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. Heres the catch.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

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.

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Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

. — Teaching students to think like entrepreneurs not accountants. We wanted to teach our students how to think like entrepreneurs not accountants. The startups and the teaching team crafted a challenge for the kids to tackle using the Customer Development methodology, Lean Launchpad tools and the business model canvas.

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Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 335

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

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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.

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Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more.

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Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, establishing a personal brand through a website is critical to success. If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. Here’s the entrepreneur’s guide to getting your first website off the ground. Custom development.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). Clay Hebert , founder of Crowdfunding Hacks. Clay Hebert.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

When they found out, they questioned my decision-making and me as an entrepreneur. How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher.

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Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

I don’t recommend anyone become an entrepreneur. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Jeremy dropped out of Princeton to become an entrepreneur. Wanting to create impact is great. It’s too hard.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. How to Build a Startup (EP245) by Steve Blank: You’ll learn the key steps of the Customer Development process.

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Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. Most entrepreneurs today don’t remember the Dot-Com bubble of 1995 or the Dot-Com crash that followed in 2000. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. He just hired Meg Whitman. And it may work.

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Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 23, 2015

Knowing your customers is the single biggest driver of startup success, and there’s no substitute for getting out of the building to learn about their problems and needs. Jason Young , co-founder of MindBlown Labs , which makes mobile social games to teach young adults about personal finance. And download any of the past shows here.).

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

The founders coming out of the DEC ( Digital Equipment Corporation ) and Intel culture of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. As an early employee I worked all hours of the day, never hesitated to jump on a “ red-eye ” plane to see a customer at the drop of a hat, and did what was necessary to make the company a winner.

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Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 295

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.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Our goal– to inspire, educate and empower hundred’s of thousands of entrepreneurs and help create 10,000 startups. The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

I don’t recommend anyone become an entrepreneur. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Jeremy dropped out of Princeton to become an entrepreneur. Wanting to create impact is great. It’s too hard.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Now you can do it for free, or a few hundred dollars, with one of the many web building tools available, like Shopify or Weebly.

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Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

Kauffman just launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses. 0:41: Don’t outsource Customer Discovery.

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Founder Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Part 1: Bend, Oregon Ecosystem and Entrepreneurs. Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds.

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Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

So will failing to understand your customers. Successful founders have a laser-like focus and commitment; a keen understanding of customers’ needs; and a tenacious spirit, said the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on Sirius XM Channel 111. Reetu Gupta. Mandela Schumacher-Hodge. We made it.”

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Cofounder Entrepreneur India Maryland 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.

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Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2015

Successful entrepreneurs show up a lot and make their own luck. Both of these traits made all the difference for the two latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on Sirius XM Channel 111. Steve : … entrepreneurs make their own luck. … Phil Randazzo. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were.

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Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder Nevada 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Either way, the “hurdle” for successful, scalable startups is high, and it gets higher every day as customer acquisition challenges continue to increase. Without passionate customers, even the most passionate entrepreneur will flounder at best. Dropbox is a great example.

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Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Finally, when everyone else had their turn, the grey-haired VC turned to the founder and said, “If you do what we tell you to do and fail, we’ll fire you. He turned to the other VC’s and added, “That’s why we write the checks and entrepreneurs run the company.”. And if you do what you think is right and you fail, we may also fire you.

Business Model 335

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

One of the attributes of great entrepreneurs is that they are tenacious and relentless. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s our story: We started like most entrepreneurs — an idea, an opportunity, and very little money.

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Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. The next customer segment we tried was startup founders. Technology in search of a market.

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Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 322

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Experienced entrepreneurs We’ve got speakers who are justifiably respected by a lot of entrepreneurs. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. Eric Ries will interview him.

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SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

In both cases, the founder and I brainstormed on ways to shift the product in order to get closer to what I perceived as something that would be great. Neither had done enough customer validation to be able to say the second line that Tristan suggested. Customer Validation 101. Would the consumer one get traction and be viral?

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Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

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.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.&# If it stuck to this theme then I would stand by my top 11. Domain Experience – “Domain experience&# means that the founders have worked in the industry before. I met the CEO Brian Malewicz several times.

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San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Like all entrepreneurs with an idea burning bright, Mei and Bill thought they were the first to invent water, air and fire. And therein lies the catch – investors have longer memories of failures than new entrepreneurs. I suggested they do some research by reading founders’ and investors’ public post-mortems of what went wrong.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary. Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.”

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Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

The email continued, &# The problem I’m working on is that many founders are either making uninformed decisions or inefficiently learning the new skills they need. The solution I’m exploring is a just in time learning methodology that accelerates founders’ learning curve by aggregating relevant content, peers and mentors.&#.

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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. What motivates all these entrepreneurs? What do entrepreneurs look like?

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