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Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.
In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. To begin with, the product development model completely ignores a fundamental truth about startups and new products. —– Part 2 of the CustomerDevelopment Manifesto to follow.
I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the CustomerDevelopment model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” It’s an impressive portfolio.
CustomerDevelopment is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not CustomerDevelopment.
This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the CustomerDevelopment Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.
Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.
Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. Large companies were acquiring technology startups just to get in the game at the same absurd prices.
Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the CustomerDevelopment Methodology. link] [link] I guess you could call it the “Continuous Wave Radio&# technology period. After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C. Who would have known?
For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of CustomerDevelopment , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The CustomerDevelopment process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.
In it Shackleton defined courage and leadership. corporation – starting a new technology division bringing disruptive technology to market at General Electric. One of GE’s new divisions – GE’s Energy Storage – has been given the charter to bring an entirely new battery technology to market.
CustomerDevelopment ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. CustomerDevelopment) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended.
Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military. China CustomerDevelopmentTechnology Venture Capital'
PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about CustomerDevelopment and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). You can get away with effective behavior in a large company. Blog at WordPress.com.
They knew the technology trendsetters in their fields and got us in front of them. In short order they learned how to transition from being customers on the receiving end of a sales pitch to giving one. Blog at WordPress.com.
Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. The result of monopolist behavior is that innovation in that sector dies – until technology/consumer behavior passes them by. By then the company has lost the ability to compete as an innovator.
Convergent Technologies When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies , a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of Silicon Valley.” Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder?
CustomerDevelopment 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. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Good stuff too.
Meanwhile our company was pouring an enormous amount of dollars into building tools and video compression technology, while also hiring a lot of high-priced Hollywood talent like art directors, and script and story editors. CustomerDevelopment says having a vision, faith and a set of hypotheses are a normal part of the startup experience.
The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or CustomerDevelopment. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. Your results may vary.
However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a CustomerDevelopment process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. , carry on reading.
They were trying to keep up with providing the core services necessary to run the current business and at the same time deal with a flood of well-meaning but uncoordinated ideas about new features, technologies and innovations coming at them from all directions. Ironically, by standing still, they were falling behind.
his next article on SuperMac, “Building the Killer Team – Mission, Intent, and Values&# , Steve further pounds the table on some principles of leadership that I think are [.] on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. Reply How to close a term sheet quickly - Venture Hacks , on April 28, 2009 at 10:43 am Said: [.]
Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. Zilog produced one of the first 8-bit microprocessors , the Z-80 (competing at the time with Intel’s 8080 , Motorola 6800, and MOS Technology 6502.) Burnout can turn productive employees into emotional zombies and destroy careers.
It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) I was living the dream – working 80 hour weeks and all the technology I could drink with a fire hose.) I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work.
New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Blog at WordPress.com.
CustomerDevelopment/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 CustomerDevelopment describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.
I didn’t recognize the behavior at the time, but anyone who loves technology and gadgets has at one time or another has bought a technology toy – USB memory sticks, iPod Shuffles, umbrellas with LED lights, alarm clocks that talked, Flip Video Cameras, etc. We accidently had a product with the Novelty Effect.
Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Their leadership has shown incredible foresight in engineering an amazing economic engine and formidable military. China CustomerDevelopmentTechnology Venture Capital'
What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Heres my take.
If you are a practitioner of CustomerDevelopment, ESL was doing it before most us were born. At ESL Military Intelligence Was No Longer an Oxymoron Perry not only took his best managers, but he also took his customers, and his desire to build a company culture that was the antithesis of working for a phone company.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.) It was my ex boss from Convergent Technologies, “Steve we’ve all just resigned from Convergent and we’re starting a new company.
TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to CustomerDevelopment are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of CustomerDevelopment and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.
Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.” Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « The Curse of a New Building Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 1 » 33 Responses William , on May 18, 2009 at 5:44 am Said: Heh.
I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”
So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, CustomerDevelopment, Lean Startups, etc. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children. Blog at WordPress.com.
The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard CustomerDevelopment lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of CustomerDevelopment, where we are today, and where does CustomerDevelopment go, and how you can help get it there.
This post describes a solution – the CustomerDevelopment Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.
We had been attempting to compete by their rules with the same types of technology messages. Up until now all the graphics board companies supplied “technology”, and it was up to the customers to figure out which of these arcane specs was best for their business. Very much in addition to the text.
We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. Now we needed to put the tactical programs in place to make this repositioning strategy happen. Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential?
Moore’s technology adoption lifecycle tells us to find a client. Build the client’s visualization with your technology, but your technology is not the product. The products you develop in the bowling alley are there to carry your technology and get it adopted. No, linearity in business is a tragic myth.
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