Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. I couldn’t care less about those. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

But it was their market size survey that had the team (and us) even more concerned; last weeks “hot” market of biomed researchers looked like it was only $30m market, and the total available reference manager market was another $80M.The question was, even if they got the product right, were there enough customers to make it a business?

Customer 241

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 241

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' New Rules for China. 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Here’s what I suggested they do: Mei and Bill are building a better version of an on-demand help service like TaskRabbit. They have a unique insight about the nature of interactions between customers and service providers I’ve never heard before. But they needed to convince investors that they are Facebook not Friendster.

Bandwidth 302

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 302

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Transportation partners play an enormous role in the supply chain as they bring products into distribution centers and sometimes directly to customers. Develop Relationships with Supply Chain Partners. Develop relationships with each of your supply chain partners and make communication a top priority.

Management 145

Management Los Angeles Forecast San Francisco 145

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. Price is not an exercise in maximizing some micro-economic supply/demand curve, slapped post-facto onto the product. Price is inextricably linked to brand, product, and purchasing decisions — by whom, why, how, and when.

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

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. That’s a mouthful to say that our sales people didn’t sell our products directly to a customer. Which ones? Had they seen any our ads? Did they understand them?

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

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

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. They would give companies $250,000 to launch their products.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

These hypotheses span the gamut from who’s the customer(s), to what’s the value proposition (product/service features), pricing, distribution channel, and demand creation (customer acquisition, activation, retention, etc.). They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers).

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2012

Use advocacy to improve demand generation. With the rise of the Internet, demand generation has gone from a marketing backwater to a multi-billion-dollar industry in itself. It also increased the reputation of the mid-level advocates, who were seen as strategic thinkers bringing new ideas to senior management.

Social Media 164

Social Media Media Marketing Software Review 164

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' New Rules for China. 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

In circumstances like this, most firms call their legal departments and start issuing cease and desist demands. When toy maker LEGO launched its robotics building-block kits, Mindstorms, a few years ago, hackers almost immediately started altering the code to allow the robots to do more. But LEGO took a smarter approach.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

As I present in my blog, defining the MVP requires answering the following question: "Will our customers be willing to buy the product with these features - available at this date - at this price?" Iterate quickly to uncover true market demands. " September 17, 2009 9:40 PM Anonymoussaid. Thanks Eric, great blog!

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. Demand creation for subsequent iPods can be about the features not about the new idea of iTunes+sync+iPod.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

By delegating and training, we create a corps of leaders who could step in to provide CTO-like services on demand. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Was it an important or irrelevant fact that most of our web code was procedural and not object-oriented?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

In 10 years of venture investing I don’t think I’ve ever participated in a seed round which had less demand than supply. But at the same time, for seed stage needs, I’ve generally found they can provide much value ‘on demand’ without having to be caught up on the intricacies of your business.

Seed Stage 128

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 128

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

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Thanks to Suns amazing PR blitz, there was tremendous demand for experts on Java, and I did my best to convince people that I was one of that mythical breed. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

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. era&# , but really interested in your take on these “free&# models through the prism of Customer Development. We all know how that ends up.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 4:24: No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers. Module 2, Getting Out of the Building: Customer Development. 0:24: What is Customer Development? 1:09: How Do You Start the Customer Development Process?

Intellectual Property 332

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 332

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. They didn’t create a landing page to see if people would enter their email. They just built it. Some things just have to exist first.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

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. Like Matthew, Jason sees enormous value in talking with customers: The biggest thing I learned was just how much you don’t know. Get out of the building.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

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.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

These tools—Customer Development, Agile Engineering, and Business Model design—became the lean start-up methodology , a rigorous approach to testing hypotheses and building prototypes, and, on the basis of data and evidence, adjusting or pivoting to a variant of the original hypothesis.

Incubator 419

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 419

BeyondVC

MAY 5, 2004

Just because one customer wants it does not mean you have a big market opportunity-do your homework to make sure the customer’s pain is not unique and that this is not a custom development job 2. Consequently, their product suffered and did not meet the demands of the wider market.

Product 78

Product Software Review Technical Review Early Stage 78

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. What are the 9 parts of a business model?

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

The goal was simple: validate demand or move on. For example, after looking at the broader market, we saw that a service that helps marketers scale their video content was in demand. This way, you can focus on business development, communications, and awareness to build a sales pipeline and “validate” early demand.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

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

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

As in many scalability decisions, we’d have been much better off investing in agility, so that we could change the architecture in response to actual customer demand, rather than trying to predict the future. Leverage product development with open source and third parties. Eric, great post.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Getting educated about advertising, agencies, and.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

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