Customer Development, Distribution and Management

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

How To Find the Right Co-Founders?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Or if you’re building consumer electronics the key activities might be: low cost hardware design, high volume manufacturing, user interface design, consumer branding and retail distribution. Therefore the ideal medical device team might be a physician; engineer; operator; business development/financial analyst. Customer Development'

Cofounder

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model

Lessons Learned in Diagnostics

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 6: Distribution channels in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter : Customer Discovery in Digital Health. Mira Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis.

Lean

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP

How to Manage Supply Chain Planning Like a Pro

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

For manufacturing startups, here are several ways to achieve effective supply chain management: Understand Your Supply Chain Elements. Transportation partners play an enormous role in the supply chain as they bring products into distribution centers and sometimes directly to customers. Manage and Mitigate Supply Chain Risk.

Management

Management Los Angeles Forecast San Francisco

Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS

Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 9, 2010 Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# theory of management At any given time, something like four percent of the US population is engaged in some form of new-company-creation. But I’m not convinced those labels are right at all.

San Francisco

San Francisco Management Founder Lean

How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, September 18, 2008 How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of iPhone-related companies lately. There are other models, in other distribution channels. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. I havent found any yet.

Distribution

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lean Innovation Management – Making Corporate Innovation Work

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

—– Lean Innovation Management. Each horizon requires different focus, different management, different tools and different goals. To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup.

Lean

Lean Management Business Model Incubator

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Venture Capitalists on your board developed the expertise to get your firm public as soon as possible using whatever it took including hype, spin, expand, and grab market share because the sooner you got your billion dollar market cap, the sooner the VC firm could sell their shares and distribute their profits.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

To shed some light, I talked with kaChing , a destination that enables individual investors to find outstanding money managers to manage their money. kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" I always assumed I wouldnt manage anybody. Being a manager didnt sound fun - deep down, who really wants to be held accountable for other peoples actions? So I wound up learning the discipline of managing other people.

CTO

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review

This Week in Venture Capital – Episode 2

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

They bought distribution and engineering talent. I like EdgeCast and spent time with the management team. My take was that this follows three trends: a) customer involvement in product design, b) mass customization [e.g. Twitter bough their most used iPhone client. No big surprise. Good deal for all.

Venture Capital

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. To promote this metrics discipline, we would present the full funnel to our board (and advisers) at the end of every development cycle. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Marching through quicksand

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

One is explaining the world as it used to work: the importance of gatekeepers, the scarcity implied by limited distribution, and the resulting quality bar that the industry is so proud of. Mostly it is the time and expense required to create the means of distribution for that industry. It’s just taking some longer than others.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution

Twitter Link Roundup #170 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

The chart above shows age distribution within major social networks and online communities. Lean Business: Capacity Management, Overhead, and Your Business – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

Social Media

Social Media Small Business Design Media

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Those rates gave us a map that told us a lot about our customers; insights that proved stable even when the company grew orders of magnitude bigger. Only much later did I realize that this was an application of customer development to online marketing. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

SEM

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business)

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Even the most radical Bell Curve -style thinkers have to concede that even if there are differences between men and women in the distribution of these traits on average, these curve have substantial overlap, and there should still be a lot more of them represented in high-tech startups. Thats understandable - its embarrassing!

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment

I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I might not get there with you.

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Management in the Transition. What lies ahead, however, is a different set of challenges: finding the new set of mainstream customers on the other side of the chasm and managing the sales growth curve. These new challenges require a different set of management and leadership skills. The reason?

Agile

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

It is becoming easier and cheaper for companies to bring products to market, leveraging free and open source software , cloud computing, open social data (Facebook, OpenSocial ), and open distribution (AdWords, SEO). Agile software development. Customer development. This speeds up the Ideas-Code-Data feedback loop.

Lean

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Towards a new entrepreneurship

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an internet connection. The reason is that the underlying theory that powers established business, the theory of general management, is increasingly inadequate for managing startups.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

They are gaining valuable customer data. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Instead, each potential customer has to go through a self-serve process of signing up and paying money. They are closing orders. They are close to breakeven.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment

The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 22, 2010

The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection. The cost of creating new companies is falling rapidly, and access to markets, distribution, and information is within the reach of anyone with an Internet connection.

San Francisco

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Business Development for Early Stage Startups

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

Product management is a fulltime job and if your product needs work before you want to throw people at it, it’s worth the time investment and focus. It’s the kind of thing you can repeat in an elevator, simple to understand , universally applicable , and, most importantly, doesn’t burden your tech team with a lot of custom development.

