Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

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 Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 231

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

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.

Customer Development 126

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 126

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 5, 2010

I believe it is the best introduction to Customer Development you can buy. As all of you know, Steve Blank is the progenitor of Customer Development and author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany. You can imagine how well that worked. On the minus side, that has made it a wee bit hard to understand.

Customer Development 166

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 7, 2008 Customer Development Engineering Yesterday, I had the opportunity to guest lecture again in Steve Blank s entrepreneurship class at the Berkeley-Columbia executive MBA program. Its a nice complement on the product engineering side to his customer development methodology.

Customer Development 131

Customer Development Engineer San Francisco Developer 131

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

MAY 11, 2009

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.

Video 176

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 176

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. From the first 10 interviews, we learned that video is a big problem for researchers who use that medium.

Lean 319

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 319

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

The class was unique in that it was 1) team-based, 2) experiential, 3) lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering). When we started this class, the concept of Lean (business models, customer development, agile, pivots, mvp’s) was new to everyone. Class Velocity/Depth.

Lean 253

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 253

ConversionXL

MARCH 28, 2014

You’ve likely already heard that explainer videos can boost conversions anywhere between ten and ten bazillion percent. With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high. What Is An Explainer Video? A Tutorial. image source.

Video 122

Video Software Review Cofounder Metrics 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This class is built on conducting in-person of interviews with customers/ beneficiaries and stakeholders, but due to the pandemic, teams now had to do all their customer discovery via a computer screen. How would customer interviews work via video? If you can’t see the Fleetwise 2-minute video, click here.

Lean 406

Lean Security Asia SBIR 406

Steve Blank

MARCH 12, 2014

Therefore we needed them to think and learn about two parts of a startup; 1) ideation - how to create new ideas and 2) customer development – how do they test the validity of their idea (is it the right product, customer, channel, pricing, etc.). Hawken students practicing Customer Discovery in a mall.

Lean 334

Lean Customer Development Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 223

Steve Blank

JANUARY 2, 2014

Over the course of the class Mira Medicine team spoke to over 80 customers, partners and payers. Here’s their 2 minute video summary. If you can’t see the video above, click here. Watch their Lessons Learned video below and find out how they pivoted and what happened. If you can’t see the video above click here.

Lean 247

Lean Algorithm Customer Development IP 247

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

If you can’t see the four videos of General Mattis click here for the entire talk. How on earth would customer interviews work via video? Second, doing customer discovery via video actually increased the number of interviews the students were able to do each week. But we were in for two surprises.

Oakland 311

Oakland Asia Lean Video 311

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.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The class teaches founders how to dramatically reduce their failure rate through the combination of business model design, customer development and agile development using the Startup Owners Manual. More importantly, it makes no demands of you to stand and deliver your weekly customer development progress in front of your peers.

Startup 335

Startup Lean Incubator Business Model 335

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 6, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 6, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund slides and video As a follow-up to my previous post on my talk for fbFund at Facebook , there was enough interest in watching video of the talk that I have finally uploaded it using Apples MobileMe. If you want to see the original video, use the link above.

Lean 115

Lean Video San Francisco Continuous Deployment 115

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. Set up the Lean LaunchLab or a WordPress blog to document your Customer Development progress. Size the market opportunity.

Lean 334

Lean Web Coder Business Model 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2021

I realized that pre-pandemic I had put together a series of two-minute videos called “See Why.” How to Get, Keep and Grow Customers ? What is Customer Development. What is Customer Discovery and Why Do it? A short article on how to do Customer Discovery via Zoom. Customer Validation. Jobs to be done.

Lean 362

Lean Customer Development Business Model Video 362

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2013

I pointed out that the “data” you gather in 10 weeks (talking to 100+ customers, partners, payers, etc.,) see 0:30 in the video below). See 1:03 in the video below). But in my next to last company, I got into the video game business. My customers were 14-year old boys. see 1:30 in the video) I hated them.

Cofounder 328

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Liquidity Event Lean 328

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development 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.

Customer Development 251

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 251

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

You can get a feel for how different by looking at the first two weeks of lectures – covering value proposition and customer segment – from each of the therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health cohorts. We’ll be posting these “compare and contrast” videos for every week of the class.

Lean 263

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 263

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.

Customer Development 225

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 225

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. It starts at ~40:30 in the video. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking. steve Customer Development is Hard. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak.

Customer Development 147

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 147

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? Sounds like handspring.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 212

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

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.

Silicon Valley 218

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 218

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs. what you think they might need) by talking to customers and testing every aspect of the product features, pricing, etc.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 257

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 257

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. I’m going to save that for a future blog post.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Dan Miller is the co-founder and CEO of Level Therapy , which provides access to psychotherapists through video, voice, and text. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. (And download any of the past shows here.). Clips from their interviews are below. Tune in Thursday, Oct.

Columbus 247

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 247

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Silicon Valley has amused us, connected (and separated us) as never before, made businesses more efficient and led to the wholesale transformation of entire industries (bookstores, video rentals, newspapers, etc.). Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

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. The first class was an introduction to the concepts of business model design and customer development. The Adventure Begins.

Lean 303

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 303

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The key principles of customer development are: There are no facts inside the building so get the heck outside. You can test your hypotheses with a series of experiments with potential customers. So the next best thing is a Video Teleconference. Video Teleconferencing is Your Virtual Friend. Lessons Learned.

Customer 418

Customer Business Model Restful Video 418

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

If you don’t have customers, our articles on customer development and how to write compelling copy without customers can help you get started. This post contains video, click to play]. This post contains video, click to play]. The result? This is where my favorite tool, Followerwonk, comes in.

Acquisition 111

Acquisition Software Review PPC Analytics 111

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

He’ll be running a hands-on session on how to make a compelling business video. Here are just a few things you might look for: Reducing risk in young companies Bringing innovation to the enterprise Designing and running experiments Customer development strategies All conference passes are on sale right now, and you can compare them here.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2014

Kauffman launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. You’ll learn how to: get to know your customers. get, keep and grow customers. 0:24: What is Customer Development?

Intellectual Property 330

Intellectual Property Lean Customer Development Acquisition 330