Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Our first class session is definitely not a “meet and greet”. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching' The syllabus is clear that attendance was mandatory for the first class. Commitment is the first step in building a startup team.

Lean 286

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 286

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types. I chose to hire engineers from within each of our target markets and set up “Steve’s one month MBA course for engineers.” At the time this was a pretty controversial decision. We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design.

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Their book “ Business Model Generation ,” is the definitive text on the subject. (And Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Business Model Design Meets Customer Development.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 17, 2010

Well, at least without the usual definition of "sales" — a collection of processes, personalities, and management single-mindedly focussed on hauling in revenue on a quarterly schedule. Are you really going to leave that up to your worst-treated, least-paid, least-qualified employees? Tech support is sales.

Technical Review 245

Technical Review Sales Turkey Software Review 245

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. Thanks Eric, great blog!

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

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. I used to always tell my development team, “you need to design a product that my dad could use.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

I am definitely enjoying time with my wife and my two little baby girls. Lessons Learned No one will tell you to work fewer hours You need to be responsible for your own health and happiness Burnout sneaks up on you Burnout is self-induced. You created it and own it. I grew up in Germany, and Europeans seem to take life a little bit easier.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 206

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. most shared hosting companies), but they only make interesting money at large scale (by definition, because it takes over 8000 customers to make only $1m/yr in revenue), which takes a long time to grow. Think: GoDaddy).

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

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

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter.

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. All I have to say it WOW!

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

So sticking to my definition of “attributes for success&# it had to be my Top 11 +1 rather than a Top 12. Assistly is a customer support product designed to meet the needs of the current era of multi-channel touch points (think Twitter, email, chat, forum in addition to phone calls). Made ME laugh, anyways.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. Great post! Great post!

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers). customer segments, such as users and payers or moms or teens. distribution channels to reach customers and offer them the value proposition. customer relationships to create demand. Testing Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

(I also teach a less intense introduction class for engineers called the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and the Customer Development Class at Berkeley which I’ll describe in a future post.) I actually hoped that some students who were curious about entrepreneurship would discover that it is definitely not for them.

Business Model 236

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 236

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

It definitely can be useful to judiciously take on small amounts of debt. For more examples, see the "-ilities" section here: [link] Design is definitely dynamic, and definitely benefits from feedback, so I'm also in favor of shipping early and often. That said, I agree with a lot of your more detailed points.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them. are nonsensical.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

By the way, the engineering definition of serendipity is, that life is too unpredictable to pre-compute. The Lean LaunchPad class is now taught around the world – and VC’s expect entrepreneurs to talk about not just their technology but their customer development findings. Because none of it will happen as you expect.

Lean 224

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 224

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. The Lean Definition of the Three Horizons of Innovation. Fast forward to today. We can adapt these startup tools for use inside the corporation.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Take a look at the companies who have raised money (and are still going) after competing: [link] Preparing the pitch for a year is definitely excessive, but I don’t see the harm done in taking a few weeks of doing brutally honest market validation, surveys, financial forecasts etc.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) It should be considered the definitive (and mandatory) reading list for anyone who wants to understand modern entrepreneurship.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

I read a ton of existing literature and came up with a formal methodology for search I called Customer Development. That resulted in a new process for Search: Customer Development + traditional product management/Waterfall Engineering. Berkeley asked me to teach a class in Customer Development.

Lean 324

Lean Georgia Michigan Business Model 324

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Customer 427

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 427

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. Aileen and other wise investors rely on intuition and patterns when unicorn hunting, but at the end of the day, startups are by definition, unpredictable.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2014

What was lacking in the article was a clear definition of a Pivot. A pivot may mean you changed your customer segment, your channel, revenue model/pricing, resources, activities, costs, partners, customer acquisition – lots of other things than just the product. Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development'

Business Model 333

Business Model Lean Customer Development Channel 333

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

And definitely once they’re on board fulltime, marketing and comms will be even more valuable. You’re trying to build a software product, do customer development and find PMF. Best Practices In Marking & Comms Are Highly Extensible.

Seed Stage 128

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 128

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

Search 326

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 326

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

0:45: The definition of a startup. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers. 0:41: Don’t outsource Customer Discovery. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. And you get a tour of my living room….

Founder 331

Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 331

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Continuous deployment is another such technique, one with a unique power to change development team dynamics for the better. First, continuous deployment separates out two different definitions of the terms “release.&# Another is used by marketing to refer to what customers see. Why does it work?

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco 132

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Managing weekly releases got a lot harder once I started doing customer development. Things started to slip. I am not advocating adding no features at all.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. Really enjoyed your speech, but Boulder's startup community is definitely older than 5 years. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Provide early seed capital, and be the ones to make those introductions.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113