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. ” Big companies can buy it without much consideration, but small companies need to understand the value, so you might need sales material to convince them, and a demo. You will be compared to alternatives and weighed.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

Do you want them to download a demo, schedule a sales call, visit a physical store location or a website, download an app, click for more information, give you their email address, etc.? Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing. It’s not just the product feature list, but the pain relievers and gain creators.

Marketing 318

Marketing Technical Review Audience PR 318

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “Here’s how smart I am, and isn’t this a great product, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the story of a team’s 10-week journey and hard-won learning and discovery. . – while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products.

Lean 416

Lean Security Asia SBIR 416

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. Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2018

Most importantly we now have a better idea of how to build innovation programs that will deliver products and services, not just demos. However, without any measurable milestones to show evidence of the evolution of what the team has learned about validity of the problem, customer needs, pivots, etc.,

Programming 326

Programming Incubator Leadership Silicon Valley 326

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Hackathons and incubators are helpful in getting product teams focused and result in great demos, but you’re left still not knowing whether you have something beneficiaries/stakeholders/users want nor do you know what it takes to deploy the solution to the field. Demo of final MVP. It’s a ton of work. Pivot stories.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

This means buying their product, booking a demo or signing up for a trial. Sign up for a demo and go through the sales process. You can also run customer development surveys to glean target audience insights, like top pain points they want to solve. Depending on your industry, look out for the following: Ecommerce.

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo. General Comments for both Awareness and Lead Generation Demo’s I don’t care how small the booth or trade show is, do a canned demo every 20 to 30 minutes regardless of whether anyone is at your booth or not. Demo’s are the heart of the booth. One of them is a loser.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 137

Steve Blank

JULY 24, 2012

Do you have it your demo room showing it to potential customers?” Filed under: Customer Development , E.piphany , Marketing. Instead of being welcomed by the whole Onyx exec staff, this time a clearly uncomfortable product manager met me. Well how do like our integrated system?” And by the way where is it?

Seattle 265

Seattle Cofounder Engineer Sales 265

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But Apple had planned to announce and demo QuickTime without a way to get video into the Mac. Something Profound Engineering gave us a demo of the prototype board and software and asked, “Do you guys think we can sell a few of these boards?” We must have made them play the demo twenty times. My first IPO at Convergent.

Video 188

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 188

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 11, 2011

To give a little context, I asked two of the other judges - Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits (co-authors of the excellent Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development ) - to add a bit of commentary. Great use of airbnb for their source of customer development won them 'Best #CustDev Award." Make that never.

New York City 161

New York City New York Lean SMS 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “here’s how smart I am, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the teams’ stories of a 10-week journey of hard-won learning and discovery. This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks.

Oakland 314

Oakland Asia Lean Video 314

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

Approvals tended to be based on who had the best demo and/or slides or lobbied the hardest. There was no burden on those who proposed a new idea or technology to talk to customers, build minimal viable products, test hypotheses or understand the barriers to deployment. . Ironically, by standing still, they were falling behind.

Incubator 319

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 319

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

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. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor to assess project maturity or quantify risks.

Sacramento 314

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 314

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2017

Our mantra to the students was that we wanted them to learn about “Deployment not Demos.” Our observation is that the DOD has more technology demos than they need, but often lack deep problem understanding. Our sponsors did remind us, that at times getting a solution deployed meant that someone did have to see a demo!).

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley Southern California Lean San Diego 201

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development. And the winners get to go Stage 2.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development. And the winners get to go Stage 2.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Good stuff too.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 258

Steve Blank

AUGUST 25, 2021

And even if there had been, there was no way to turn demos into deployment with speed and at scale. This manifested itself as an organizational design problem. There was simply no permanent place in the organization for unscheduled innovation to happen. Innovation Doctrine.

Non-Compete 436

Non-Compete Government Incubator Design 436

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 29, 2012

Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

St. Louis 135

St. Louis Kansas City Norway Kansas 135

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

A decade later, I began to teach the foundations of Lean, first at UC Berkeley (Customer Development) and then at Stanford using cases and business plans. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). Let’s Teach Lean Via Experiential Learning. experiential.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2013

This was our version of Demo Day – we call it “Lessons Learned” Day. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , National Science Foundation , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Life Sciences National Science Foundation Teaching' Gastro.org 2013 Education Meeting.

Lean 256

Lean Customer Development Business Model Channel 256

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited. Soundbites from potential customers are encouraging. Eventually early product demos start happening but they’re rough and the product looks very alpha. Three months in, the burn is now at $70k/month.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2018

Each of their slide presentations follow their customer discovery journey. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Our mantra to the students was that we wanted them to learn about “Deployment not Demos.”

Southern California 188

Southern California San Diego Mississippi SBIR 188

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 5, 2020

The “ Customer Development ” model that Steve Blank developed in his book is one of the core themes of the classes he teaches as a professor at Stanford University and the core of the Lean Startup movement. Head to Klaviyo.com/ducttape to schedule a demo. Head to Klaviyo.com/ducttape to schedule a demo.

Lean 92

Lean Venture Capital Government Business Model 92

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2014

This “Lessons Learned” presentation is much different than a traditional demo day. It gives us a sense of the learning, velocity and trajectory of the teams, rather than a demo day showing us how smart they are at a single point in time. BCN Biosciences.

SBIR 272

SBIR Lean Video Customer Development 272

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are “here’s how smart I am, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells a story of a journey of hard-won learning and discovery. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 281

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 281

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2013

It’s curriculum is built on a framework of business model design, customer development and agile engineering – and its emphasis on evidence, Lessons Learned versus demos, makes it the worlds most advanced accelerator. It’s success is measured not only by the technologies that leave the labs, but how many U.S.

Lean 270

Lean Washington Incubator Agile 270

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Bob had taken to heart the business model canvas and Customer Development lessons. After graduating he put together a prototype and had quickly marched through Customer Discovery , iterating his product with the help of CIOs and Fortune 1000 IT departments. Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture.

Customer Development 333

Customer Development Cofounder Later Stage Software 333

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Customer Development Labs recently shared a great experiment on using mTurk to interview 100 customers in 4 hours for less than $200. How to create an awesome demo video for your business – paid online course with a ton of resources. Growth Hacking for Startups by Mattan Griffel. Quora – Growth Hacks.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

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. Set up a booth, put up posters, run demos, etc.

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Rising to the occasion Jon and the team got out of the building and went to the Sonoma County Fair and Wine and other food festivals, and spoke to 50 customers. They ran 10 in-store demos, which got them talking to 100s of more customers. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching.

North America 120

North America Lean Customer Development Distribution 120

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.) I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

Over Saturday and Sunday, teams will focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. - On Sunday evening, teams will demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

Singapore 162

Singapore Colorado Startup Lean 162

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

Minimal viable products are being demo’d to sponsors and sponsors are reacting to what the teams are learning. Understanding how to measure mission achievement/success for each beneficiary is the difference between a demo and a deployed solution. In those case revenue will become an additional metric. Hill in Virginia.

San Diego 147

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 147

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2015

Customer Development for us meant a lot of hard-won learnings. The endless emails we received describing the exact need we had uncovered were the powerful validation of the customer development approach. Dig deep into your customer psychology and test lo-fidelity minimum viable products, before trying to build anything.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Lean Customer Development Startup 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

In today’s language of Customer Development , RIM positioned the Blackberry as a segment of an existing market – pager users who needed two-way communication. After a demo, if you knew what a VCR was you knew what a TiVo was. Filed under: Customer Development , Market Types. You got it. Are you cheaper?

Hockey Stick 279

Hockey Stick Customer Development Silicon Valley Networking 279