ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. As usual, then, I worked with three entrepreneurs working on specific businesses.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

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. Her packaging class was so good that we sent every new marketer at SuperMac to take it.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

He was introduced through mutual friends to Highland Capital. At the time consumer internet venture capital was still suffering from the collapse of the Tech Bubble. But it was an attractive time to enter because the successful internet companies were scaling and in need of capital. Tell us more about MetaCafe? (37:00-40:30).

Vertical 265

Vertical Curation Boston Burn Rate 265

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

For startup founders, it’s never too early to start thinking about putting together a target market advisory board. The target market advisory board should consist of 2–4 industry veterans who have connections to C-level execs and VPs in your target market. In other cases, they may come from your channel partners or elsewhere.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,) ———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. .

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

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 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. Over the years marketers have found that using numbers to compare yourself to other products works well. Now as VP of Marketing, I could have sat back and let my PR agency handle the press.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

This is the first way to get video into a computer, we’re going to sell and market this board like there’s no tomorrow. That’s every marketeers excuse for putting their kids in an ad.) Marketing knew who the Spigot customers were; we had all the registration cards and all the data. But you probably never heard of ReelTime.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

The product development model treats all startups like they are in an Existing Market – an established market with known customers. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter? Other companies in the 1999 PDA market were Palm, the original innovator, as well Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. No building, no money, no customers, no market? These customer and market risks need to be translated into facts as soon as possible. At each startup I couldn’t wait to do this.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 237

Cracking the Code

DECEMBER 2, 2006

If you would ask me what part of the market is most underserved by technology companies today, Id tell you its small and medium sized business. Labels: sales and marketing , Small and medium businesses , software. sales and marketing. (10). Venture Capital. (3). Bessemer Venture Partners Expands BVP VII Fund.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Europe Software 48

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . In liquid markets, most of the calories expended on technology and analytics are focused on trade selection, or “ origination ”. 2) Market .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Ironically, the model is a good fit when launching a new product into an existing , well-defined market where the basis of competition is understood, and its customers are known. We had no clue what our market was when we first started. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure.

Silicon Valley 272

Silicon Valley Product Startup RSS 272

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.” An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Rule 4 : You may want to think twice positioning as a New Market.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 210

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.)

Lean 264

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 264

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

I guess it may be impractical for Twitter to acquire Seesmic given it has raised considerable amounts of venture capital (reportedly $12 million) but the broader point for me is that I always believed Twitter should control the client versions of its product. Think about the creative tension. This should be as public as possible.

Acquisition 287

Acquisition Developer Management Advertising 287

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Most startups lack a process for discovering their markets, locating their first customers, validating their assumptions, and growing their business. Market Type Integral to the Customer Development model is the notion that Market Type choices affect the way the company will deploy its sales, marketing and financial resources.

Customer Development 256

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 256

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners. Unfortunately, the market was going to remind us that games are about game play. What’s your take on it?

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 159

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. As Peter began to speak extemporaneously our mouths slowly fell open as he described the video game market, its size, its demographics, the state of the technology, and the state of games.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

While I was waiting in the lobby to pick up my offer letter, the head of marketing communications (who was to be one of my direct reports) came up to me as I held my just signed employment agreement. OK, let’s start with the basics, who does marketing think our customers are?” The obvious one’s were who were they?

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Texas has produced world-changing startups in the past such as Dell Software , National Instruments and Whole Foods Market but all of those were founded more than 30 years ago. Some businesses can service all four cities with a single distribution hub in one of the cities, making it a unique market for launching new businesses.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. as one attempt to clearly define how exactly the company is creating value in the market. to compete. I was simply confused about what a plan was for.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

BeyondVC

JULY 19, 2005

Robert Scoble has asked the VCs to respond to an eWeek article titled Is.Net Failing to Draw Venture Capital Loyalty? There is not much for me to add to this article as we all know that the only loyalty VCs have is to their Limited Partners to generate long-term capital gains.

.Net 60

.Net Java Limited Partner Venture Capital 60

Haystack

MAY 9, 2019

2/ Capital Efficiency And Returns: While the companies aren’t exactly similar (slightly different models and product mixes), it is worthwhile to note that Dollar Shave raised about $170M, whereas Harry’s is believed to have raised somewhere between $350M-$400M in venture capital. razor market. razor market.

Acquisition 121

Acquisition Liquidity Event Venture Capital Vertical 121

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

And since there was no Venture Capital in the 1950′s/’60′s where was the money coming from? In contrast, spark gaps are broad-band radio “noise&# sources – the idea of discrete radio channels was impossible spark gaps because of this. I’ll stop channeling James Burke now. to do that.

Silicon Valley 303

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 303

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a smart VP of Marketing who was getting early feedback from customers and screaming that the games didn’t match the hype. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to listen to customers.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

In founding TripAdvisor, Kaufer wanted to take his hard core engineering skills and apply them to vertical search in travel. Fortunately, on the side, the company had built up TripAdvisor.com as a demo site to show the prospective clients what a vertical search engine could do. billion market capitalization as of this writing. .

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

The company was founded to build games with embedded video to bring Hollywood stories, characters, and narratives to a market where “shoot and die” twitch games were in vogue. So I hired a VP of Marketing from Sega, one of the video game platforms on which our games would run. They think the games stink.” They think we’re brilliant.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

And they have channeled all this into whatever activity they could find outside of their home – sports, business, or …entrepreneurship. But a small percentage, whose brain chemistry and wiring is set for resilience, come out of this with a compulsive, relentless and tenacious drive to succeed.

Founder 313

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 313

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

At some point in my career as I began to formulate thoughts about mission and intent , I started to think about the broader role of marketing in a growing technology company. It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. But sales came first. (By

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 133

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

What Markets? My job was to figure out what markets Ardent should target, who were the key customers in these markets and what applications these customers had to have. The one thing I did know is that we were probably going to be running some of the same applications as the market leader Cray.

Silicon Valley 172

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 172

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

janryan (@janryan) | Twitter Kerry Rupp Kerry is a Capital Factory Mentor and founding partner of True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in women-led companies in the sustainable consumer and consumer health verticals.

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Lessons to Learn By the time I joined Ardent I thought I was an experienced marketer, but I’ll never forget my first real lesson in what it meant to understand customers and product/market fit. I thought I was bright, aggressive and could do no wrong as a marketer. Read the previous Ardent post for context.)

Silicon Valley 287

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 287

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2022

An AI leverages deep natural language processing, text analysis, and computational linguistics to gain insight into customer opinion, understanding of consumer sentiment , and measuring the impact of marketing strategies. Examples: Brand24 , MonkeyLearn. What Does this Mean for Businesses? Hang on to your seat. AI in National Security.

Artificial Inteligence 425

Artificial Inteligence Software Review Algorithm Technical Review 425

David Teten

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

However, Israeli companies historically did not focus on marketing to their immediate neighbors. Pre-seed startups (all vertical) are welcome to register to world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, the Founder Institute Final Admissions Deadline: October 04. Our ventures, in turn, have raised over $2 million in external funding.”.

UAE 60

UAE United Arab Emirates Technology 60