Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” On first glance it appears as if they are spending to much energy in the vertical portion of the jump, relative to the horizontal portion. We witness similar behavior in corporate finance.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 270

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. You might as well bring your lucky rabbits foot to the VC meeting. Just as a refresher.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

So what’s wrong the product development model? The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.)

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone – investors, customers, friends, etc. You literally have to take your vision of the opportunity and against all rational odds assemble financing, and a team to help you execute. And that’s just to get started.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

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Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Later on in this same company’s life, sales will become the pointy end and product development moves to a supporting role. It varies by company and changes over time.

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Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 133

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Corporate Finance One of the ironies in Silicon Valley is that the two companies which gave birth to its entire semiconductor industry weren’t funded by venture capital. Since neither of these startups were yet doing any business with the military—and venture capital as we know it today did not exist, they had to look elsewhere for funding.

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Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 183

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1 « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1 – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40?

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Arthur Rock, an investment banker at Hayden Stone in New York (who helped broker the financing of Fairchild) moved out to San Francisco in 1961 and partnered with Tommy Davis. The first limited partnership that lasted for a while was formed by Davis and Rock in 1961.

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news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

We already have some competitors in the vertical and while there is no point in trying to hide the actual idea, there are differences in the way we implement stuff that can get us an advantage over the competition. >> His quote on the subject, "no amount of finance will cure mismanagement".

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Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Managewith.us - Collaborative Task Manager Mavenlink - manage project communications, documents, schedules, budgets, payments Industrial Logic – Agile eLearning Misc Office Help Google Apps – cloud mail server, calendar, docs, etc. It’s more reference material. Thus, these pages. I’ll add more as time goes on.

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