A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

You don't have an "edge" just because you're passionate, hard-working, or "lean.". Some head straight to the booth to get a demo; for many I give a private demo of the product on sofas in the hallway. To summarize: Anything that can be copied will be copied, including features, marketing copy, and pricing. Like what??

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

Unlike traditional demo days or Shark Tanks which are, “here’s how smart I am, please give me money,” a Lessons Learned presentation tells the teams’ stories of a 10-week journey of hard-won learning and discovery. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. What a year.

Oakland 315

Oakland Asia Lean Video 315

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 11, 2011

The Lean Startup Machine looks a lot like reality television for startups. I have written previously about how powerful the these events are as a teaching tool for Lean Startup principles. Below you will find the final presentations of each of the Lean Startup Machine NYC teams, including SnappSchool, who was judged to be the winner.

New York City 161

New York City New York Lean SMS 161

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

Approvals tended to be based on who had the best demo and/or slides or lobbied the hardest. A canonical Lean Innovation process inside a company or government agency would look something like this: Curation. Ironically, by standing still, they were falling behind. As the head of the U.S. They need the support and oversight of the CEO.

Incubator 319

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 319

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

My company is in the contract automation business so we have made our NDA available for free on our demo page so people can use it for free if they think it works for them. EE Reply My take on Customer Development and the Lean Startup | Recess Mobile Blog , on January 9, 2010 at 5:30 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

This post co-written by Sarah Milstein and Eric Ries, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference. Our goal in hosting The Lean Startup Conference —which starts in just over two weeks—is to help entrepreneurs learn absolutely useful things from each other. Whether intended as jokes, plenty of people saw them as far from funny.

Software Review 167

Software Review Lean Hosting Ruby 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

No amount of learning how to get a VC meeting or improving your VC demo skills will fix the lack of concrete customer data. Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. You might as well bring your lucky rabbits foot to the VC meeting.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Steve Blank

APRIL 21, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment with a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. They found that sales to this channel would require a demonstration, and that dealers would have to demo the robotic weeders to the customers. Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Relationships and trust are important.

Channel 234

Channel Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Business Model 234

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But Apple had planned to announce and demo QuickTime without a way to get video into the Mac. Something Profound Engineering gave us a demo of the prototype board and software and asked, “Do you guys think we can sell a few of these boards?” We must have made them play the demo twenty times. My first IPO at Convergent.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

I reminded her that all the Lean tools she learned in class–Customer Discovery, business model and value proposition canvases– contained her answer. How do I sort out what to do?”. She winced as I reminded her that she had gone through the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps. Painful and invaluable” was her reply.

Marketing 318

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 318

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2016

We just finished the 6 th annual Lean LaunchPad class. For the last 6 years I’ve taught the Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford and Berkeley. Therefore, we developed the 8-week Lean LaunchPad class to teach students how to think about all the parts of building a business, not just the product.

Lean 120

Lean Incubator Business Model Channel 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

I learned everything I know about startups in these lean years: 2001-2004. A small refuge from a busy day of shaking hands and demo’ing products. We went “nuclear&# and slimmed down to 33 people (yes, I know, still large by today’s standards but this was 2001), raised $10 million and we built a real company.

Warrant 333

Warrant Germany France Cost 333

www.ashmaurya.com

JUNE 14, 2012

This redefinition was my motivation for creating the derivative Lean Canvas format and codifying what I believe to be the universal meta-principles for Running Lean depicted below: You start out by drawing a line in the sand with your initial Lean Canvas, prioritizing risks, and systematically testing those risks through experiments.

Lean 76

Lean Business Model Product Framework 76

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. Start your lean business plan today: Download our Free Lean Plan Template one-page-pitch-download.pdf. I’m going to start with what’s a lean business plan.

Lean 60

Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo. General Comments for both Awareness and Lead Generation Demo’s I don’t care how small the booth or trade show is, do a canned demo every 20 to 30 minutes regardless of whether anyone is at your booth or not. Demo’s are the heart of the booth. One of them is a loser.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Suggestions for Angel Investors - Feld Thoughts , June 2, 2010 I’m on an Acela train between Boston and New York (listening to Boston’s More Than A Feeling – how recursive) on my way to the TechStars Boston 2010 Investor / Demo day. think many of the fundamentals behind the lean startup are things you likely have been practicing for a while.

Cofounder 175

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Term Sheet Startup 175

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

Lean Marketing tips: not-for-profit edition – [link]. Learn from Excelerate Labs Demo Day: 3 Elements of a Killer Pitch – [link]. Lean Marketing tips: not-for-profit edition – [link]. Outstanding, candid post for entrepreneurs on a failed fundraising effort – by @randfish of @seomoz [link].

Social Media 90

Social Media Small Business Design Media 90

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

These dynamics harm startups at all stages, because they pressure founders to engage in “success theatre” – trying to make themselves look successful by general management standards by focusing on vanity metrics , product milestones, and whiz-bang demos. And it’s not just investors who are having trouble. The class debuts in a few weeks.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 30, 2011

Lean Marketing: Five Cheap Ways To Market Your Startup – [link]. Lean Marketing: Five Cheap Ways To Market Your Startup – [link]. Good post by @micah with tips for entrepreneurs demoing a product/service to investors – [link]. image credit: EpicV27. The Best 10 Solutions For Email Marketing – [link].

