Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. An interesting phenomena of the 1920s that illustrates the fragility and cost of vacuum tubes is the “Reflex Receiver&# design methodology.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 301

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 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. At the time this was a pretty controversial decision. These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types. Years later he would become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital.) To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Engineer 223

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 223

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

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. 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. Your results may vary.

Venture Capital 243

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 243

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 168

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 168

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development.

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. 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.)

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. Stop annoying our game designers and start working on selling and marketing the games.” Customer Development says having a vision, faith and a set of hypotheses are a normal part of the startup experience.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

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. Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 258

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

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). Ernest Hemingway One of an entrepreneur’s greatest strengths is their relentless pursuit of a goal.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 332

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking. steve Customer Development is Hard. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The slides are here.

Customer Development 156

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 156

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

I was hired as a training instructor to teach microprocessor system design for the existing Z-80 family and to write a new course for Zilog’s soon to be launched 16-bit processor, the Z-8000. So our people in the field could correct any egregious design advice I gave to customers who mattered. You created it and own it.

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 204

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 206

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. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Customer 217

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 217

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. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? Sounds like handspring.

Customer Development 221

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 221

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. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 132

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. Families gather from across the country to spend time with each other and feast on a traditional turkey dinner. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Silicon Valley 154

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 154

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. He showed me a little Korean hard drive portable music player, not much more than the Compaq reference design it was based off of. It was fun watching it happen. com Michael Robertson.

Video 188

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 188

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 236

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

Since there was very little documentation my time was split between the design engineers who built the system and the test and deployment team getting the system ready to go overseas. Reply 7thpixel , on June 29, 2009 at 10:23 am Said: My first start up in 1999 I was employee #10 or so and signed up for a Graphic Designer position.

Agile 268

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 268

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

the “schedule fantasy factor,”) or his eleven rules of supercomputer design but also a real appreciation for how a technical visionary thinks. (I Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e. Now In Print!

North Carolina 132

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 132

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 Adventure of a Lifetime. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. For example, complex new semiconductor architectures, (i.e. Now In Print!

Vertical 165

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 165

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 144

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 144

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. I had no idea what I wanted to do next, and would get paid to think about it? How could it go wrong? Little did I know. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Designing the Perfect Building Once the commitment to fix everything wrong was in place, we were off and running on the design phase. We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. The exec staff started meeting about the design of the new building. I was great at “office wars.”)

Silicon Valley 232

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 232

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. We were on the bottom row – with an invisible box. We labeled this our “Black Hole of Packaging&# strategy.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

I distinctly remember this is the first time I head the phrases “features and benefits.&# And since I saw our ads (but didn’t quite understand them,) I knew marketing was the group that designed them, somehow to get customers to think our products were better than Intel and Motorola’s. I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0, If your market is missing, just add it as we go through this discussion. What is it that’s unique about the market I’m in? We’ll talk about the implications of what vertical market you’re entering in the next few posts. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Vertical 158

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 158

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

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 198

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 198

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 159

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 159

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder? The other thing it helps clarify is that even at work, it’s the relationships that matter most (collegues, customers, partners, etc). The Adventure of a Lifetime.

Entrepreneur 295

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 295

Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Facts are the rock on which you build your strategy and tactics In a startup second-hand facts are almost as useless as opinions. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 149

Silicon Valley Customer RSS Philippines 149