Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

They needed to be sure that what they were building was what customers wanted and needed. And if their initial guesses were wrong, they needed a process that would permit them to change early on in the product development process when the cost of changes was small – the famed “pivot”. Every startup is in a race against time.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. Not because they have a conversion problem but because they never really nail the product or how to market it. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? Extra Lucrative Conversion Advice.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

So, depending on which team you are talking to at Shutterstock, we may be Lean Startup or Agile or Kanban or some other method depending on the type of problem that team is designed to solve. There are 5-10 customers in our office (or remote) per week for developers, product owners and marketers to speak to and validate learning.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile 167

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

MAY 6, 2015

Waterfall Development. While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. Waterfall Development was all about execution of the requirements document.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

These damn models weren’t designed right so we’re fixing them on the line.” Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. And that’s just to get started.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. Here’s what the product development diagram looks like from a sales perspective.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

It’s hard to believe these are the methods and tools of a profession designed to attract and persuade us to become customers — especially when “we the buyers” increasingly ignore them. What makes this particularly significant, of course, is that 3M’s product developers are among the most innovative in the world.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.” Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

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. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

We talked about some simple design rules and I remember him thanking me for coming, saying we were the only chip company who cared enough to call on him (little did he know.) Long gone from Zilog I saw the picture of the original Macintosh design team. I thought nothing about the meeting until years later.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. We're looking to choose a design put together by one of our readers as the official t-shirt for OnStartups. What went wrong?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. That’s in stark contrast to the traditional Product Development Model where it’s expected a customer is already there and waiting and it’s simply a matter of [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 163

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 163

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

The disadvantage is that its methodology was based on the old waterfall model of product development and not the agile and lean methods that startups use today. It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. Seeing Is Believing. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Your investors may require something quite different.)

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

ConversionXL

JULY 3, 2014

Fueled by data driven research that map out the who behind the buying decisions of your products or services, customer personas can help inform everything from more effective copy to product development. Sean Murphy has some great tips for conducting customer interviews, you can check them out here.

Customer 133

Customer Analytics Conversion Lead Generation 133

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Do they have better sales, marketing, or product development groups? What the winners start with is the realization that in a world of continuous disruption, they have only a few years to develop new capabilities or be pushed over the brink. Is it that some CEOs are better than others? Are their people smarter?

Incubator 419

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 419

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Second, since it knew the solution, it went into a 8 -year Waterfall engineering development process. Waterfall development is a sequential way to develop a product (requirements, design, implementation, verification – ship.) No Business Plan survives first contact with a customer. It All Came Crashing Down.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs.

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Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 332

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In my first company, we did everything right when it came to building the product. As someone who is trained in Human Computer Interaction, I had followed the concept of User Centered Design. I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. Patrick is completely correct here.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

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

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

In our previous post we posited that Scalable Startups are designed to become large companies. One of the most striking attributes of founders is their individual contribution to the company, be it in sales or product development. Scalable Startups at Adolescence.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

The Lockheed Skunk Works led by Kelly Johnson was responsible for its Advanced Development Projects – everything from the P-80 , the first U.S. Skunk works differed from advanced research groups in that they were more than just product development groups. But to survive companies need innovation by design. Here’s how.

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Channel Customer Development Distribution Restful 295

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 252

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

If you don’t, then how can you design and price your product and know whether it’s worth pursuing in the first place? Here are four steps you can build into the front end of your new product development process: Step 1: Identify benchmarking outcomes. Directly engage the customer in the innovation process.

Product 251

Product B2B Product Development Developer 251

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. Edwin: Would I be able to attract other people if the design would be different?

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

User Experience Design Knowledge (7) - How knowledgeable is the product owner on the topics of user experience design? Business and Financial Knowledge (7) - Does the product owner understand the economics and financial dynamics of his product? How current is his technology knowledge? Is there mutual respect?

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

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. By design not by exception. The question is – why? StageGate Process. Lessons Learned.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

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