A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

You repeat these mantras at Lean Startup Meetings but you're not doing it.? Repeat after me: You are not your customer." — Eric Ries , Lean Startup leader (repeating a conversation with a startup founder). Leave a comment and continue the conversation. I say "find ten people who say they'll buy." We think differently.

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Software Review Part-Time VPE Cofounder Houston 312

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2013

It should be a fun evening with lots of interesting conversation. What's Going to Go Wrong A lot of founders don't really understand Lean Startup principles. They look at the following high level definition of Lean: and they interpret that as write up an executive summary with your ideas and hand it to developers to build.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Development Software Developers 219

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

“We’ve been reading your blog about your Lean Launchpad class.” No, the conversation was about to get more interesting. We want to make a bet that your Lean Launchpad class can apply the scientific method to market-opportunity identification. Unlike other incubators, our Lean LaunchPad Class had a specific curriculum.

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Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

YoungUpstarts

MAY 9, 2017

Lean is a methodology that can be applied to all disciplines of knowledge work to increase business efficiency, agility, and visibility. Due to its roots in manufacturing, Lean is often equated with the elimination of waste, but this view of Lean misses the mark on realizing its true value. Lean Transformations.

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Lean Agile Technical Review Dilution 124

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2020

I’ve long been an advocate of using Lean Startup principles to advance non-profits and philanthropic organizations, whose work is so urgently needed at this moment in history. In this blog post, I want to share the story of a lean pop-up organization called HelpKitchen. SF New Deal and Frontline Foods were early leaders.

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Lean San Francisco Technical Review Software Review 128

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2021

To help a large Defense organization wrestle with how to increase the velocity of innovation in their ranks Steve Blank and I spent the better part of last week with our heads together reviewing everything we learned in the five years since we merged the concepts of problem curation and Lean while launching the innovation pipeline.

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Curation Technical Review Lean Australia 353

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

LEAN STARTUP MOVEMENT. ” is Eric Ries who wrote the must own, “ The Lean Startup ” *. Admitting that you will have limited resources and strong competition both in today’s market and in the markets you want to enter is the right start of the conversation.

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Technical Review Startup Business Model Non-Compete 401

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

She started by sketching her business model canvas on a napkin, but somehow the conversation quickly shifted to what was really on her mind. I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup.

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Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 30, 2019

But, there’s plenty that you can do… if you embrace lean marketing principles. Lean marketing is a philosophy that emphasizes executing campaigns quickly, getting feedback from your audience, analyzing the results, and optimizing the campaign – all in rapid succession. National television campaigns are definitely out.

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Lean Small Business Software Review Marketing 91

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Will Price , October 11, 2010 Georgians Should Vote No - Force of Good: a blog by Lance Weatherby , October 28, 2010 Free Software for Managing a Lean Startup - Platforms and Networks , January 17, 2010 Purpose Driven Life - Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur , July 26, 2010 Two Decade-Defining Acquisitions?

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Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

And the trick is we use the same Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum — and kept the same class structure – experiential, hands-on, driven this time by a mission -model not a business model. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. Goals for the Hacking for Defense Class.

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Oakland Asia Lean Video 315

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2014

I’ve been spending some time with large companies that are interested in using Lean methods. Two methods, Design Thinking and Customer Development (the core of the Lean Startup) provide the tactical day-to-day process of how to turn ideas into products. .

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Customer Development Design Developer Customer 335

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2018

As we put the final touches on Lean Startup Conference 2018 , I wanted to take a moment to share more about some of the panels, workshops, and events. Having hundreds of Lean Startup practitioners in the same place is also an ideal time to draw on that other critical resource--the knowledge and experiences of peers.

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Lean Las Vegas Cofounder Startup 103

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 13, 2011

Modern Lean Startup theory blares out from the red-tiled rooftops of Stanford: Seek the Data and Ye Shall Find! But this is all superficial — what Really Matters is the Conversion Rate : are more or fewer people signing up each week: Hmm. I was embarrassed when referring you guys to friends.&#. But hold on. First the bounce-rate.

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Design Lean Cofounder Database 253

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

It’s a conversation that creeps up from time-to-time. If you have good experience then the VC will be leaning forward for the rest of the presentation. They might want you to start lean. And they’re easy to remember because they all begin with an M: management, market, money and above all else momentum.

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Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

In this clip we discuss why Nanea is a proponent of a lean startup and data driven development methodology. I would of course welcome your feedback in the comments on the blog to add to this conversation or to disagree with any conclusions we may have had. Qualitative data – user interviews, focus groups.

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Technical Review Leadership Engineer RSS 315

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

This post is admittedly the outcome of a conversation with a few people over some beers. The conversation centered around a founder who's key question is "Where Do I Find a Developer for My Startup? They will be thinking at that point - "How can I gracefully exit this conversation with my limited social skills?"

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Fractional CTO Southern California Startup Mobile 349

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 28, 2014

Post by Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries, co-hosts for The Lean Startup Conference At this year’s Lean Startup Conference , we seek to answer the difficult questions you face as an entrepreneur. To see these speakers and a slew of other entrepreneurs with incredible lesson to share, register today for The Lean Startup Conference.

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Part-Time VPE Sales Lean Cofounder 160

YoungUpstarts

JULY 27, 2011

I’ve done everything from designing our website in Photoshop to coding our conversion funnels in html/css. For a long time, my job on a day-to-day basis was really just whatever resources we were lacking on that day. Some days I was the sales force and others I was the customer support team.

