Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Customer Development There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom. The mistake isn’t having a vision and taking risks. Make sure they are.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

portfolios. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? Unfortunately this was reinforced by the many conferences that rushed to espouse the benefits of Web 2.0 and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!,

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. You have to wonder: does the VC you have on your board today have the right skill set to help you succeed in today’s economic environment? What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios. And to be honest, VC’s in this bubble really didn’t care.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

I’ve recently advised a number of emerging private equity and VC funds who are wrestling with the question: What are the highest impact steps they can take to support their portfolio companies? . Almost every private equity and venture capital investor now advertises that they have a platform to support their portfolio companies.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' Part 3, the next post describes the rise of Chinese venture capital. Torch was the rare government program that was run like a startup – iterating and pivoting as it learned and discovered.

Programming 179

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 179

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 28, 2010

kaChing launched a virtual portfolio management game on Facebook in January 2008 and a similar version shortly thereafter on kaChing.com. Because kaChing prefers its portfolio managers to have a long track record, the marketplace launch (i.e., A portfolio manager’s entire track record & holdings had to be disclosed.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment SEC 158

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

When I do a quick mental query of headcount across our entire portfolio of ~30 companies, I think at least 50% and maybe as much as 60% of the entire headcount of our portfolio is in either product or engineering. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. This is a great configuration for a starting team.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Both venture firms sought my advice for their portfolio companies. 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. It was a long way from Ellis Island.) Surprisingly, I enjoyed seeing other startups from an outsider’s perspective.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Rather than pitching their powerpoint idea to potential technical co-founders, solo-founders who take investment from us pair with our developers and customer development team to quickly validate their idea and launch a site. We recently published a case study of how that played out for our portfolio company Snaptrip.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

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. 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.”

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

To move innovation faster, we now have 21 st century tools — Business Model Canvas , Customer Development , Agile Engineering – all adding up to a Lean Startup. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Science and Industrial Policy. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.) I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

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

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Custommade – Marketplace for Customer Products (NextView Portfolio Company). GrabCAD – 3D Community and Collaboration (NextView Portfolio Company). Plastiq – Payments (NextView Portfolio Company).

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Last night at the NY Tech Meetup, John Britton of our portfolio company Twilio showed how it is done. " Solving the Innovator’s Dilemma – Customer Development in a Big Company - Steve Blank , August 23, 2010 One of the ways I learn is to teach. If you do a lot of pitches, spend the six minutes to watch this.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It was also found that “Engaged” customers received 3-4 (or more) reviews of their portfolios and were taking part of on-going conversations where their advisor was soliciting feedback and asking for actual input. Why Are They Referring New Customers Completely Unprompted? Read the full case study here.).

Programming 107

Programming Marketing Analytics Portfolio 107

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Her work included heading Nokia’s location-based services business and app portfolio for emerging markets, which she built from a back-of-a-napkin idea to a 100-person organization with over 10 million users. They act in the interest of their portfolio companies like any investor would.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

We have a portfolio of more than 500 brands and 4000 products and people invite us into their lives more 1.8 For most big, established companies like us, our business models were developed years—even decades ago. in developing these new models. Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan Customer Development'

Lean 331

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 331

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

One of our portfolio companies Scratch first tested their buying concierge concept by replicating the service strictly through email and humans on the back-end. As a firm, we build a portfolio of companies, so we can tolerate a handful of companies that require more time and capital to get to market.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Talking to potential customers and competitors customers. Managers in this area have to take a portfolio approach, promoting ideas that work and might make good candidates for further investment. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams use the Lean Startup toolkit: the Business Model Canvas + Customer Development process + Agile Engineering. These three tools allow startups to focus on the parts of an early stage venture that matter the most: the product, product/market fit, customer acquisition, revenue and cost model, channels and partners.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2012

It only emerges after an intense business model design and search activity based on the customer development process. Companies will have to maintain a portfolio of new business model initiatives, not unlike a venture capital firm, and they will have to accept that maybe only 1 out 10 initiatives might succeed.

Business Model 334

Business Model Customer Development United States Operations 334

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2012

That’s why they invest in a portfolio. Solutions are found by betting on a portfolio of low-cost experiments. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development , Teaching. After 50-years even the smartest VC firms haven’t figured out how to pick one company as the winner.

Portfolio 329

Portfolio California Customer Development Framework 329

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I’ve primarily seen quantitative analytic techniques used in origination , filtering , and in portfolio company recruiting , but technology can be used throughout the nine steps of the private company investing process: The 9 Steps of the Private Company Investing Process. 8) Accelerate portfolio company value. 9% (1 / 12).

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The Renminbi funds have fewer restrictions on what industries the fund can invest in, less regulatory oversight and access to listing a portfolio company in China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 279

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 279

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

VC’s invested their limited partners’ “risk capital” in a portfolio of startups in exchange for illiquid stock. In either case Customer Development provides entrepreneurs with a methodology for being capital efficient. The system worked in predictable and profitable ways. We live in interesting times. Lessons Learned.

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 306

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. To get started, we draw our tree out using Whimsical , a product that I’m a big fan of.).

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

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.

Customer 427

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 427

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 11, 2013

Before this occurs, the sales process is a craft or an art - custom-made by the founder or evangelist sales VP. You dive deep into a customer development process, working closely with a few customers who feed you requirements and are willing to trial an imperfect product that is evolving quickly.

Sales 50

Sales Technical Review Software Review B2B 50

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves. How to map stakeholders and systems’ dynamics?

Lean 295

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

They tend to have a multitude of side projects, Github portfolios and hacking workshops on the go at once. Is there a junior or senior developer from a previous gig who will respect you for a previous role and be ready to build their own baby with you? For good passports to the prototype, it comes down to old-fashioned hard work.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The Renminbi funds have fewer restrictions on what industries the fund can invest in, less regulatory oversight and access to listing a portfolio company in China. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 171

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 171