Customer Development, Email and Metrics

Customer Development is Not a Focus Group

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.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

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. Still, I thought Id share this email that happened to arrive during class.

Customer Development

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the minus side, that has made it a wee bit hard to understand.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

One of the fundamental benefits of being so active in building the FoundersPad accelerator (a 12-week, Lean Startup program focused on customer development) is working with the cohort participants on refining their business models. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Venture Capital.

Early Stage

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out – The Startup Genome Project

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

In April 2010 I received an email that said, “I’m an incoming Stanford student in the fall and working on a project that a number of people suggested I get in touch with you about.&#. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Ok, I get a lot of these. Hmm, now I’m getting intrigued.

Technical Cofounder

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley

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

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Focus on the output metrics of that part of the product, and you make the problem a lot more clear. I had the opportunity to pioneer this approach to funnel analysis at IMVU, where it became a core part of our customer development process. Labels: customer development , split-test 7comments: Editor said.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

In a lot of cases, this requires a lot of energy invested in talking to customers or metrics and analytics. In each case, a single maintainer recorded items emailed by newsgroup readers, and posted updated versions of his list from time to time." In fact, MVP is quite annoying, because it imposes extra overhead.

San Francisco

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

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

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Finally the day came, we unleashed the landing page, emailed our existing customers, and started advertising online. If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order?

Demand

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

SuperMac War Story 6: Building The Killer Team – Mission, Intent.

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And the results weren’t the traditional PR metrics of number of articles or inches of ink. We were constantly creating metrics to see the effects of different PR messages, channels and audiences on end-user purchases. It wasn’t measured by how busy you were, it was measured by results. I couldn’t care less about those. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Once that responsibility has been assigned, have that new person email the whole company with the results of the analysis. Each five whys email is a teaching document. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? This last step is difficult, but I think its very helpful.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 24, 2009 The metrics and levers of engagement, presentation on Engagement Loops for Facebook Developer Garage SF Ill be presenting a talk at the Facebook Developer Garage SF Wednesday evening. A few days ago, I received a great email from Warhammer Online. Thoughts?

Metrics

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral

Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

They exchange countless emails, and hes being constantly interrupted and being asked to clarify exactly what the spec means. The fourth spec exists only in these emails, which are changing the design in an ad-hoc fashion. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco

San Francisco Management Software Review Product

Introduction to Growth Hacking for Startups

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

The term “Growth Hacking”, invented by Sean Ellis , and made popular by Andrew Chen , a Silicon valley marketer and entrepreneur, is a combination of two disciplines – marketing and coding: Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of “How do I get customers for my product?”

API

API Viral Startup Retention

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

Please email me if you are interested. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

SuperMac War Story 4: Repositioning SuperMac – “Market Type” at.

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

When we looked at the color graphics board market, our competitors had defined the market as one measured by technical metrics: screen resolution, number of bits of color, screen refresh rates, acceleration, etc. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that what we had to do was to tell our story around one key metric performance ?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California

Which Fundraising Round Should You Skip?

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reason is that b2b fundraising is largely driven by data and metrics, and pre-seed dollars usually don’t get you to many meaningful data points. Unlike in B2B, you don’t necessarily want to use a second-seed round to get to metrics that every investor will appreciate. Experienced founders: B2B. Experienced founders: Consumer.

Dilution

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage

How Customer Development Failed Us

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. Along the way we were fortunate to meet Steve, develop strategic partnerships, and raise a series A round of investment. So how did Customer Development fail us?

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer California

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

CTO

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 4, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Agile

Agile Software 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. Its now a technique I recommend for any web-based startup.

SEM

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. Time-to-complete-a-sale is not a bad metric for validated learning at this stage.

