Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

“No,” my friend replied, sadly shaking his head, “the rest of the board said it sounded like a good idea.”. With a few more questions I learned that the code base, which had now grown large, still had vestiges of the original exploratory code written back in the early days when the company was in the discovery phase of Customer Development.

Part-Time VPE 325

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 325

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum.

Intellectual Property 290

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 290

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. And since the rest of the slides were about Customer Development, I taught those.

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. 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

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Years later he would become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital.) Our head of finite element analysis came from General Motor’s Chevy division, where he headed up one of their analysis groups. (He

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

The rest of the progress report sounded just like this. PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about Customer Development and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). Me: How are we doing on the Nastran port?

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 332

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

They had this great architecture, and Apple had figured out to get movies into their own computers for a demo, but for the rest of us there was no physical device that allowed an average consumer to plug a video camera or VCR into and get video into a Mac. But the rest of the management team really skeptical. Little did we know.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

A great vacation with my wife wasn’t going to make up for being AWOL from home the rest of the year. Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. Everything else flows from that.

Entrepreneur 295

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 295

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. The rest is just fluff. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room.

Venture Capital 245

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 245

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. Your product is designed with natural tripwires to trigger other pricing ( Freemium model ), or not (business model left as an exercise to your future self). Price is not an afterthought, it is essential business design.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

In the Fall of 2008, the credit crisis wiped out mergers and acquisitions as a path to liquidity as M&A collapsed with the rest of the market. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. The formula for exits was a variation of the formula they used in the Internet bubble, morphing into: brand, hype and sell the company. So what’s left?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

It wasn’t a lack of competence or skill in her job; it was just that as far as she was concerned, her job had no connection to the rest of marketing, our customers or our ultimate success as a company. “We Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. We need your decision now because we are about to spend $50,000 on new collateral.”

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

However, there’s a growing belief that the “design preferences” of Chinese consumers are just bad design. TenCents WeChat , (designed for an international market) is the first incredibly popular app in China to dramatically raise the bar for what a good user interface and user experience looks and feels like.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. The rest is worth reading as well. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. steve Am I a Founder?

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

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. Think YouTube vs. the rest.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. The “customers’” contracts funded the company. A-12 OXCART CIA Spyplane ESL found other ways to stay very close to its customers. could design and produce, and a good part of it was coming from Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 201

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

I met one recently that is working on a really innovative product, and the stories I heard from their development team made me want to cringe. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. These specs are handed to a designer, who builds layouts and mockups of all the salient points.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And the rest is history: Google Maps was a huge success. This is precisely the dilemma that the doctrine of minimum viable product is designed to solve. When people start using quality, reliability, or design as an excuse to delay, it used to make me nervous, even when these suggestions were well intentioned. Ship it.&#

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 24, 2022

You should also consider running social media ads, as they can be very effective in reaching out to potential customers. Develop a Strong Online Presence. Another important aspect of promoting your startup is developing a strong online presence. This means having a website that is well-designed and easy to navigate.

Social Media 157

Social Media Startup Audience Web Development 157

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

These damn models weren’t designed right so we’re fixing them on the line.” Therefore I’m not sure what to make of the rest of their conclusions. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. Let me know what you think. Comments and brickbats welcomed.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

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

MARCH 25, 2009

Next, we needed to focus our messages away from technology and onto what the customers told us they needed – performance solutions for four key publishing applications. Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw. Very much in addition to the text.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 161

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Don’t share the details of your manufacturing process with customers until you’ve locked up your intellectual property.” Government Regulations I turned to the class and said, “The rest of you can keep building your company and shipping your product because you don’t need to worry about government regulations.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customer development?

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

If you can just be friendly enough and get your users to party with you, the rest is really easy. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Now, thanks to social media, you don't have to outspend. There is a much better technique. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Your Process Doesn’t Work.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

You can imagine the rest of the conversation; my sounding reluctant to let our own tests outside our building, the magazines begging us to let them have them, and finally a deal gets struck where we let the benchmarks out to the test labs of these magazines under their own name “The Potrero Benchmark Suite” without attribution to us.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

My guess is they have lots of people constantly working on interesting new tools for their designers to play with. Discover whats in customers heads, and tackle problems where design is a differentiator. Companies that abdicate to customers will fail, as will companies that don't listen and respect experience.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2014

note: If you’re a startup, you’ll want to use customer development questions for your page to resonate with future traffic). All of this is to inform a landing page design that’s in-line with your target market expectations which plays a huge role in reducing the amount of friction it takes for them to convert.

Analytics 134

Analytics Video Matching Conversion 134

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

for Harvard Business Review) Over at Harvard Business Review, Ive been building up a series designed to introduce the Lean Startup methodology to a business-focused audience. This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down?

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

It’s been thirty years, but every once an awhile I still wonder what happened to the rest of their lives. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. By the time I came back to the United States, he was gone from the company. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

Big brands have the advantage of a strong reputation and a crew of professional designers behind their sites. If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. Custom development. But establishing a website isn’t easy. WordPress DIY.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

but rest assured they would be. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Alas, they arent published in a dead-tree medium yet, so I cant say something like "they are the essential reference on my bookcase." No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

The design was actually a negative drag on selling anything off a retail shelf. From grumbling skeptics, they all became packaging design converts. And for sure they were never going to win any design awards. So we not only sent everyone through packaging school, we also brought the packaging design in-house.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

So if youre new, consider not paying any attention to the rest of this post, and just diving into the archives, if you havent already. Maybe youd like to start with The lean startup , How to listen to customers , or What does a startup CTO actually do? November 25, 2009 9:54 AM Danny Wong said. hey eric, love the blog.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

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. However, there’s the other side of the coin, which is the product design.

Technical Review 47

Technical Review Design Las Vegas Product 47