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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.
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.
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.
And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. But the team believed adding video as an integral part of an operating system and user experience (where there had only been text and still images) would be transformative. The software was idiot proof.
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.
The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building.
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,
Other advisors provided marketing with industry-specific advice in our initial vertical markets (computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, finite element analysis, and petroleum engineering). Some of these advisors from the academic community would work with our of VP of Engineering and help us solve specific technical problems.
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.
The company was founded to build games with embedded video to bring Hollywood stories, characters, and narratives to a market where “shoot and die” twitch games were in vogue. But underlying the company’s existence was a fundamental hypothesis we refused to see or test - customers would care if we did.
Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the CustomerDevelopment Methodology. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C.
CustomerDevelopment ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. CustomerDevelopment) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended. Blog at WordPress.com.
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). You can get away with effective behavior in a large company. Blog at WordPress.com.
CustomerDevelopment We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. Good stuff too.
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.
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. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile. You’re not joining a big company.
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.
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.
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. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , ESL , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , ESL « Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores A Wilderness of Mirrors » 17 Responses Michael F. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Lessons Learned No one will tell you to work fewer hours You need to be responsible for your own health and happiness Burnout sneaks up on you Burnout is self-induced. You created it and own it. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Filed under: CustomerDevelopment , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder? The other thing it helps clarify is that even at work, it’s the relationships that matter most (collegues, customers, partners, etc). The Adventure of a Lifetime.
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.
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. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”
So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, CustomerDevelopment, Lean Startups, etc. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. I asked Peter what kind of company he had in mind and was surprised and dismayed by the answer, “I want to make video games.”
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.
The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard CustomerDevelopment lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of CustomerDevelopment, where we are today, and where does CustomerDevelopment go, and how you can help get it there.
This post makes a lot more sense if you look at the earlier posts as well as the video and slides. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
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.
Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Facts are the rock on which you build your strategy and tactics In a startup second-hand facts are almost as useless as opinions. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
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. What part of this blog should I read if I am also reading the book?
If you are a practitioner of CustomerDevelopment, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of.
This post describes a solution – the CustomerDevelopment Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.
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. Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.?
Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow. Go to trade shows like it matters. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.
Filed under: Marketing , Technology , Venture Capital | Tagged: Steve Blank , Venture Capital , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « Customer Analytics – From Those Who Should Know SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot » 14 Responses Michael F. Blog at WordPress.com.
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