Customer

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Labels: product development Speed up or slow down? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

At least, not in the traditional sense of trying to squeeze every tenth of a point out of a conversion metric or landing page. Instead, we try to accelerate with respect to validated learning about customers. Even if it shows improvement in some micro metric, does that invalidate the overall design? No one feature is to blame.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design

Lean Startup at Scale

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

But we couldn''t have identified this without having clear metrics (that high bug count) to assess our development process. On Customer Development in a growing company, Wyatt offered the following advice: Wyatt: We''ve employed a number of systems in the organization that keep all of us close to the customer.

Lean

Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile

He's Only in Field Service

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

And other startups are in a New Market — creating a market from scratch (like Apple with the iPhone, or iPod/iTunes.) (“Market Type&# radically changes how you sell and market at each step in Customer Development. steve Terence Pua , on July 31, 2009 at 12:20 am Said: You need email reply notifications Yes, got it.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Agile Lean

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ▼ June (3) What is a startup?

Technical Review

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Work in small batches

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. March 6, 2009 7:28 AM Damon Edwards said.

San Francisco

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

If you have a minute, post your answers in a comment, or email me. As a shoestring entrepreneur with a SaaS (well, not really, but sort of) offering that we present to very large companies (think 10K+), I love your common sense suggestions about metrics and testing. 4) More posts about metrics, scaling, and online games.

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC

Create Structure out of the Gate and You’ll Thank Yourself Later

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Early customer development talks are going great which keeps the team really excited. No updates, screen comps, or metrics have been publicly shared yet. This is all a part of the normal product and customer development process,” the CEO tells the team. Three months in, the burn is now at $70k/month.

Burn Rate

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

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? Startup Visa update ► February (5) Kiwi lean startup + Australia next Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Beware of Vanity Metrics (for Harvard Business Rev. Or maybe I am just not understanding this theory in full.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

I used to think that investments in metrics were a form of waste. Customers dont care if you have good metrics, only if you have a good product. The only reason we learned the art of metrics-based decision making at IMVU was out of necessity. that justify decisions already made. I think it was $350 the next, and so on.

San Francisco

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC

Lessons Learned: When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to.

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. Thats what business is designed to do. Any thoughts?

San Francisco

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile

Lessons Learned: Employees should be masters of their own time

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 3, 2009

In order to give people the data they need to apply the strategy, we were very open with our company metrics, making all reports generally available and easy to run. When you think a certain feature will give a 50% boost to a given metric, and it only eeks out a 5% boost, you cant spin that as failure. March 9, 2009 8:35 AM Eric said.

Employee

Employee San Francisco Lean Software Review

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

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? It strokes your ego.

Audience

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean

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

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Today, when I talk to startup founders, the most common answer I get to the question "do you talk to your customers?" is something like "yes, I personally answer the customer support emails." The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Dont confuse passion with volume.

San Francisco

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment

Lessons Learned: Continuous integration step-by-step

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Generally, if all tests pass, its happy (a green build) and if any tests fail, it will notify you by email. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? It runs all the automated tests youve written, and keeps track of the results. Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Software Review

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment

Customer Development is Not a Focus Group

Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Trending Sources

Lessons Learned: What is customer development?

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out – The Startup Genome Project

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

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

Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Can You Trust Any vc's Under 40?

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

SuperMac War Story 6: Building The Killer Team – Mission, Intent.

Lessons Learned: Five Whys

Lessons Learned: The metrics and levers of engagement.

Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Introduction to Growth Hacking for Startups

Lessons Learned: About the author

SuperMac War Story 4: Repositioning SuperMac – “Market Type” at.

Which Fundraising Round Should You Skip?

How Customer Development Failed Us

Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Kent Beck keynote, "To Agility, and Beyond"

Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Lessons Learned: Built to learn

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Speed up or slow down? (for Harvard Business Review)

Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Lean Startup at Scale

He's Only in Field Service

Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business Review)

Lessons Learned: Work in small batches

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

Create Structure out of the Gate and You’ll Thank Yourself Later

Lessons Learned: Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for.

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

Lessons Learned: Throwing away working code

Lessons Learned: When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to.

Lessons Learned: Employees should be masters of their own time

Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences

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

Lessons Learned: Continuous integration step-by-step

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