) Rather it is the simplest thing that you can show to customers to get the most learning at that point in time. They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers).

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. Or blame my MarCom department who approved it. But that wasn’t the root cause of the problem.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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

APRIL 2, 2009

press and use it to generate end user demand and then drive that demand into our sales channel. The Potrero benchmark strategy was one component of this creating end user demand through PR.) Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? We were constantly creating metrics [.]

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

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. In 1996 no potential customer had even heard of a Personal Digital Assistant.

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes. The Customer Validation lesson of, “no formal launch until you have early sales validating the product and sales process&# was also born here.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 23, 2015

Knowing your customers is the single biggest driver of startup success, and there’s no substitute for getting out of the building to learn about their problems and needs. Clips from their interviews are below, but first a word about the show: Entrepreneurs are Everywhere airs Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

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. I was simply confused about what a plan was for.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. are what make it a business, 2) business plans are fine for large companies where there is an existing market, existing product and existing customers.

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But other critical hypotheses such as activities, resources, partners, channels needed testing offshore. And their branding and demand creation activities were going to occur primarily outside of Australia. And their branding and demand creation activities were going to occur primarily outside of Australia. Trip 2 to the U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

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

JUNE 3, 2013

The Roominate dollhouse building kits are being sold via their own website and soon, retail channels. They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So So what would the retail channel consultant do?” They learned a ton.

PR 321

PR China Lean Channel 321

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 16, 2012

They access the client’s views using a variety of channels — through the relationship manager, during senior executive visits, using independent surveys, and in client forums (virtual and in-person). They are overly demanding, they check up on your every move, and they basically drive you crazy. They seek feedback at multiple levels.

Management 159

Management Partner Channel Demand 159

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. Each new segment you attempt to serve can increase scope , adding to your workload and demanding more of your limited resources.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

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

JANUARY 25, 2010

As a founder you start out with: 1) a vision of a product with a set of features, 2) a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel. How do we create end user demand? Most of the time the darn customers don’t behave as you predicted.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships. Customer Discovery. None of the students were domain experts in their areas, and each team had to figure out how to contact potential customers and channel partners. Yet every team did figure out how to conduct extensive out of building Customer Discovery. (By

Intellectual Property 264

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 264

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.

Customer 422

Customer Business Model Restful Video 422

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel? How do we create end user demand? If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy. Filed under: Customer Development , Durant versus Sloan.

Balance Sheet 307

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 307

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. Gather all your hypotheses in Customer Discovery. Filed under: Customer Development. Keeping Score.

Customer Development 226

Customer Development Business Model Early Stage Channel 226

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Now they were figuring out how to create demand. The Customer Development process, this relentless drive to turn hypotheses into facts is what makes this learning so rapid. At week six they were trying to figure out their distribution channel ( here ) after another pivot. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

Lean 280

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 280

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Because it isn’t until after first customer ship that a startup discovers that their initial hypotheses were simply wrong (i.e. before you ship.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2011

These diagrams are the visual representation of the how and the what a team learned in the class – how they tested their hypotheses by getting out of the building using the Customer Development process and what they learned about each part of their business model. is just another engineering process, not building a business.

Lean 288

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 288

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. existing enterprises are establishing corporate innovation groups.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

The Roominate dollhouse building kits are being sold via their own website and soon, retail channels. They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So So what would the retail channel consultant do?” They learned a ton.

PR 213

PR China Lean Channel 213

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

In normal times, when there aren’t dollars to undo mistakes, you use Customer Development to find product-market fit. It’s only after you have found product-market fit (value proposition – customer segment in the language of the business model canvas) that you spend like there is no tomorrow. What’s a win for them?

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 335

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. Business plans presume that building a startup is a series of predictable steps requiring execution of a plan which assumes a series of known facts: known customers, known features, known pricing, known distribution channel. experiential.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

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

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process.

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 236

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Some of the conversations went like this: Startup 1 Entrepreneur -“I’m competing against Company x and have been following the Customer Development process and I’ve talked to lots of customers.” Do you know how they create demand? Do you know the archetype of their customers? This is easy to test.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 210

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2011

Week 3 of the class and our teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad class were hard at work using Customer Development to get out of the classroom and test the first key hypotheses of their business model: The Value Proposition. Next week each team test their Customer Segment hypotheses (who are their customers/users/decision makers, etc.)

Cloud 238

Cloud Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 238

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

In normal times, when there aren’t dollars to undo mistakes, you use Customer Development to find product-market fit. It’s only after you have found product-market fit (value proposition – customer segment in the language of the business model canvas) that you spend like there is no tomorrow. What’s a win for them?

Venture Capital 227

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 227