Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 252

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

And then specifically there’s surely some social proof dynamics as well — I’ve always believed that if Homebrew commits to your seed round the risk of not raising the amount you want basically goes to zero (equally so, since we see many opportunities from coinvestors, there’s often already capital coalescing around the startup). Nor Do VCs.

Seed Stage 102

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 102

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

A startup is not just about the idea, it’s about testing and then implementing the idea. I was driving home from the BIO conference in San Diego last month and had lots of time for a phone call with Dave, an ex student and now a founder who wanted to update me on his Customer Discovery progress. In fact, it wasn’t even a startup.

Cofounder 336

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Coder 336

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Startups are the search to find order in chaos. At a board meeting last week I watched as the young startup CEO delivered bad news. Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. A few investors suggested he add new product features, others suggested firing the VP of Sales.

Business Model 335

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 335

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! Listen Close: 5 Tips for Small Business and Startups – crowdspring.co/1oNwUSD. 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

DECEMBER 1, 2010

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. And what the market needed would, of course, be exactly what we had envisioned.

Lean 322

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 322

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2013

Like most startup entrepreneurs, when I began my first company in 1999 I had no formal sales experience. I did have the wherewithal to visit potential customers and try to understand the pain points that I thought could be solved with our solution. This article originally appeared on Inc.com.

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Sales Startup Framework Search 393

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. Insufficient capital, over investment, and low sales are just some of the reasons leading to this sobering statistic. As a startup owner, what can you do to improve your chances? Key ideas from the book include the following: 1.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&#

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) They went to work gathering deep knowledege of what makes successful Internet startups. Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. better user growth.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. 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.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology.

Lean 120

Lean Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder Channel 120

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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 222

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 222

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." " Today I had two conversations with early stage startups (see Free CTO Consulting ).

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Putting customers first. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

If you’re a startup trying to disrupt an existing business you need to read The Fixer by Bradley Tusk and Regulatory Hacking by Evan Burfield. This allows them to quickly find product/market fit. Except when they’re in a regulated market. But regulated markets are different. A Playbook for Entering a Regulated Market.

Marketing 326

Marketing Startup Government SEC 326

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Business Model Design Meets Customer Development.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. 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. I was a great marketer.

Business Model 355

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 355

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

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. He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 239

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. This year, for the first time, we've added a day of workshops and site visits to The Lean Startup Conference. Lean startup principles work differently in different environments.

Lean 154

Lean Cofounder Analytics Startup 154

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? Was the company attempting to introduce faster and better products to an existing market? No, not really.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 161

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

After seeing the process work so well for scientists and engineers in the NSF, we hypothesized that we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently. gather data essential to customer partnerships/collaboration/purchases before doing the science.

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

When it comes to making money online, business and personal branding are huge drivers of sales and influence. Company branding builds trust and an emotional connection between businesses and potential customers. And according to Forbes, brand loyalty is a big driver in closing sales and selling online. Custom development.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development.

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development 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.

Customer Development 255

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

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.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

From manufacturing to sales to finance, the supply chain routinely fails to command the respect it deserve. For manufacturing startups, here are several ways to achieve effective supply chain management: Understand Your Supply Chain Elements. Too many startups mistakenly believe that their “widget” comes from one source.

Management 145

Management Forecast Los Angeles San Francisco 145

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2024

One of the most exciting things a startup CEO in a business-to-business market can hear from a potential customer is, “We’re excited. This can be the beginning of a profitable customer relationship or a disappointing sinkhole of wasted time, money, resources, and a demoralized engineering team.

Founder 378

Founder Engineer Sales Conversion 378

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

My startup career started on the bottom, installing process control equipment inside auto assembly plants and steel mills (in awe of the complexity of the systems that delivered finished products.) It took me a decade to work my way up to VP of Marketing and then CEO. Up From the Bottom. Great careers start by peeling potatoes.

Thailand 334

Thailand Engineer Customer Development SEO 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 290

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 290

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. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329