Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

What those sites have in common (despite their very different audiences) is that something is causing their customers to become addicted to their product, and so no matter how they acquire a new customer, they tend to keep them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

First, I want to explore the idea of releasing crap: that our product is of such low quality that we will release it, customers will hate it, and we’ll have accomplished nothing but alienating them. We already know who to distribute the product to (or else why would we care what they think?).

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

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? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

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. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Agile software development. Customer development. What is customer development?

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

It’s important to note that system I’m about to explain evolved organically in response to new demands on the system and in response to post-mortems of failures. Nobody gets here overnight, but every step along the way has made us better developers. On commit automatically run all tests. If the deploy succeeds, repeat.

Continuous Deployment 123

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

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. Are they the same now?

Customer 422

Customer Business Model Restful Video 422

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. As a founder you start out with: 1) a vision of a product with a set of features, 2) a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users?

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

And their branding and demand creation activities were going to occur primarily outside of Australia. channel partners and Chinese manufacturers and customer acquisition and activation programs outside their home country. Trip 1 to China to understand manufacturing landscape, potential partners and rough cost of goods.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. Leveraged distribution channels.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships. Customer Discovery. Yet every team did figure out how to conduct extensive out of building Customer Discovery. (By What is a business model?

Intellectual Property 264

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 264

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel? How do we create end user demand? If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy. Filed under: Customer Development , Durant versus Sloan.

Balance Sheet 307

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 307

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In fact, at the time (1996-1997) we offered both a downloadable product, that our customers could install on their own servers, and a “hosted-offering”, which came to be known as “On-Demand”, then the “ASP” (Application Service Provider) model, and today we call it “SaaS” (Software as a Service). Patrick is completely correct here.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Now they were figuring out how to create demand. The Customer Development process, this relentless drive to turn hypotheses into facts is what makes this learning so rapid. At week six they were trying to figure out their distribution channel ( here ) after another pivot. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Teaching'

Lean 280

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 280

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

But the bubble mantra of get “big fast” and “first mover advantage” demanded tens of millions more to create a “brand.” Just like the previous 25 years, startups still built every possible feature the founding team envisioned into a monolithic “release” of the product using “Waterfall development.” Rules For the New Bubble: 2011 -2014.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. Gather all your hypotheses in Customer Discovery. Filed under: Customer Development. Keeping Score.

Customer Development 226

Customer Development Business Model Early Stage Channel 226

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Because it isn’t until after first customer ship that a startup discovers that their initial hypotheses were simply wrong (i.e.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 271

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

These explosions in company size and scale created a demand for professional managers. Business plans presume that building a startup is a series of predictable steps requiring execution of a plan which assumes a series of known facts: known customers, known features, known pricing, known distribution channel. experiential.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I responded to their RFP by proposing that Ardent build the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center a distributed supercomputing environment with hundreds of Ardent personal supercomputers rather than a monolithic Cray supercomputer. Cray called two years ago and bought it back for parts for an unnamed customer still running one.

Silicon Valley 214

Silicon Valley San Diego RSS California 214

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process.

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 236

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Some of the conversations went like this: Startup 1 Entrepreneur -“I’m competing against Company x and have been following the Customer Development process and I’ve talked to lots of customers.” Do you know have they distribute their product? Do you know how they create demand? This is easy to test.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 210

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Top management was trying to coordinate all of the operating details (sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing,) across all the divisions and the company almost went bankrupt that year when poor planning led to excess inventory (with unsold cars piling up at dealers and the company running out of cash.) car market.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 184

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

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.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

In this survey course, the students would listen to the speakers and then attend twice-weekly classes which focused on the basic concepts of a startup (demand creation, sales, partnerships, team building, financing, etc.) Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 128

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. Data-driven business is here today; it''s just not evenly distributed. LSC: What''s an example of one metric, other than revenue, that you might look at for a non-tech product?

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Balancing business and family, and ensuring demand for your product were key lessons shared by two veteran entrepreneurs on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. There was no demand in companies for using a wide area network like the Internet and they didn’t believe that the demand would ever be there so we got no funding.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 143

andrewchenblog.com

MARCH 10, 2010

Coupled with A/B testing, customer development, and thinking through business problems in a scientific, hypothesis-driven way, you end up with a powerful cocktail of techniques to build a modern startup in the most iterative way possible. Every 6 months or so I'd have to go in and clean house.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Balancing business and family, and ensuring demand for your product were key lessons shared by two veteran entrepreneurs on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. There was no demand in companies for using a wide area network like the Internet and they didn’t believe that the demand would ever be there so we got no funding.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

market-by-numbers.com

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Market By Numbers on Twitter | Entries RSS | Comments RSS Market By Numbers High-Tech Marketing and Customer Development Home What is Customer Development? Distribution Company has unique or differentiated method of moving products. New products will follow same distribution. Please Share!

San Diego 40

San Diego RSS Lean Elevator Pitch 40

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

The class was unique in that it was 1) team-based, 2) experiential, 3) lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). This type of teaching firepower and headcount was necessary as the teaching team expanded the class size to meet student demand. Class Size. Class Velocity/Depth.

Lean 256

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 256