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. Steve Blank.

Business Model 335

Business Model Agile Customer Development Startup 335

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. 500 Hats , February 1, 2010 When to Use Facebook Connect – Twitter Oauth – Google Friend Connect for Authentication?

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. Me : Product definition, use cases, feature list, wireframes, comps, really whatever you have.

Developer 354

Developer Technical Review Fractional CTO Software Review 354

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

This is a guest post by my Startup Owner’s Manual co-author Bob Dorf. While statistics are weak on startup success rates, the worst one I’ve seen suggests that 2 in 1000 venture backed startups will ever achieve $100-million or more in valuation. Can every startup skyrocket like Facebook or Square or Google?

Startup 334

Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 334

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

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. ” Fire, Ready, Aim.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

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

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. We thought this would be perfect for our product. Here’s how that happened.

Lean 322

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 322

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

Re-architect and re-write” the product. He told the board that the only way to to deliver these changes is to re-write our product.&# Engineering designs made back then with the aim of figuring out the product were not the right designs for the company’s current task of expanding to new platforms. The logical solution? “Re-architect

Part-Time VPE 325

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. As much as I loved the magazine, there was little in it for startups (or new divisions in established companies) searching for a business model.

Technical Review 331

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 331

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

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

How do you figure out what’s the right mix of skills for the co-founders of your startup? I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. I told Radhika this is a perennial question for startups. ——-.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2010

I was having coffee with a former student who was complained that my idea of building a first product release with a minimum feature set was a bad idea. One of the principles of Customer Development is to get out of the building and understand the smallest feature-set customers will pay for in the first release.).

Customer Development 313

Customer Development Business Model Developer Search 313

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

VC’s were no longer insisting that startups spend faster, and “swing for the fences”. It was a nuclear winter for startup capital.” ” Steve Blank, “Is the lean startup dead?” ” The Lean Startup movement started out of necessity. Agile Development: launch an MVP early and iterate quickly.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0 as a distribution channel have vastly reduced the amount of capital a startup needs at the early stage when the risk is greatest.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

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. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant.

San Jose 261

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 261

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. In all of these new product and cost-focused new trends, a big problem has emerged that all of these movements have not addressed.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

I suggested that they first might want to read my post on why business plans are a poor planning and execution tool for startups. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A startup is not executing a series of knowns. Instead of business plans I have suggested that startups use business models.

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. Of all the Chinese government programs, the Torch Program is the one program that kick-started Chinese high-tech innovation and startups. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

Programming 287

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 287

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

The obvious answer we all give (and receive) in the startup community is to talk to people. Customer development” has become its own skill and body of knowledge, and there are some crucial nuances to understand up front before beginning your customer dev discussions. But how do you go about figuring out what people want?

Customer Development 120

Customer Development Developer Customer Seed Stage 120

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference The Lean Startup Conference is next week--and now that we can step back and see all the speakers and mentors, we have to say: Wow. Ben Horowitz ’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things is driving the conversation around startup management this year.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. For example, our goal could be: Create demand for our products and drive it into our sales channel. Create awareness of our company and brand for potential customers. Who’s the user of product?

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. The Innovation Corps Startup Team. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This week we saw the results. billion U.S.

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

What’s A Startup? We’ve been teaching that the difference between a startup and an existing company is that existing companies execute business models, while startups search for a business model. (Or This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Business Model 285

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 285

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. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , National Science Foundation.

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. As much as I loved the magazine, there was little in it for startups (or new divisions in established companies) searching for a business model.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 24, 2022

When you have a startup, time and money are always at a premium. This blog post will discuss some of the most effective methods of promoting your startup. It will also offer tips on how to make the most of your marketing budgeting and successfully promote your startup. Develop a Strong Online Presence.

Social Media 157

Social Media Startup Audience Web Development 157

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

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Our Lean LaunchPad class requires student teams to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week while they’re building the product. The class is designed for students who said they want a hands-on experience in what it takes to build a startup – not just writing a business plan or listening to lectures.

Lean 286

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 286

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

Editor’s note: At a recent team meeting at NextView, we looked at the high number of startups we invested in which were pre-product at the time. The question arose: What is a seed VC’s process like when a company is pre-product? A big chunk of our investments at NextView have been made pre-product.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

Customer Validation. E.piphany was an 11-month-old startup with 31 people and on fire. We had closed four $100,000 deals for our customer relationship management software. He had just demo’d our product to his friend, the CFO of Autodesk. It was one thing for a startup to lose to a large company like Oracle or IBM.

Forecast 299

Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 299

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Entrenched Innovation Model Issues : Qualcomm’s existing innovation model – wireless products were created in the R&D lab and then handed over to existing business units for commercialization – was wildly successful in the existing wireless and mobile space. Part 1 outlining the program is here. Read it first.

Programming 273

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 273

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2013

Qualcomm’s visionary CEO, Paul Jacobs , wanted to use internal Qualcomm ideas to find breakthrough innovation that could be turned into products, (not simply a suggestion box for creative thoughts or improving sustaining innovation.) He gave my innovation team free reign on designing a new employee innovation program. What went right?

Programming 301

Programming Design Lean Seed Money 301

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Therapeutics Validation = 18 months to a first deal with a potential customer – well before FDA trials, and even before preclinical stage. Digital Health Customer = typically consumer end users. Medical Device customers = short term: physicians in private practice and hospital, long term: medical device companies.

Lean 266

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 266