Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

I met one recently that is working on a really innovative product, and the stories I heard from their development team made me want to cringe. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. Lets start with what the product manager does.

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post. Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

This is the first post that moves into making specific process recommendations for product development. Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Labels: product development Speed up or slow down? (for This is the speed-up-or-slow-down moment.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

It’s been thirty years, but every once an awhile I still wonder what happened to the rest of their lives. By the time I came back to the United States, he was gone from the company.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Even if SJ has some unique "process" that enables him to come up with killer products (I suspect he is just wired differently from most people and probably has no real idea of how he does it to a point where it is teachable), that doesn't mean that the Lean Startup/Steve Blank's ideas etc have less of a value for the rest of us.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 6, 2008 When NOT to listen to your users; when NOT to rely on split-tests There are three legs to the lean startup concept: agile product development , low-cost (fast to market) platforms , and rapid-iteration customer development. The opportunity was just mind-bogglingly huge.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

The disadvantage is that its methodology was based on the old waterfall model of product development and not the agile and lean methods that startups use today. It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. Customer Development works outside Silicon Valley.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

but rest assured they would be. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Alas, they arent published in a dead-tree medium yet, so I cant say something like "they are the essential reference on my bookcase." No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

So if youre new, consider not paying any attention to the rest of this post, and just diving into the archives, if you havent already. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

One such technique is called Five Whys, which has its origins in the Toyota Production System, and posits that behind every supposedly technical problem is actually a human problem. Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Applied to a start-up, heres how it works.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

You can read the rest of his posts on his blog : Introduction , Part 1 , Part 2.) When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. You can read the rest of his posts on his blog : Introduction , Part 1 , Part 2.) We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

My two cents is that a business plan is the single place to collect your thinking about about your: business model, distribution channel, demand creation plan, financial assumptions, and customer and product development plan. And the rest of the advice on this blog is irrelevant.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

This technique rests on three things: identifying the kinds of work that need to get done, creating the right type of teams for each kind, and steering the company by allocating resources among them. Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit.

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Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

What sets them apart from the rest of the team is that they can project a fearless reality distortion field that they use to recruit, fund raise, pivot and position the company. They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. Customer Development Family/Career/Culture'

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Managing weekly releases got a lot harder once I started doing customer development. Things started to slip. Things started to slip.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 15, 2010

Read the rest here. Read the rest here. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For a little while, the team can resort to the last defense of entrepreneurs in trouble: the promised hockey-stick. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

In the 20 th century corporate skunk works were used to develop disruptive innovation separate from the rest of the company. ——– In the 20 th century companies could be leaders in a market for decades by just focusing on their core product(s). They were the hallmark of innovative corporations. Lessons Learned.

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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. Who are the payers?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Starting instead from a position where feedback cycle time is the priority and allowing quality to ratchet up as the product matures provides a more natural lead in to continuous deployment. The rest of the post, which you can read here , discusses the application of these principles to other contexts. I recommend you take a look.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

This cycle repeats for a while, until the team either catches up to all the conflicts or just asks the rest of the team for a general check-in freeze. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Of course, while they are resolving, new changes are being checked in.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

.&# In 2002 I became exposed to the idea of “agile software development&# and subsequently was a first round investor in Rally Software which is now the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management software. Read the rest. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Youve probably read accounts like this, from other arrogant nerds, but bear with mine: in the first week, my nerdy friends and I had already mastered the whole curriculum. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. When I reviewed a recent product development book, it immediately shot up to Amazon sales rank 300. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Is that a lot?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Heres my favorite part: If youve got a team, part of the team should obsess about the backlist, honing it, editing it and promoting it, while the rest work to generate (as opposed to promote) the frontlist. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Do some Customer Development instead. The rest can believe what they want. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Again, its critical to focus your marketing launch on those publications, venues, and channels that your potential partners are paying attention to.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 16, 2009 Continuous deployment with downloads One of my goals in writing posts about topics like continuous deployment is the hope that people will take those ideas and apply them to new situations - and then share what they learn with the rest of us.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

For the rest of us, there is an alternative: to create credibility by building a lean startup. At IMVU, we were terrified by how early we shipped (and charged for) our first product. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

When doing the post-interview team meeting, it was common for the first opinion expressed about a candidate to become the prevailing opinion of the rest of the team members. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The two rounds of questioning is a good idea for avoiding that.

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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. You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. Ten million, I think I can be very, very happy for the rest of my life.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1 « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1 – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40? Gary Hoover Reply Michael F.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

If you are willing, please take a moment to fill it out before proceeding with the rest of the post; itll mean less biased results, and youll have a better idea what Im talking about later. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

My way of explaining our support and service role to the marketing department was that: Sales is the sharp end of the stick, and marketing at best, is the stick. But while the sales team works for commission, the rest of the employees have equity (stock) in the company. No one was confused after that. Who’s on the Sharp End?

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Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

.) – and the costs to deliver the product/service and have well defined product development and product management tools that emphasize the linear nature of shipping products to existing customers. for new product development that emphasize immediate returns.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Or it might mean selling a few products on a site like eBay to see how well they perform before ordering in bulk from a wholesaler. What sets this approach apart from practices like using focus groups is that companies base product development decisions not just on what customers say they want but on how they vote with their wallets.

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