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?”

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

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. There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools.

Technical Review 331

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 331

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital! It might be for technical reasons or it might be for customer adoption reasons.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

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. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. I care about your assumptions going in.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Where Are the Customers? Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I interviewed Eric for an hour for - This Week in Venture Capital. Timecodes: 00:00 Welcome, our guest is Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup Movement. 01:17 Background, before the Lean Startup. 22:53 Eric’s book: The Lean Startup. 26:44 Too much capital is not good. There are many in this episode.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. In it, I got asked a question I often hear: “What if we have a web-based business that doesn’t have revenue or paying customers?

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Intellectual Property 341

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 341

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. What a great idea.

Customer Development 287

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 287

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

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. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

Customer Development 233

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 233

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2017

Guest Post by Misti Yang, Writer for Lean Startup Co. Editor’s Note: We wrapped up the 2017 Lean Startup Week in San Francisco just a few weeks ago, and we’re excited to share with you some of the best lessons learned in entrepreneurship and corporate innovation. Because these Lean Startup people, they do crazy stuff,” Alex joked. “So

Lean 245

Lean Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 245

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Larry had the DNA I’ve seen common with all the successful entrepreneurs I’ve backed in my 25 years of Venture Capital work—only he had a more exaggerated case than most. The final proof of a compelling technical vision is that customers were interested—the phone was always ringing. Pragmatic and Lean. What a gift!

Technical Review 335

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 335

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

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. There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

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. We’ve been reading your blog about your Lean Launchpad class.” We want to make a bet that your Lean Launchpad class can apply the scientific method to market-opportunity identification.

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. Let’s Fire Our Customers Part of the DNA of great entrepreneurs is a bias towards decisive and immediate action. Get it done, now.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

He is very hands-on and helpful – especially for any company looking into customer acquisition. What better than to have capital from somebody who has actually done it in the trenches? Matt’s commitment to re-investing in tech startups is reminiscent to this great Fred Wilson post of “recycling capital. &#. .

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Warrant Customer Term Sheet 304

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. And since there was no Venture Capital in the 1950′s/’60′s where was the money coming from? After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C.

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 302

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

And VC’s are tough customers. If you have beta customers, new pricing plans, different positioning, more market insights, good press coverage – whatever – these are all signs that the ball is moving forward. If you have good experience then the VC will be leaning forward for the rest of the presentation.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Oh, and we had no installed customer base. Entrepreneurs are Relentless Jim’s goal was to get other companies to put their software on an unfinished, buggy computer with no customers. So much so, I took a Customer Development approach to my startup, which I wrote up as a Case Study for the Google Group Lean Startup Circle.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 332

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com. SIGNIFICANCE PROMINENT. --> The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail. See a sample reprint in PDF format. SMALL BUSINESS. Stock Quotes.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology.

Lean 120

Lean Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder Channel 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development 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. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&# Context here.) To a person they became passionate evangelists and effective marketers.

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2010

Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Great stuff. This post looks at the implementation details of HTML 5 video.

Acquisition 150

Acquisition Cofounder Technical Cofounder Cost 150

YoungUpstarts

JULY 27, 2011

However, I do know a thing or two about the benchmarks of entrepreneurial achievement, including raising capital, finding your first paying customers and the next hundreds of thousands, creating an iPhone app with over a million downloads, and everything in between. First and foremost you need to be willing to get your hands dirty.

Software Review 241

Software Review New York City Cofounder Technical Review 241

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about. The first step was to recruit a new management team. Why they were looking to me to run marketing wasn’t clear. I took the job.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 170

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Storm Clouds - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 12, 2010 We have enjoyed an amazing run in the web startup and investing space over the past five or six years. Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/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 Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. What did you do?

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

customers who paid for services often get burned. I’m looking for ones that understand that in order to build huge, meaningful companies they’ll need to likely build through these boom years and some lean ones. It’s what I love about entrepreneurship and about venture capital.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309