Early Stage

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

I originally thought I might get some development process tips (I manage developers), but I find that Im really enjoying your business tips (SEM, listening to customers, etc.). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Posted item in Facebook news feed.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

So we tried to craft a strategy that would give us the product development leverage we needed to serve all customers. We combined three tactics: extensive use of free software, an open platform for user-generated content, and leveraged distribution channels. It has to be found and managed. Leveraged distribution channels.

Product Development

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

What about companies, like Siebel, that started with partner distribution first? For more on how to figure out which question applies in which context, see Business ecology and the four customer currencies.) It’s the difference between asking “how should we best solve this problem for these customers?&#

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design

Traffic Acquisition Strategy: A Data-Driven Approach to Increase Site Traffic

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

If you don’t have customers, our articles on customer development and how to write compelling copy without customers can help you get started. Beyond improving headlines and images on Twitter, it’s vital to distribute content when followers are most likely to see it. This post contains video, click to play].

Acquisition

Acquisition Software Review PPC Analytics

Adopting A Data Driven Approach To Increase Website Traffic

ConversionXL

MAY 22, 2014

If you don’t have customers, our articles on customer development & writing compelling copy when you don’t have any customers , to help you to start getting people to buy. Recommended Reading: It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem.

Software Review

Software Review PPC Analytics Search

Better for whom?

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

” What spurred this blog post was someone who wrote exactly what I quoted above, in the space of project-management (PM) tools. Who knows if they’re good ideas, but at least they are actual ideas, actual proposals, in that they define “better:” PM tools assume you already know about project management.

Distribution

Distribution Differentiation Lean Restful

On deployment

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Why Internal Ventures are Different from External Startups

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2014

However, I will then argue that while these methods are necessary to managing new ventures inside a company, they are insufficient. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Customer Development'

Startup

Startup Business Model Lean Russia

Lessons Learned: Test-Driven Development as andon cord

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 1, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 1, 2008 Test-Driven Development as andon cord You cannot control what you cannot see, and the hardest part of managing software projects is that the final product is so intangible. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco

San Francisco Developer Continuous Deployment DC

The Phantom Sales Forecast – Failing at Customer Validation

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch. Do we have a workable sales and distribution channel? Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto. Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen.

Forecast

Forecast Sales Customer Customer Development

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community (Fall 2013 Edition)

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. BitSight - Risk Management (backed by Flybridge and Menlo). Gridco Systems – Power Distribution Systems (backed by General Catalyst and Northbridge). Great for recent grads or career switchers.

Boston

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder

A Simple Map for Innovation at Scale

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

How do they connect with a new generation of customers who had no brand loyalty? How to they use the new distribution channels competitors have adopted? How do they make these transitions without alienating and losing their existing customers, distribution channels and partners?

Framework

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership

Five case studies you'll see at the Lean Startup Conference 2015

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

Every year, our team conducts more than 500 customer development calls to understand what challenges the community is facing. Prerna began her startup journey after leaving a job as a management consultant, and launched Yaari, a youth-oriented social network in India. Here are some of our favorites: 1.

Lean

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup

Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

but its really about how to manage your effort between what he calls the frontlist and backlist. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

How To Find the Right Co-Founders?

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned in Diagnostics

How to Manage Supply Chain Planning Like a Pro

Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Founder personalities and the “first-class man” theory of management

How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone

Lean Innovation Management – Making Corporate Innovation Work

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

This Week in Venture Capital – Episode 2

Lessons Learned: The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time

Marching through quicksand

Twitter Link Roundup #170 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business)

I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I might not get there with you.

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Lessons Learned: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn

Towards a new entrepreneurship

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people

The new startup arms race (for Huffington Post)

Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your code right now

Business Development for Early Stage Startups

Lessons Learned: Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Lessons Learned: Product development leverage

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Traffic Acquisition Strategy: A Data-Driven Approach to Increase Site Traffic

Adopting A Data Driven Approach To Increase Website Traffic

Better for whom?

On deployment

Why Internal Ventures are Different from External Startups

Lessons Learned: Test-Driven Development as andon cord

The Phantom Sales Forecast – Failing at Customer Validation

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community (Fall 2013 Edition)

A Simple Map for Innovation at Scale

Five case studies you'll see at the Lean Startup Conference 2015

Seth Godin: How often should you publish?

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