Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

They didn’t always keep their angel investors informed about the changes they were making and it nearly cost them: We followed every test and experimental process from the get-go but we didn’t tell our investors we were doing that. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Tune in Thursday, Oct.

Columbus 249

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 249

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. The reason is that b2b fundraising is largely driven by data and metrics, and pre-seed dollars usually don’t get you to many meaningful data points. The challenge here is that inexperienced founders sometimes get the worst of both worlds.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

1) It all starts from the Growth Hacking Funnel - in the early stages, startups should not just focus on top/bottom line metric like unique users and revenue. Customer Development Labs recently shared a great experiment on using mTurk to interview 100 customers in 4 hours for less than $200. Distribution Hacks.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Some are r esegmenting an existing market– directed at a niche that an incumbent isn’t satisfying (like Dell and Compaq when they were startups) or providing a low cost alternative to an existing supplier (like Southwest Airlines when it first started.)

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs. Vertical markets are a risk and cost reduction strategy. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all startups. What is it that’s unique about the market I’m in? You can bootstrap without VC money.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

You cannot draw a direct line to reducing waste or improving revenues or cutting costs…whereas the cross-functional teams, you can tie it to a performance metric that has a direct result in the corporate objectives. You’ve got your validated learning with the customer development you’ve been doing with your own market segment.

Lean 167

Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder 167

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Convertible debt financings have become an increasingly attractive approach for seed rounds because it delays the valuation discussion, costs less from a legal standpoint, and is an easier financial instrument to “keep raising more small amounts of money” on. No updates, screen comps, or metrics have been publicly shared yet.

Burn Rate 153

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 153

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Innovation and improvement occurs in Horizon 1 on process, procedures, costs, etc. Fast forward to today. In Horizon 2 a company extends its core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

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. shoes in order to deduce possible competitors’ moves and anticipate customer needs. What do you think?

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. Their pitch was unpolished, product vision unclear, they had little understanding of their metrics, and traction didn’t stand out from competitors.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

An early indication that you’ve found the right business model is when you believe the cost of getting customers will be less than the revenues the customers will generate. For web startups, this is when the cost of customer acquisition is less than the lifetime value of that customer. Startup Metrics.

Balance Sheet 307

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 307

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. And we can offer investors metrics to play Moneyball – with the Investment Readiness Level. We think we can do better. Here’s how.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. image source.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

Dave McClure’s conversion metrics visualize where different conversion optimization opportunities lie—including those for acquisition. If you don’t have customers, our articles on customer development and how to write compelling copy without customers can help you get started. Image source ).

Acquisition 111

Acquisition Software Review PPC Analytics 111

ConversionXL

MAY 22, 2014

To guide the discussion, we’re going to be using Dave McClure’s Conversion Metrics as a framework to see where different conversion optimization opportunities lie. For Acquisition, we’re primarily asking how do first time visitors & potential customers find you? It got attention (and probably some clicks) but at what cost?

Software Review 116

Software Review PPC Analytics Search 116

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. Get real costs from suppliers.

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

They didn’t always keep their angel investors informed about the changes they were making and it nearly cost them: We followed every test and experimental process from the get-go but we didn’t tell our investors we were doing that. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. Tune in Thursday, Oct.

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. What I mean by that is startups nowadays that raise money have absolutely ludicrous metrics. And again, that doesn’t have the metrics that a VC wants. Edwin: There are a million others. Does that make sense?

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

(Or depending on your metrics for success, get users, grow traffic, etc.). A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Your job as a founder is to quickly validate whether the model is correct by seeing if customers behave as your model predicts.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. And it shows your company’s cost structures, how each department interacts with the others and where your company can work with other companies or partners to implement your business. Customer Discovery.

Intellectual Property 264

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 264

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. They measure their success on metrics that reflect success in execution, and they reward execution.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The software was sold based on installation cost running on local servers for enterprises—which was very, very expensive. Thanks to a combination of these traits we were able to secure a first round of six-figure VC funding, which gave us a jump-start to start developing our sales and marketing channels.”. Step 8: Track your metrics.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Occam's Razor

APRIL 8, 2013

To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. That metric is tied to a KPI.

Metrics 157

Metrics Analytics Lean Churn Rate 157

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

in developing these new models. We believe that using the customer development process to monetize these assets through new business models can create huge competitive advantage and more speed to market for us and other big companies. Using an alternative process including different systems and metrics is key.

Lean 331

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2010

You win in an existing market when you are better or faster on those metrics that customers have told you are the basis of competition. Your competitive analysis must be around those metrics. 1) costs less (trading fewer features for a lower price) or. Filed under: Customer Development , Market Types , Uncategorized.

Customer Development 265

Customer Development Metrics Differentiation Engineer 265

conversionxl.com

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). Ask Peep about analytics, and he’ll tell you, “Metrics are there to provide actionable insight. You need to look at a metric, ask “so what?” – and have an answer.”. image source.

Analytics 98

Analytics Software Review Conversion Video 98

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. She shares: “We now use metrics like cost-per-learning and validation velocity to show progress since traditional things like ROI weren’t applicable.” Here are some of our favorites: 1.

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

The Startup Toolkit

DECEMBER 12, 2012

And if you focus on those metrics, you will go out of business too soon. Cohort analytics and funnel metric (start with Pirate AARRR Metrics if you are new) are priceless once you have a website live. Customer Development and UX both have good tools for doing this. You have questions. Like these slides?

Lean 54

Lean Startup Metrics Retention 54

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

In that case, metrics and analytics are really important. This problem that you''ve been ignoring for a year, that I know you are totally used to, is costing you X amount of money or X number of users. LK: At that point, it''s all about early user research and customer development. Hey, look, look at the funnel.

Lean 167

Lean Design Mobile Engineer 167

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly. Related articles.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. These metrics make it difficult for a company that wants to invest in long-term innovation. On the low-end, they undercut cost structures, resulting in customer migration.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2013

I think you will see the work of some talented and determined entrepreneurs who have honed their customer discovery and customer development skills to an impressive level. Align and train mentors to embrace customer development. ” Lessons Learned. Team Final Videos and Presentations. Beertending.

Lean 291

Lean Cofounder Dividend Business Model 291

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

. “Growth hackers have a passion for tracking and moving a metric. Without metrics or data, a growth hacker can feel out of place and uncomfortably exposed. This strong bias towards data drives a growth hacker away from vanity metrics towards metrics that will make or break the business.” ” Creativity.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

ConversionXL

JUNE 19, 2014

As a follow up to our data driven traffic acquisition article , we’re going to be looking at the roles emotion & data play in “activating” customers and using Dave McClure’s Conversion Metrics as a guide to the larger conversation. How much does it cost? 3 Step Approach To Emotional Design. The Big Book of Font Combinations.

Greece 107

Greece Customer eCommerce Design 107