Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Yet two smart VC firms, Sigma and Matrix Partners, realized that somewhere in this mess there was value. They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for. And with all of that they had gone broke, out of business and into Chapter 11.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 170

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) These types seem dangerous, yet are often the ones needed on board to get the fund to invest in the first place, seeing that the younger partners naturally have less pull during the Monday round-ups. I find the same still going on with a few firms and partners.&#

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

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. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

GoTo.com went on to ink huge distribution deals with Microsoft, AOL & Yahoo! Secondly, they had an owned & operated (O&O) website – Google.com – and Overture had shut down GoTo.com at the request of their very profitable and large distribution partners. – the biggest Internet portals of the day.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Transportation partners play an enormous role in the supply chain as they bring products into distribution centers and sometimes directly to customers. Develop Relationships with Supply Chain Partners. Develop relationships with each of your supply chain partners and make communication a top priority.

Management 145

Management Los Angeles Forecast San Francisco 145

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

In fact, their affiliate partners dissuaded them from doing so. They bought distribution and engineering talent. My take was that this follows three trends: a) customer involvement in product design, b) mass customization [e.g. That said I worry that V1 of the strategy isn’t a home run. No big surprise.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Learning could be about product features, customer needs, the right pricing and distribution channel, etc.) Rather it is the simplest thing that you can show to customers to get the most learning at that point in time. They are: value proposition, product/service the company offers (along with its benefits to customers).

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process. How to identify and engage the first customers for your product, and how to gather, evaluate and use their feedback to make your product, marketing and business model far stronger.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. We understood none of this. More detail in future posts.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

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. Often times, that comes in the form of analytics, which is what a biz dev partner would want in order to check on the success of the deal.

Early Stage 138

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 138

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Startups should take this principle and translate it into user activation and retention: Include logos – startup was featured in TechCrunch, the Next Web, New York Times etc or main clients/partners include Google, Adobe, Nike etc. Distribution Hacks. Yong Fook’s Growth Hacking 101 Slide Deck. Dropbox – Startup Lessons Learned.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

Companies pursuing innovation can Buy, Build, Partner or use Open Innovation. 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. Fast forward to today. Horizon 3 is focused on unknown business models.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

You might get a bunch of inbound emails from other press and partners, and all of these things can contribute to a feeling that you’re on your way to getting tons of traffic. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The students “get out of the building” and test their hypotheses in front of potential beneficiaries using the Customer Development methodology, all while building and updating their Minimal Viable Products. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

A business model diagram also shows how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. And it shows your company’s cost structures, how each department interacts with the others and where your company fits with other companies or partners to implement your business.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

For example, think of the demographic of 16 to 30-year-olds consuming content on their laptop computers and at the same time as the distribution of content is dramatically shifting. These are times when customer developments and industry changes coincide. Enter Netflix. Consider that next largest segment of the U.S.

San Diego 100

San Diego United States Technical Review Lean 100

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

For example, one of the critical business model hypotheses they could test locally is Product/Market fit – the connection between their Value Proposition (what product or service they were building) and the Customer Segment (who they were building it for.). Identify activities/resources/partners locally and then globally. sales office.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

All of sudden what was an additional engineering and development effort now became a small, variable cost. As a bonus it meant the 1,400 aerial applicator companies could be a potential distribution channel partner. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Technology.

Customer 323

Customer Algorithm Customer Development California 323

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

I taught the class this semester with Ann Miura-Ko a partner at Maples Investments. This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships. Customer Discovery. Did they describe lifetime value of a customer?

Intellectual Property 264

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 264

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 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

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 401

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 401

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The key principles of customer development are: There are no facts inside the building so get the heck outside. You can test your hypotheses with a series of experiments with potential customers. It’s what you can show a potential customer/ user/ beneficiary/partner that will get you the most learning at a point in time.

Customer 422

Customer Business Model Restful Video 422

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Second, and full disclosure, I’ve invested in a few of these funds ; and third my teaching partner Ann Miura-Ko is a partner in one of these funds. But these VC’s aren’t Lean because they fund startups with web-based distribution models. Lean VC’s are expert in on-line distribution, Agile and Customer Development.

Lean 265

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 265

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

The Customer Development process, this relentless drive to turn hypotheses into facts is what makes this learning so rapid. At week six they were trying to figure out their distribution channel ( here ) after another pivot. By week eight they were learning who they needed to partner with (see here ).

Lean 280

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 280

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Gridco Systems – Power Distribution Systems (backed by General Catalyst and Northbridge). Investors: Antonio Rodriguez – Matrix Partners, HP ( blog , @antrod). David Skok – Matrix Partners ( blog , @bostonvc).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. My teaching partner Ann Miura-Ko and I both love the concept of Business Model Generation. Filed under: Customer Development.

Customer Development 226

Customer Development Business Model Early Stage Channel 226

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Because it isn’t until after first customer ship that a startup discovers that their initial hypotheses were simply wrong (i.e. Or, “Look at our returns, its always worked for us.”

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

As a founder you are testing a series of hypotheses about all the pieces of the business model: Who are the customers/users? What’s the distribution channel? Who are our partners? If you are following Customer Development , the answer is easy. Filed under: Customer Development , Durant versus Sloan.

Balance Sheet 307

Balance Sheet Startup Burn Rate Metrics 307

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2014

The good news is that corporations have access to resources and capabilities that most startups can only dream of , whether it is free cash flow, a strong brand, a vibrant supply chain, strong distribution, a skilled sales force, and so on. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development.

Startup 331

Startup Business Model Lean Russia 331

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

Business plans presume that building a startup is a series of predictable steps requiring execution of a plan which assumes a series of known facts: known customers, known features, known pricing, known distribution channel. The reality is that most business plans don’t survive first contact with customers. experiential.

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Then, what’s missing — clearly an engineer — and why do I want a partner? Prior to Sorced, Elizabeth worked in business development at SecondMarket.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. You leave the comfort of your existing job, convince a few partners to join you and you jump off the bridge together. No building, no money, no customers, no market?

Silicon Valley 236

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 236

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

This week they were testing their hypotheses about Partners. Partners are the external companies whose product or service combines with your Value Proposition to create a complete customer solution or “whole product&# to satisfy customers. They worked on understanding their partners. The Nine Teams Present.

South Dakota 233

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 233

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. List key partners and resources you will need, and then list your core team as well as their roles. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. The importance of a domain name.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74