Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It was an educational mission to tell the story of who our customers were (and by inference who all the graphics board customers were) and why the current reviews of these graphics boards weren’t adequately measuring what was important to this large market. The head of the PR agency agreed that we would work together as a team.

Silicon Valley 128

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever. This has been their formula for nearly 15 years.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Yet our customers said they got their company and product information from only three publications: MacWorld, MacUser and MacWeek. They said the product reviews in these publications were by far the biggest influence on which card to buy. (This made our PR problem manageable and focused.

Silicon Valley 213

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

Customer Development 229

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

And so, the concept for a digital PR service was born. Using my existing skills and resources (including an old domain name), I tested a productized digital PR offer. About 18 months later, we pivoted our messaging to evolve beyond digital PR. Conduct client development interviews. Image source ). Why this audience?

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. The image above is a piece of cycling awareness street art created by Peter Drew , an artist based in Adelaide, Australia.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes. era&# , but really interested in your take on these “free&# models through the prism of Customer Development. We all know how that ends up.

Silicon Valley 122

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crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 6, 2014

Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD. Crowdsourcing Your Way To What Customers Really Want | Fast Company – crowdspring.co/1oNJIZp. Customer Development 101) – crowdspring.co/1pNIOcD. How to become a mentor – crowdspring.co/RVMhdc.

Social Media 94

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The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

People told me it was impossible to have our product launch featured on one of the top tech blogs without spending $3,000 on some fancy PR agency. Especially because I could have used this time on marketing, sales and customer development, and actually helped our business move forward.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring PR Agencies. Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” That’s smart I thought, a real clear charter for PR. The same is true for hiring the PR agency. They learned a ton.

PR 321

PR China Lean Channel 321

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 139

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand. Or by a VP of Marketing who talks “branding&# , SEO/SEM, PR agency, etc.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Talk to your customers or prospects. You have only 10 customers? No customers at all? If you’re starting out, what you need is customer development, not conversion optimization. You need to talk to people. No problem! both tests Monday to Sunday). Conclusion.

Conversion 124

Conversion Framework Technical Review Analytics 124

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

It’s the kind of thing you can repeat in an elevator, simple to understand , universally applicable , and, most importantly, doesn’t burden your tech team with a lot of custom development. Often times, that comes in the form of analytics, which is what a biz dev partner would want in order to check on the success of the deal.

Early Stage 127

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 127

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Wait a minute, what about the rest of Customer Development ? Aren’t you going to validate your hypotheses by first getting some customers?”. Now I was confused, and I asked, “Well what do you guys believe – Customer Development or launch on a schedule?” Filed under: Ardent , Customer Development.

Customer Development 316

Customer Development Singapore Channel PR 316

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

It must cross boundaries, working cooperatively with other divisions in your business such as sales, marketing, social media, PR, product development, and the like. A successful reference program needs significant resources and a strong rollout that involves the entire company.

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Understanding the Consequences of the Business Decisions You Fudge On – [link]. Good, in-depth look at the economics of food trucks – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring PR Agencies. Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.” That’s smart I thought, a real clear charter for PR. The same is true for hiring the PR agency. They learned a ton.

PR 213

PR China Lean Channel 213

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link]. Using mTurk to interview 100 customers (in 4 hours) | Customer Development Labs - [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. I was an aggressive, young and a very tactical VP of marketing at Ardent , a supercomputer company – who really hadn’t a clue about the relationship between profound beliefs, customer discovery and strategy.

Business Model 355

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 355

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. Startups could now get a first version of a product out to customers in weeks/months rather than months/years. In the new bubble PR may be your new best friend, so invest in it.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Product Startup RSS 271

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

— Andy explained that, years ago, a PR person’s was to turn so-called influencers like journalists and analysts into advocates for your client. Positioning must be authentic, she stresses: Here’s the thing about great positioning or great PR: You have to be aligned with who you are. Filed under: Customer Development.

Washington 299

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 299

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. It’s easy to simply buy customers, but only real value makes them stay.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

The Startup Toolkit

DECEMBER 12, 2012

For example, succeeding at PR before you have retention is actively unhelpful. Customer Development and UX both have good tools for doing this. You need to decide which questions matter to your particular business, and then obsess about answering those. When you talk to your team or VCs, bring them back to your own questions.

Lean 54

Lean Startup Metrics Retention 54

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Intellectual Property 175

Intellectual Property Aggregator Startup Angel Investor 175

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

It had no PR agency. It was the model for almost every military startup that followed, and its alumni who lived through its engineering and customer-centric culture had a profound effect on the rest of the valley, the intelligence community and the country. ESL had no marketing people. It shunned publicity.

Silicon Valley 280

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Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Noah Parsons says, “Start collecting contact information for interested, prospective customers. Develop a landing page, do some lightweight advertising, and generally reach out to as many potential customers as you can.”. Do your own PR. Whether or not you’ve got the budget, doing your own PR to start with is a good idea.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

The Message Sitting around a conference room table brainstorming messages that might resonate with customers, or worse having a PR agency doing that for you, is a firing offense in a small company. You should be brainstorming messages with current and potential customers. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 207

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

However, the CEO as the “Rock Star&# always reminded me of why I fired any PR agency that was getting more press than the company it represented. KC Reply steveblank , on June 24, 2009 at 1:20 pm Said: Ken, HP was a pretty complex story. I don’t know enough about the company other than what I read in the press.

Silicon Valley 192

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. Every second you spend dealing with selling that, you could’ve been getting PR that gets a hundred signups that are cheap to support and deal with. Edwin: There are a million others. Jason: There’s a million, but people love them.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

PR and publicity drive attention…to drive sales. It is simply getting customers. On Sean’s GrowthHackers.com , categories include… So, essentially everything from customer development and onboarding to persuasion and social marketing fall under the umbrella of growth hacking. Conducted Customer Development.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Streak , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). This information is used to automate screening during origination.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 133

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ReadWriteStart

MARCH 27, 2011

This is lean development without any customer development. Every startup needs PR, but this is even more true of flips. Creating quick buzz and social proof is not the same a developing long-term customer development, but it pays off. The focus is on building. Create Buzz.

Lean 144

Lean Startup Agile Coder 144

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

about the earliest days of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, it’s worth checking out this post from serial entrepreneur Steve Blank.

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