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. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built. Eric Ries, who took my first Customer Development class at Berkeley, had the insight that Customer Development should be paired with Agile Development.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

The framework of the class looks like this: Life Science/Health Care is not a single Category. Therapeutics Validation = 18 months to a first deal with a potential customer – well before FDA trials, and even before preclinical stage. Digital Health Customer = typically consumer end users. Digital Health (Starting at 2:40).

Lean 266

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 266

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2021

The key to understanding value propositions is in building interviews that are based on a set of hypotheses (about the problem, the stakeholder and potential solutions to be explored) and data to be captured while using minimum viable products (just enough “product” to increase the efficacy of a conversation and increase the speed of learning).

Curation 353

Curation Technical Review Lean Australia 353

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime , the first multimedia framework for a computer. And they were right. We knew something our CEO didn’t.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

– while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products. Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “Here’s how smart I am, and isn’t this a great product, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the story of a team’s 10-week journey and hard-won learning and discovery.

Lean 417

Lean Security Asia SBIR 417

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Editor’s note: At a recent team meeting at NextView, we looked at the high number of startups we invested in which were pre-product at the time. The question arose: What is a seed VC’s process like when a company is pre-product? A big chunk of our investments at NextView have been made pre-product.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Palantir is a deep technical play and we had a lot of code to write just to fill out the product vision that we had already validated with potential customers; it took us two straight years of development to go from early prototypes to software that could be used in production. So what was going on?

Lean 167

Lean Startup Software Engineering Agile 167

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. Repeat, learning whether to iterate, pivot or restart until you have something that customers love. Waterfall Development. Here’s how.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

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. Many of them get hung up on understanding how to select the right minimal viable product. Your mission is your baby.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. We didnt think wed able to compete with that.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

In this guide, you’ll learn how to differentiate your business and attract your ideal customers by creating a unique selling proposition. How a unique selling proposition (USP) attracts better customers and builds your brand (and where marketers get it wrong). Who your customers are. Segment your customers.

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

32 students were scattered across the globe and given a seemingly impossible assignment- they had 10 weeks to understand and then solve a real Dept of Defense problem – by interviewing 100 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, et al while simultaneously building a series of minimal viable products – all while never leaving their room.

Oakland 315

Oakland Asia Lean Video 315

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. He wrote it in 2000, and as far as I know has never updated it.

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. Gore , I’ve found two corporate strategy tools developed by other smart people helpful in bridging Lean Startups with Corporate Innovation.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Growth Hacking comes to solve a very common problem in consumer startups: getting to the first x thousand/million users quickly once the product has launched and the hype has passed. If a startup is pre-product/market fit, growth hackers can make sure virality is embedded at the core of a product.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

The company teams they work with are usually highly motivated entrepreneurs trying to engage in extensive product and customer development efforts for a product they don’t typically have a full vision of, for a customer whose needs are opaque, and for a use case which is ambiguous.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

In my last article I discussed the role of the leader of the product organization. I want every product leader to feel considerable urgency and importance around this need. ” This note discusses the technique that I use and advocate for providing a framework for ongoing skills assessment and development.

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

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.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Agile 128

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Understanding the left-side of the mission model canvas ( activities, resources , partners , and costs) forces all teams to ask, “Are we building a product for a DOD/IC customer only or do we have a “dual-use” product that could be sold commercially and get funded by venture capital?”. This post is a continuation of the series.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 29, 2010

I believe it means were achieving product/market fit for a set of ideas. Tactics were discussed out of context, and there wasnt an overarching framework for figuring out what works for what kinds of companies, industries, and stages of growth. Sure, everyone knows that getting customer feedback is important. Congratulations.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

One of the topics that raised heated debate was whether I had conflated technical design with product design , because I made the admittedly counter-intuitive claim that sometimes good technical design actually leads to increased technical debt. The argument itself got me thinking a lot about design and its role in building products.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Reply Alan Urech , on May 13, 2009 at 7:03 am Said: As a Moot Bowl Judge who just returned from that competition (May 7-10, 2009), I think that Business Plans provide a framework for the judges and founders to understand the entire business. Funny, but with their feedback, we changed several parts of the product.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. Since I began incorporating the Investment Readiness Level framework I’ve made three observations. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Sacramento 314

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 314

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? Companies in cosmetics and perfume production pivoted their production lines as well. The Market Opportunity Navigator is a framework for this identification process.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

In 2010, Alex Osterwalder published his book, Business Model Generation , where he created a framework for what Tim called “business identity.” ” Blank’s main innovation here is what he calls Customer Development, which is a methodology for learning and validating market needs through detailed customer communication and follow up.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review Way back when the money was doled out, the team made a compelling pitch about the large market that was going to adopt their new innovative product or service. Safely because it is clear that the manager in question didnt do his homework.

Hockey Stick 105

Hockey Stick San Francisco Entrepreneur Lean 105

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. My imagination ran 24/7 and to me every problem was a challenge to solve and new product to create. whether a product, service, or work of art?—?results

Entrepreneur 335

Entrepreneur Framework Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

To be honest I built the class out of frustration watching schools teach aspiring entrepreneurs that all they need to know is how to write a business plan or how to sit in an incubator building a product. using the business model canvas as the framework. Quotes from customers that illustrated learnings and insights.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Lean 334

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 334

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

This 100+-year-old company has seven major product divisions, each with hundreds of products. Currently a market leader, they’re watching a new and relentless competitor with more money, more people and more advanced technology appear seemingly out of nowhere, attempting to grab customers and gain market share. See the diagram.

Framework 401

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 401

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

Search 326

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 326

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. Were startups failing because of product failures or was there some other failure mode? a customer before you try and build a business. Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.]

Product Development 163

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 163

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I propose here a framework for prioritizing your platform buildout. Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. Customer Development. VCplatform.com.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78