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Hackathons and incubators are helpful in getting product teams focused and result in great demos, but you’re left still not knowing whether you have something beneficiaries/stakeholders/users want nor do you know what it takes to deploy the solution to the field. Demo of final MVP. Pivot stories.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2013

Later, they built a web demo to demonstrate the functionality of the PalmPilot product—the idea was to lure people to the PalmPilot project. Then, to their surprise, the web demo really started to take off, and they started to attract a lot more interest in the web product than the PalmPilot product. What do we do?

Lean 167

Lean Silicon Valley Framework Cofounder 167

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

When you’ve got two people on the team and you’re going super lean in the early stages, usually your best bet is to have a customer experience person and a builder. Plus, in such a connected world, at the seed stage, the "outside" bar is low--a good article, review, demo can be a difference maker and get you on the right radars.

PR 157

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 157

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery.

Oakland 330

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 330

ConversionXL

AUGUST 5, 2021

For example, you may find that, upon experimenting with chatbots, it increases demo signups to your SaaS product by ~3%. Even startups with a lean marketing strategy invest in at least two or three channels. This could be a purchase, app download, user-sign up, demo, or consultation. Marketing requires a multi-channel approach.

Software Review 143

Software Review Technical Review San Diego Retention 143

ConversionXL

JUNE 14, 2021

This message appeals to customers who value a comfortable shave without leaning solely on the subscription business model. This means buying their product, booking a demo or signing up for a trial. Sign up for a demo and go through the sales process. Convenience is table stakes in the DTC landscape. What’s the packaging like?

Software Review 158

Software Review Audience Differentiation Framework 158

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They need to raise money before building anything substantial after determining that they needed a little dough to follow the Lean Startup methodology. Eventually early product demos start happening but they’re rough and the product looks very alpha. Soundbites from potential customers are encouraging.

Burn Rate 153

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 153

Up and Running

JANUARY 23, 2019

There was a time when anticipating your target demo was more or less guesswork. Writing a Lean Business Plan and modeling different financial scenarios is a great way to make sure you’ve thought through every aspect of your hotel venture. You can download a free Lean Plan template to help you get started. Write a business plan.

Software Review 83

Software Review Las Vegas Technical Review San Francisco 83

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

We tend to associate the government with words like bureaucracy rather than lean innovation. Department of Defense by adopting Lean Methodology inside their agency. The NGA has adopted Lean Innovation methods to make this happen. Their goal is to integrate these techniques into their own Lean innovation processes.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

We tend to associate the government with words like bureaucracy rather than lean innovation. Department of Defense by adopting Lean Methodology inside their agency. The NGA has adopted Lean Innovation methods to make this happen. Their goal is to integrate these techniques into their own Lean innovation processes.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. Rather than doing every demo of your MVP live, consider 1) recording it 2) highlighting the key points. Break your MVP demo into <1 minute segments. Take the time to zoom in. Lessons Learned.

Customer 422

Customer Business Model Restful Video 422

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 27, 2010

50 Advanced HTML5 Demos to show It’s Power – [link]. Can User Experience Designers be Lean? Designing Hyperlinks: Tips and Best Practices – [link]. Review of Popular Web Font Embedding Services – [link]. Understanding Visual Hierarchy in Web Design – [link]. – [link].

Social Media 91

Social Media Small Business Design Media 91

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

However, accelerator Demo Days are a combination of graduation ceremony and pitch contest, with the uncomfortable feel of a swimsuit competition. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor attending Demo Day to assess project maturity or quantify risks.

Incubator 318

Incubator Intellectual Property Startup Lean 318

The Next Web

JANUARY 16, 2014

Although I couldn’t possibly cover them all, some of the larger ones by attendees and membership are Silicon Beach, Lean Startup, Startup Grind, Amazon AWS and the Big Data Analytics meet-up group. Key successes include Grabble , which was sold to Walmart Labs. Australia is not short on those.

Australia 146

Australia San Francisco IPO Cofounder 146

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

——————– March 11 th 1-4pm Demo Day at VC Firm (Location TBD). Set up a booth, put up posters, run demos, etc. Deliverable: Each team will present a 30 minute “Lessons Learned” presentation about their business. Show off your product to the public and real VC’s. Food and refreshments provided.

Wiki 318

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 318

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

I began formulating the key ideas around what became the Lean Startup – that startups and existing companies were distinctly different – companies execute business models while startups search for them. Let’s Teach Lean Via Experiential Learning. Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering).

Lean 436

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 436

K9 Ventures

JUNE 22, 2011

The first few years of Refocus were spent operating as a very lean company with a team of four ( Ren Ng , Colvin Pitts , Tim Knight and Alex Fishman ) focused primarily on research and development and on learning about the market. All Things Digital, Ina Fried.

Technical Review 134

Technical Review IP New York Portfolio 134

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

Lean LaunchPad class developed for Stanford. And the Lean LaunchPad class I developed at Stanford was the first such class. I believe the analogy is identical for entrepreneurship.The capstone entrepreneurship classes like NSF I-Corps or a Lean LaunchPad class, are for those who have already decided they want to be entrepreneurs.

Incubator 333

Incubator Lean Programming Government 333