Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2010

Whether they’re using a formal process to search for a business model like Customer Development or just trial and error, startup founders are intuitively goal-seeking to optimize their business model. The Customer Development model that I write and teach about is the entrepreneur’s version of Boyds’ OODA loop.).

Business Model 335

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Founders and entrepreneurial employees prefer operating in a chaotic environment with multiple unknowns.

Agile 334

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 334

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. Filed under: Customer Development.

San Jose 261

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 261

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. With a few more questions I learned that the code base, which had now grown large, still had vestiges of the original exploratory code written back in the early days when the company was in the discovery phase of Customer Development.

Part-Time VPE 325

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 325

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

I could recite requirements and concepts of operations from memory. It was only after returning to Stanford and taking the Lean Launchpad class that I became convinced that a radically different, customer-centric approach was the solution. Filed under: Air Force , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 271

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. Companies specializing in components and systems that operated in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum sprouted faster than fruit trees in the valley orchards.

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 302

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about Customer Development 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.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 332

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. “Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and. We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum.

Intellectual Property 290

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 290

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Finnish private investors don’t yet have enough time-in-grade to have developed good pattern recognition skills, and most lack operating backgrounds. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Stay tuned.

Lean 417

Lean Security Asia SBIR 417

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company’s operational performance. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. But the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money. And they’re just getting started. Congratulations.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Let’s start with how much value you think you’ll create for your customer if they use your product in terms of hours saved, costs avoided, extra sales, better conversion rates or whatever.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

At the same time every computer company was writing its own operating system. Soon standard operating systems (e.g. It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Then they adopted standard microprocessors (e.g.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Yet in our case the product, the machine as delivered from engineering, was a blank, featureless computer with just an operating system and compilers. In most other companies a product-marketing department was responsible for the pricing, positioning and promotion of the product.

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Lean was designed to inform the founders’ vision while they operated frugally at speed. Startups now had tools that sped up the search for customers, ensured that what was being built met customer needs, reduced time to market and slashed the cost of development. The result?

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

A Proof of Concept center, which is not the same as a full-fledged incubator, would also be responsible to develop a companywide core competence in business model and open innovation design and a VC-like, staged-risk funding decision criteria for new market opportunities.

Programming 273

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 273

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. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. The most common mistake startups make is assuming they can operate the same way big companies do, and expect success with little to no feedback from potential customers. This is a customer development problem. Website Analysis.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Secondly, they had an owned & operated (O&O) website – Google.com – and Overture had shut down GoTo.com at the request of their very profitable and large distribution partners. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

A message that is brilliant today and gets the press writing about you and customers begging to buy your product could have been met with blank stares two years ago and may be obsolete next year. In crafting your messages, remember that all messages operate in a context that may have an expiration date.

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. It’s why all of you operated so well in the unpredictable environment that all startups face.” Let me know what you think.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » 16 Responses Jon Ziskind , on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 am Said: Steve – Great post and really great advice.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

“And, oh by the way, can you write the manuals for the operators while you’re at it.&# As I poured over the system schematics, I figured out how to put together a course to teach system theory, operations and maintenance. Are You Single?

Agile 269

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 269

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. There was a lot of interest. We found the need, but no payers.

Columbus 249

Columbus Entrepreneur Cofounder Ohio 249

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

And some of their best and brightest have ended up in the organizations like the 2nd Bureau, Unit 61398 tasked euphemistically for “Computer Network Operations.”. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2010

The question is whether you are born with innate entrepreneurial talent or whether you can be taught to operate like an entrepreneur. Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital. Tags: Customer Development Venture Capital. Taking Sides. Entrepreneurs are born not made. Entrepreneurs are made not born.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley Venture Capital China New York 235

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

A few other credible ones would include Chairman of the Board (COB), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers.

CTO Hire 227

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 227

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

For the next several weeks, the entire E.piphany engineering department worked with Autodesk’s sales operation team to build a prototype using real Autodesk data. Filed under: Customer Development , E.piphany , Marketing. A Match Made in Heaven. We needed a selling strategy that took all of this into account.

Forecast 299

Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 299

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2019

As the conversation progressed, we agreed about the ways to manage projects using a few operating principles of Lean/Agile project management (without ever mentioning the words Lean or Agile.). In both managing down and up we needed a very different project management mindset. Lean Project Management Philosophy. So our discussion was fun.

Agile 65

Agile Lean Leadership Conversion 65

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. The first reaction from my CEO was, “that’s why you’re running the department.” And yes, we could have built a top-down, command-and-control hierarchy. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

It seemed to make sense to have have all the parties represented at the committee, so lots of people attended – program managers who controlled the budget, the developers responsible for maintaining and enhancing the current product and building new ones, and representatives from the operating divisions who needed and would use these products.

Incubator 319

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 319

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

I know that this all seems obvious now with the movements started by Steven Blank ( Four Steps of Epiphany ) with the whole Customer Development processes / Lean Startup movements also popularized by people like Eric Ries. What changed for us was Tim Barker arrived. And he gave them all early access to our prototypes for reaction.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

And by product, I mean the creation of new hardware, services, software, tools, operations, tradecraft, etc. As companies and government agencies get larger, they start to value the importance of “process” over the “product.” People who manage processes are not the same people as those who create product.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But the team believed adding video as an integral part of an operating system and user experience (where there had only been text and still images) would be transformative. At the time no one (including Apple) knew exactly what consumers were going to do with multimedia, it was still pre-Internet. It was fun watching it happen.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190