crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2014

[Customer] Retention is King (good insights on measurement) – crowdspring.co/1haiyJt. 5 Mistakes Every Startup Founder SHOULD Make – crowdspring.co/1pNJ2R1. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD. Crowdsourcing Your Way To What Customers Really Want | Fast Company – crowdspring.co/1oNJIZp.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Software Review 94

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring PR Agencies. Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” That’s smart I thought, a real clear charter for PR. They learned a ton. Hiring Channel Sales. “So It’s wrong.

PR 321

PR China Lean Channel 321

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Engineers are offenders in this category too, but so is any gender-segregated activity, like an all-female PR or marketing team. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Good, in-depth look at the economics of food trucks – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

The full formula works like this: runway = cash on hand / burn rate # iterations = runway / speed of each iteration Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought theyd be in (see Founders at Work for dozens of examples). No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

If you’re a non-technical founder, while your team is building and refining your product, you’ve got to figure out what to do with your time. 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.

Early Stage 123

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 123

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

When you read stories of successful startups in the popular and business press, you usually hear about how the founders anticipated several of these challenges in their initial vision. What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. (For and for which customer?

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite if you don’t have any. Think of profound beliefs as “strong opinions loosely held.”

Business Model 355

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 355

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Whats striking about these stories, if you get past the PR hype, are two very important themes: These prodigies were self-taught, and had a fundamental fascination with technology from a very young age. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring PR Agencies. Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” That’s smart I thought, a real clear charter for PR. They learned a ton. Hiring Channel Sales. “So It’s wrong.

PR 213

PR China Lean Channel 213

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Shawn immediately said the name I had given the four steps was confusing – I had called it market development – he suggested that I call it Customer Development – and the name stuck. Founders should understand what the customer hopes to accomplish , or what their job to be done is. Final Thoughts.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

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. Andy Cunningham , founder and CEO of Cunningham Collective. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were. Andy Cunningham. They don’t know what you do.

Washington 299

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 299

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. In the new bubble PR may be your new best friend, so invest in it.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Intellectual Property 175

Intellectual Property Aggregator Startup Angel Investor 175

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

In the meantime, I think we have a good explanation for what all those PR dollars are being spent trying to obscure. Labels: product development 2comments: Anonymoussaid. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Dont fall for it - its a trap. Great post!

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

Bill Perry the founder of ESL, is now acknowledged as one of the founders of the entire field of National Reconnaissance , working the NSA and the CIA in programs to intercept and evaluate Soviet missile telemetry and communications intelligence. It had no PR agency. ESL had no marketing people. It shunned publicity.

Silicon Valley 280

Silicon Valley RSS California Washington 280

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The higher the vanity ratio, the more effective the PR. Paul quotes one of his founders like this: “Thats the actual beauty in the off-the-record-ness: you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up.&# It helps companies with PR. It makes successful founders famous.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean PR Metrics 167

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . HOF Capital is currently developing a proprietary sourcing tool to automatically filter for potential deal prospects that fit our criteria. Pitchbot.vc is an AI bot which helps companies refine their sales pitch to VCs.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even worse, entrepreneurs are faced with a constant barrage of vanity metrics from competitors and other companies engaged in PR. That’s what you pay PR firms for: to get an article written that is entirely factual and yet still provides positive spin for your company. The PR firm helpfully left out that context.)

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Metrics Lean PR 154

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 20, 2011

Product management and customer development, KISSmetrics. Co-founder, Backblaze. Founder, House of Mikko. Co-founder and CTO, Sharethrough. rfan622 How Listening to Customers Helped Us Raise $700K in Seed Funding Mariya Genzel. Co-founder and CTO, Saygent. Founder, BlueSpark. Founder, Tout.

Czech Republic 114

Czech Republic Costa Rica Brazil Romania 114

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

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. Andy Cunningham , founder and CEO of Cunningham Collective. Joining me in the Stanford University studio were. Andy Cunningham. They don’t know what you do.

Washington 120

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 120

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

The idea is to build a hit that would make the founder(s) an appealing and quick talent acquisition (sometimes referred to as an acq-hire). This is lean development without any customer development. Every startup needs PR, but this is even more true of flips. The focus is on building. Create Buzz.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. This "success theater" is occasionally useful for PR or getting through a tough board meeting. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Well, it turns out that to port long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. The long tail apps can easily be ported to or developed on Google App Engine in a third of the time and cost using OrangeScape as an application platform. Enter OrangeScape.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley India Massachusetts 114

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 17, 2010

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. ► May (3) Thank you Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster (WSJ on the.

San Francisco 107

San Francisco Romania Cleveland South Africa 107

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

And Red Room founder/CEO Ivory Madison on popular metrics that everyone should stop using. And Sincerely’s Matt Brezina on the secrets of developing mobile apps quickly. Others are new voices in putting Lean Startup techniques to use and have great case studies to share. And Tendai Charisika on creative ways to get out of the building.

San Francisco 159

San Francisco Lean Houston Engineer 159

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

This is completely analogous to the situation elsewhere on the internet, where launching a new website, product, or service with PR is getting harder and harder. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

This is often a tough concept for engineering founders who believe that if we just tell customers about the features that make their product faster, cheaper, etc. Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Customer Discovery Never Stops. Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing.

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? So you decide to try to reposition around a different value proposition, one that more closely matches what your product is best at.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We Don’t Need Domain Experts When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. Customer Development There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom. Nor was there anyone with game experience on our board. Make sure they are.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I liked the flattering Venture Hacks commentary so much Ill just quote it: Many founders believe that early stage startups are endeavors of execution. The customer is known, the product is known, and all we have to do is act. What happened when we got early press (circa 2004) in violation of our own no-PR rule.

Lean 74

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 74

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

While I love TechCrunch, the post and the quote about the PR agency (“one PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy, throw ethics out the window&# ) left me wondering; how do PR agencies interact with TechCrunch and other blog and review sites? Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry?

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Announce a new product, start its PR campaign, and engage in buzz marketing activities. Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. Do your customers really read TechCrunch? Do some Customer Development instead. Spend your time with renewable sources of customers and iterate.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

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. Startups with huge burn rates – building leases, staff, PR and advertising – ran out of money. ” Fire, Ready, Aim. He just hired Meg Whitman. Then one day it was over.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167