Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Finally, I’ll write about 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.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Suppliers also have machinery and technology issues to contend with as they create customized products. Transportation partners play an enormous role in the supply chain as they bring products into distribution centers and sometimes directly to customers. Develop Relationships with Supply Chain Partners.

Management 145

Management Forecast Los Angeles San Francisco 145

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 256

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 256

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. Even more serious, startups can have radically different cash needs.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

The moment I saw the product I knew every one of my professional graphics customers (ad agencies, freelancers, photo studios, etc.) But every graphics professional did own a CDROM drive but most didn’t own a high-resolution film scanner – and PhotoCD would have been perfect for them – and the perfect launch customer.

Search 303

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 303

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there? Can it scale?”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Either way, custom software development is an effective way to build brand awareness and give your business a competitive edge. In order to bring the most value to your business, it’s important you explore ways to enhance your customer experience. The Rise of App Development in the Business World. Source: Pexels.

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Developer Offshore Software Developers Software Development 93

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

China 329

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 329

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It’s often said that you shouldn’t talk about price during customer development interviews. Price is not an exercise in maximizing some micro-economic supply/demand curve, slapped post-facto onto the product. Price is inextricably linked to brand, product, and purchasing decisions — by whom, why, how, and when.

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

Lean 335

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 335

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 2, 2024

Whether that product is a Scrub Daddy, a smiley-face dish scrubber, Bombas, a philanthropic brand of socks and underwear, or the Ionic Ear, a surgically implanted Bluetooth headset (the Sharks didn’t bite on that one), groundbreaking CEO Jack Truong sees this “identify demand and supply the need” strategy as a truly sound business practice.

North America 136

North America Artificial Inteligence America Valuation 136

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. Two paragraphs, Five bullets. It didn’t take more. I couldn’t care less about those.

Silicon Valley 272

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 272

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. The “strategy” of learning who SuperMac’s customers were, what solutions they needed and what our repositioning would be was a three month effort. I just want to do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last few years, there really hasn’t been a demand to innovate on top of the ecosystem that’s been built. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

China 221

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 221

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “. It’s hard to believe these are the methods and tools of a profession designed to attract and persuade us to become customers — especially when “we the buyers” increasingly ignore them. Pushy salespeople.

Marketing 234

Marketing Software Review Technical Review Social Network 234

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

But if you want to build a scalable startup you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. One of the groups I spoke to was the Australian Sports Technology Network. Test channel and demand creation activities in the U.S. Establish U.S.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Students need to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week. Like all great Silicon Valley companies they started with a technology and guessed who the customers will be. Now they were figuring out how to create demand. After class they took this idea and formed a company – Blue River Technology.

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Lean Silicon Valley Customer Development Incubator 281

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

With each one, they learn and invest in technology for their next idea. For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. They created three products and killed them all before launching publicly.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Hopefully everyone understands that in technology companies, continuous innovation is not an option. ” I first witnessed this many years ago when I was an engineer for HP, building platform and tool technology products for “the enterprise.” Or they continue to turn out more features that don’t make a difference.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

His message was that existing companies are great at sustaining technologies and products but were ignoring the threat of disruption. He explained that companies have a penchant for continually improving sustaining products by adding more features to solve existing customer problems, and while this maximized profit, it was a trap.

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Lean Business Model Government Agile 432

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. A giant fork in the road.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

If there was any doubt among the teams about the value of what they’re learning, Blinken put it to rest with a compelling overview of how so many of today’s complex global problems – from stopping Ebola to monitoring cease-fires and improving food security – demand innovative, tech-based solutions. A giant fork in the road.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Your design or ad agencies can impress you with their awards, but if you’re not moving product or creating demand, you’ve missed the point.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story. That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. Tina is Professor of the Practice at Stanford University School of Engineering, and Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.

Entrepreneur 335

Entrepreneur Framework Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. to optimize this search.

Wiki 319

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 319

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 17, 2016

How they think and feel; their sense of community; and their appetite to share their opinions are all creating new paradigms for how any business, regardless of size, connects with its customers. According to our research, millennials ardently avoid calling customer service. Old school customer service rules haven’t changed.

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Customer Singapore Advisory Board Asia 100

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. Strong pre-show promotion will let your customers and prospects know about your exhibit.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Alice and Bettina had taken an idea they had tested in the class – building toys for young girls to have fun with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, and started a company. What if a buyer asks, can you make a custom version of your product? Bettina said, “We want to drive customer demand into our channel.”

PR 322

PR China Lean Channel 322

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. Heres my take.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) However, going through the customer development process showed me the danger in that kind of thinking.

Lean 277

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 277

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

As Ive written previously , lean startups are built upon three main trends: Technology commoditization. Combined with the technology trends above, it also enables rapid deployment strategies like just-in-time scalability. Customer development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. This includes how the product gets distributed to your customers and how money flows back into your company. Distribution, Demand Creation and Partnerships.

Intellectual Property 265

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 265

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. They used Customer and Agile development to search for a scalable and repeatable business model to become a large company. A scalable startup typically requires external “risk&# capital to create market demand and scale.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 304

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In fact, at the time (1996-1997) we offered both a downloadable product, that our customers could install on their own servers, and a “hosted-offering”, which came to be known as “On-Demand”, then the “ASP” (Application Service Provider) model, and today we call it “SaaS” (Software as a Service). Today, we call that an “Embed-Code”.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72