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

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 256

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 256

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. Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.?

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. It starts at ~40:30 in the video. 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.

Customer Development 158

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 158

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that.

Vertical 140

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 140

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.&# Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. In a startup it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right 100% of the time. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 310

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 310

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 223

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223

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

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. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

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 146

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 146

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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. You’re not joining a big company. Blog at WordPress.com.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

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 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 156

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. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

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

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

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

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 170

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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. See part one for the first time it happened.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

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.

North Carolina 133

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 133

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. Further refinement of Product/Market fit could be done locally by using Value Proposition Design. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

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 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

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

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Someone from your company has to be designated the official competitive intelligence officer for this show. Everyone should have a chance to walk the floor looking for deals, technology, distribution, customers, etc. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. One of them is a loser. It isn’t going to be your booth.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.”

Customer Development 288

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 288

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

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

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. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Customer RSS Philippines 150

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

This post makes a lot more sense if you look at the earlier posts as well as the video and slides. So they systematically designed electronic devices called “jammers&# to shut down each part of the German air defense system. Chaff used 3/4′s of all the aluminum foil in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 211

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 211

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Stanford designed Klystrons producing 2½ Megawatts were manufactured by Varian and Litton would power the radar in the BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) built at the height of the cold war.) Stanford had a Customer Development loop going on inside their own lab. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 272

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 272

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

BTW, the definition of entrepreneurship I describe at 2:50 into the video is described in detail in the post “ You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur.&# Filed under: Customer Development « Requiem For A Roommate 2 Responses steve , on October 21, 2010 at 7:05 am Said: what did Carl say at 1:12 ?

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley RSS United States California 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Employ customer development. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Reply Jamie Stephens , on June 5, 2009 at 1:17 pm Said: Great article.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 237

Steve Blank

AUGUST 14, 2009

Something you can appreciate if you’ve read my class text on Customer Development.) Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. It was a rough draft you’ll see again when I can finish complete sentences. My only excuse is that this week I’m doing public service in my role as a California Coastal Commissioner.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Government RSS California 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Unintended Lessons « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/09/28/unintended-lessons – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40? Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

North Carolina 165

North Carolina Silicon Valley RSS Connecticut 165

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I can’t get this one out of my head. ———— The VENONA Project One of the most interesting (declassified) stories of cryptography is the deciphering of Soviet communications to their diplomatic missions in the U.S during World War II. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 145

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 145