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Software Review New York City Cofounder Technical Review 241

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2019

He’ll be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference , and also has a new book (for which I very happily wrote a short foreword) coming out next month: Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It.

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Lean Venture Capital Conversion IPO 108

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 15, 2021

This topic leans primarily into the direction of conversion optimization that becomes increasingly important with the competition in the virtual environment. If you want to go one step further, your virtual assistants can deliberately harvest data necessary for your conversion teams. Daily conversion rate.

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Sales Startup Social Media Technical Review 185

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

This post is admittedly the outcome of a conversation with a few people over some beers. The conversation centered around a founder who's key question is "Where Do I Find a Developer for My Startup? They will be thinking at that point - "How can I gracefully exit this conversation with my limited social skills?"

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Fractional CTO Southern California Startup Mobile 296

ReadWriteStart

JULY 16, 2021

You may need to have several meetings or conversations with an individual to discover your shared foundation of interest and opportunity. During your initial conversations with people, really focus on them. Face them directly to avoid being distracted by the activity around you and lean toward them slightly. Focus on Connecting.

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Conversion Networking Technical Review Global 190

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 31, 2021

But I also wanted to suggest there’s a coming Gen 4 of SaaS leaning heavily into EQ instead of IQ because I truly believe the Future of Work involves understanding emotions not just data. They had plenty of communication utilities which made conversations virtual but they didn’t have modern tools built with EQ in mind.

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Software Vertical Framework Finance 147

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

This is why many VCs are waiting and letting deals mature a bit before leaning into rounds. was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. If you want to download the full deck it is here. Why Has Seed Investing Declined?

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Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

View from Seed

MARCH 11, 2020

Conversely the VC is able to benchmark the maturity of your data and analytics function against other similarly staged companies as well. Having conversations with your existing investors. These are people who would vouch for you, but you only want to lean on for a small handful of high priority investors.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Seed Stage 279

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2013

While the Lean LaunchPad class has been adopted by Universities and the National Science Foundation , the question we get is, “Can students in K-12 handle an experiential entrepreneurship class?” They both attended our latest Lean LaunchPad Educators Class. Summary for the Lean LaunchPad in K-12 Education.

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Lean SCRUM Ohio Cleveland 312

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Join Jerry Engel , Pete Newell , and Steve Weinstein for the sixth edition of the Lean Innovation Educators Summit December 14, 1-4 pm Eastern Time, 10 am-1 pm Pacific Time. During the breakout sessions, you will have the opportunity to contribute to the conversation via Chat, Q&A, and an online community bulletin board.

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Lean Cofounder Community Business Model 369

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016

Guest post by Jennifer Maerz, contributing editor of Lean Startup Co. The Lean Startup team has been hard at work finalizing the details of this year’s Lean Startup Week. Welcome to Lean Startup Week 2016 TL;DR: Before you dive into the details, here’s a quick look at what you can expect during your week with us: On Oct.

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Lean Programming San Francisco Startup 60

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

The conversation also touches on the risks AI poses in cybersecurity and the necessity of implementing two-factor authentication and VPNs. If a marketing firm said that to me and leaned into MySpace as a security vendor, I'd be impressed. Hey, this conversation has been going for 45 seconds. And it would mean something to me.

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Software Review Security Distribution IP 80

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Very few people turn up with a strong sense of “what we should be doing” or ready to lean into a productive conversation The financials were prepared by the VP of Finance / CFO. In town board members also only scan it because they, too, have morning meetings before the board meeting starts.

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Stock Options Metrics Stock Valuation 226

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

But my conversations in the private corridors on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley is that many fund sizes will be smaller going forward. Staying “lean&# is not an option. Some funds like Battery Ventures have bucked the trend by raising $750 million. Others will, too.

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LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

These days, many agencies start as a lean operation. Inversely, if you’re using the agency model to fund another startup or product, you should probably keep things lean. My agency wouldn’t have expanded beyond digital PR if it weren’t for early client conversations. Why—or why not—pivot your agency service offering?

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PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Up and Running

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Think about it — your customers will likely showcase your products to their friends and family, and your brand name will come up in conversations and recommendations. Use organic traffic for higher ROI and conversions — Hailey Friedman, GrowthBar. Increasing eCommerce conversion is an iterative process.

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eCommerce Sales Software Review Canada 152

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 2, 2014

Conversely, others would relish the opportunity to earn a living from home. The best way to set up a telecommuting program is to lean in to it before fully deploying it. Some people actually enjoy coming in to the office and like to create a clear distinction between their home and work life. How do you pick?

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Technical Review IP Employee Lean 178

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2017

I want people to use my book as a way to start conversations about the critical roles of innovation and sustainable growth everywhere from startups to large corporations to public policy. Conversations at cocktail parties or over the dinner table are welcome, as, of course, is social media. Share the book socially.

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Software Review Startup United States Framework 129

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2018

Five years ago we brought evidence-based entrepreneurship to Life Sciences – teaching the first Lean Lean Launchpad class at UCSF, then the NIH and Imperial College. I sat down with Arvind Gupta , Founder and Managing Director of IndieBio and talked about how Lean methods apply to Life Sciences.

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Lean San Francisco Programming Video 252