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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how SiliconValley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how SiliconValley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. How did SiliconValley start?
Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.
I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the CustomerDevelopment model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” It’s an impressive portfolio.
This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the CustomerDevelopment Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.
CustomerDevelopment is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not CustomerDevelopment.
—————- The next piece of the Secret History of SiliconValley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. What Does WWII Have to Do with SiliconValley?
Other advisors provided marketing with industry-specific advice in our initial vertical markets (computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, finite element analysis, and petroleum engineering). Back in the 1960’s and 70’s no sane MBA’s would work for a SiliconValley startup.)
For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of CustomerDevelopment , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The CustomerDevelopment process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.
Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets.
CustomerDevelopment We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in SiliconValley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”
to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. Now In Print!
Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,
CustomerDevelopment ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. CustomerDevelopment) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. In a startup it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right 100% of the time.
PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about CustomerDevelopment and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Order Here. Now In Print!
My first job in SiliconValley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the SiliconValley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. I was stunned.
The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or CustomerDevelopment. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. Your results may vary.
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Venture Capital | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « CustomerDevelopment Manifesto: Market Type (part 4) CustomerDevelopment 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. .&#
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Filed under: SuperMac | Tagged: Early Stage Startup , Steve Blank « There’s a Pattern Here SuperMac War Story 2: Facts Exist Outside the Building, Opinions Reside Within – So Get the Hell Outside the Building » Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.
Only in SiliconValley could we have got funded with this idea, and not surprisingly, it was our technology that had the VC’s confused. CustomerDevelopment There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom. Make sure they are. Order Here. Now In Print!
Convergent Technologies When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies , a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of SiliconValley.” Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder?
Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in SiliconValley. Zilog Zilog was my first SiliconValley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. Recovery That weekend I left the Valley and drove along the coast from San Francisco to Monterey. The bill had come due.
However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a CustomerDevelopment process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. You’re not joining a big company.
CustomerDevelopment/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on CustomerDevelopment describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.
Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in SiliconValley working for my first company: ESL. If you are a practitioner of CustomerDevelopment, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Fred Terman Sent Us In 1953 the U.S.
New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. on July 9, 2010 at 12:50 pm Said: [.] Order Here.
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. I feel that I’ve derived as much value from this post as I would from reading 2 or 3 lengthy books on the topic. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « The Curse of a New Building Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 1 » 33 Responses William , on May 18, 2009 at 5:44 am Said: Heh. Order Here.
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Marketing , SuperMac , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , SuperMac « Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions Gravity Will be Turned Off » 17 Responses EricS , on May 11, 2009 at 11:05 am Said: I loved my Spigot. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice.
The percentage of marketing departments to live in the ivory tower rather than get out to meet with customers has got to be staggeringly high. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.
The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the CustomerDevelopment process are you on? CustomerDevelopment and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back. Order Here.
The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of SiliconValley”. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. And so was his reputation for being verbally abusive to his direct reports. Working with my old boss sounded like a great idea. Order Here. Now In Print!
Customers walk, patients sue, and people vote. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry? Or is it just someones end of innocence ? Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!
So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of SiliconValley, CustomerDevelopment, Lean Startups, etc. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Order Here. Now In Print!
Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a SiliconValley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets SiliconValley” and we were enthralled. Order Here.
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. 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. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. Order Here.
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? Reply Carmel , on November 11, 2009 at 4:27 am Said: You make it seem so easy, so obvious! Thanks for sharing! Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. Now In Print!
Reply steveblank , on March 28, 2009 at 7:27 am Said: Denis, Over time the blogs tagged under the “customerdevelopment&# category will build up a narrative of illustrative stories of how customerdevelopment evolved in practice. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Order Here.
At a university business plan competition, for the first time they can swim in the sea of expertise that we/I take for granted in the middle of SiliconValley. I love business plan competitions (and with my valley-centric bias, I think Berkeley and Stanford have two of the best.) bplan document is just that. Order Here.
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Facts are the rock on which you build your strategy and tactics In a startup second-hand facts are almost as useless as opinions. I’ve learned so much! Thanks for sharing! Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!
Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.
Our “Hollywood meets SiliconValley” story played great in SiliconValley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing.
Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow. Go to trade shows like it matters. You can learn more about them here: [link] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.
I’ve built my company using the CustomerDevelopment Model from Day One. I recently completed the Validation step (less the industry analyst presentations) and am ready to move on to Customer Creation. Steve Blanks 30 years of SiliconValley startup advice. So the ask is made — shall it be given?
Luckily (or maybe because we were in SiliconValley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)
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