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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Heres my take.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Suppliers also have machinery and technology issues to contend with as they create customized products. 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.

Management 145

Management Los Angeles Forecast San Francisco 145

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

They bought distribution and engineering talent. Rumored: Digital Sky Technologies. Stitcher - San Francisco-based service that lets users customize talk radio programming on their mobile devices. My take was that this follows three trends: a) customer involvement in product design, b) mass customization [e.g.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

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 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

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. What accounts for the difference?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 Waves of technology platforms I still remember the first time I switched to LAMP. That startup didnt turn out so well, but not for lack of technology. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Technology Continuous Deployment Lean 68

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

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. Here the company executes a known business model (known customers, product features, competitors, pricing, distribution channel, supply chain, etc.)

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I Hate Business Plan Competitions Yet this same conversation reminded me why every time students at Berkeley or Stanford tell me they’ve entered a technology business plan competition, I question whether they are wasting their time. You’ll learn a lot. I now think that was a mistake.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

As Ive written previously , lean startups are built upon three main trends: Technology commoditization. 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).

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

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. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 142

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 142

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

Typical explanations tend to focus on the well-known anecdotes and larger than life archetypes we have in mind: the twenty-something college dropouts (men, of course) from Stanford inventing some radical new technology. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Management Founder Lean 161

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Critical for this transition are a CEO and executive staff who are clear-eyed pragmatists, capable of crafting and articulating a coherent mission for the company and distributing authority down to departments that are all driving toward the same goal. In some startups (technology startups especially), product life cycles are painfully short.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

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. For example, over 25% of the technology companies founded between 1995-2005 had a key immigrant founder.

San Francisco 121

San Francisco Indiana Lean Startup 121

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. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology nextNY. The latter is totally underutilized.

Early Stage 126

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 126

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

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

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. We still shouldn’t tolerate it.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

Software Review 68

Software Review San Francisco Technical Review Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Whole product " is a term I learned from Bill Davidows classic Marketing High Technology. A whole product is one that works for mainstream customers. What about companies, like Siebel, that started with partner distribution first? and for which customer? A whole product is one that works for mainstream customers.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Like all great Silicon Valley companies they started with a technology and guessed who the customers will be. The Customer Development process, this relentless drive to turn hypotheses into facts is what makes this learning so rapid. After class they took this idea and formed a company – Blue River Technology.

Lean 280

Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 280

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Customer 427

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 427

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

This is a good sign for you! :) I subscribed because I was inspired by the O'Reilly video, and feel I want to go deeper into the customer development field. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud. So why you?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships.

Intellectual Property 264

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 264

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. We’re all familiar with Product Development, and thanks to the amazing Steve Blank and Eric Ries , Customer Development has become the mantra for so many startups. In a nutshell, Product Development is about building something.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Mass TLC Unconference: Large annual conference put on by the MA Technology Leadership Council. Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Belmont Technologies – CAD in the Cloud (backed by Northbridge and NEA). Next major event? Future M on Oct 16.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

Currently a market leader, they’re watching a new and relentless competitor with more money, more people and more advanced technology appear seemingly out of nowhere, attempting to grab customers and gain market share. How do they convert existing manufacturing plants (and their workforce) for a completely new set of technologies?

Framework 401

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 401

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The goal was 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. Filed under: Technology , Venture Capital. Wide Adoption.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

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. Telepathic, a new technology startup, is bringing A/B testing to the world of mass-market fiction and storytelling. We come across some interesting stories from people who are really making things happen.

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you? How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone How to Usability Test your Site for Free The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the tim.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2013

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. Lessons Learned.

Lean 247

Lean Customer Development IP Agile 247

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

But that means they’re no good for large, complex, distributed, multi-user projects. My PM tool is best for large, complex projects with modern technology requirements. My PM tool is best for distributed, open projects with thousands of members but which still require central management.

Distribution 267

Distribution Differentiation Lean Restful 267