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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

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.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

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. I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. It will be controversial – I know.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - . - 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication? First Principles.

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

And It was after they talked to patients, providers and payers whether they understood the customer segments to reduce market risk by having found product/market fit. gather data essential to customer purchases before doing the science. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Science and Industrial Policy Teaching'

SBIR 321

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 321

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

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. There’s lots of lore, emotion, and misconceptions of what VC’s do or don’t do for entrepreneurs. While there was an occasional bad apple, the public markets rewarded companies with revenue growth and sustainable profits.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. His enthusiastic response was, “This will revolutionize marketing departments!”

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. One of my favorites: “ Judging will include such factors as: Market opportunity, reward to risk, strategy, implementation plan, financing plan, etc.”)

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

His basic point was: If someone, including me, tells you something isn’t a great idea and there’s no market for it there are only two acceptable responses. I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers." Customer Validation 101. Beware of Mentors. Either: "That’s interesting.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. The traditional business plan is an essential organizing and planning document to launch new products in existing companies with known customers and markets. Utah: Entrepreneurial Surprises.

Business Model 285

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 285

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. What I found in Finland was: a whole lot of smart, passionate entrepreneurs who want to build a startup hub in Helsinki.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply One difference between VCs and Entrepreneurs « Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog , on April 20, 2009 at 7:06 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

A big piece of the solution lies in the scalable impact of entrepreneurship and an increase of successful entrepreneurs. Max continued, “That’s why I’m really interested in ways of optimizing the entrepreneurship ecosystem to allow more entrepreneurs to go from idea to reality. I was feeling pretty old.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. And market your brand, not your personality.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

The company loses customers, then revenues and profits decline and it eventually gets acquired or goes out of business. If you’re an entrepreneur, you spend your time worrying about how to get out of the box on the left and move to the right. valued by their existing customers – fairly well. Creative Destruction.

Search 251

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 251

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Almost every entrepreneur I met was using VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We want to make a bet that your Lean Launchpad class can apply the scientific method to market-opportunity identification. I remember thinking, “Wow, whoever’s on the other end of phone sounds just like an entrepreneur, they were asking for the impossible.” Some incubators would have labeled this group too old to be entrepreneurs.

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. The first class was an introduction to the concepts of business model design and customer development. The Adventure Begins.

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter. c-level entrepreneur funding startup titles' Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

At the same time we were educating the press , we began to educate our own marketing department about what exactly we were supposed to be doing inside the company. During the first few weeks I asked each of my department heads what they did for marketing and the company. Titles are not the same as what your job is. This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

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

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Either of the following scenarios makes sense for a new startup going after a large-scale enterprise market: You’ve identified a deep pain at a large company. You hit your network and the road, calling twenty people at large companies, all of whom are in your potential market. You land a contract to build them the solution.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Other Roles in a Startup Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. Reply steveblank , on June 14, 2009 at 2:22 pm Said: Actually this is the mistake most startup entrepreneurs make – particularly in tough economic times. Get customers first.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

One of early surprises of this class for me is finding out that the broad category of “Life Sciences” fails to provide the important nuances of each category to entrepreneurs, investors, educators, policy makers, etc. It turns out that for commercialization, the business model (Customers, Channel, Revenue Model, etc.)

Lean 266

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 266

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

While I was waiting in the lobby to pick up my offer letter, the head of marketing communications (who was to be one of my direct reports) came up to me as I held my just signed employment agreement. OK, let’s start with the basics, who does marketing think our customers are?”

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. One of the key tenets of Customer Development is that your business model is nothing more than a set of untested hypotheses. Business Model Design.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

This is the first way to get video into a computer, we’re going to sell and market this board like there’s no tomorrow. People who aren’t current customers of our graphics boards will get to know our company and brand. That’s every marketeers excuse for putting their kids in an ad.) It was fun watching it happen.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

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. He is a senior advisor to several multinational corporations and a recognized thought leader on corporate innovation, big data, cloud computing, and digital marketing platforms.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

No mainframe or minicomputer company saw any market for these small machines. And truth be told, these early systems were laughable, at first having no disk drives (you used tape cassettes,) no monitors (you used your TV set as a display,) and no high level programming languages. You created it and own it.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 206

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2014

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Content Marketing Will Fail Your Business If You Keep Doing This – crowdspring.co/S2Ivic. Content Marketing Will Fail Your Business If You Keep Doing This – crowdspring.co/S2Ivic.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Software Review 94

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing (WOMM), now largely replaced by Facebook and Twitter. The most common ones I see and salute are CEO, CFO, and CTO.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. Almost every entrepreneur I met was using VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

The early indication from their minimum viable product is that they found early signs of product/market fit. Their immediate problem was that investors, even seed investors, were convinced that the market segment Mei and Bill wanted to enter was littered by failures. How has the market/technology/customers evolved since then?

Bandwidth 302

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 302