This post makes sense when you read the previous vertical markets post first. 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. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology, Vertical Markets | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 7 Comments »
In the past entrepreneurship was viewed (and taught) as a single process, with a single approach to creating a business plan and securing funding for a startup. The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology, Vertical Markets | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 11 Comments »
I wrote this “Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters” memo as a board member after I saw our company at a trade show. Part 1 of this post offered some suggestions on going to trade shows to generate awareness. This post offers suggestions if you are going to a trade show to generate leads. [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Marketing | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 7 Comments »
Ignore This Post If you’re selling via the web and trade shows are something your grandfather told you about, ignore this post. If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, medical devices, etc.,) you know they’re expensive in time, dollars and resources. I wrote this “Going to Trade Shows Like [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Marketing | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 1 Comment »
Startup CEO Traits I was having lunch with a friend who is a retired venture capitalist and we drifted into a discussion of the startups she funded. We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. I [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 34 Comments »
At some point in my career as I began to ponder how/why startups morph from agile, “can do” companies to ones that have lost their edge. I didn’t need to look much further than the “new building” debacle I had a hand in. Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, SuperMac, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Steve Blank, SuperMac, Tips for Startups | 25 Comments »
Part of marketing is the ability to communicate a message to thousands of people and convince them to believe your version of reality. When I was 19 I accidentally had a test run of my ability to do so. I created havoc at an air force base by convincing thousands of airman that gravity would be [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Family/Career/Culture | Tagged: Electonic Warfare, Steve Blank | 25 Comments »
I was lucky to have been standing in the right place when video became part of the Macintosh. And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. 74HGZA3MZ6SV Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime, [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Marketing, SuperMac, Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank, SuperMac | 25 Comments »
I love business plan competitions. I hate business plan competitions. I Love Business Plan Competitions I had a breakfast with a friend who has founded a few companies in Thailand and started the New Ventures Program at one of their universities. He was visiting Stanford and mentioned how proud he was that several of his Thai [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Technology, Venture Capital | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups, Venture Capital | 15 Comments »
I ran into an interesting paper about thinking about analytics - A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis. It’s a useful read to explore and challenge analytical arguments and mind-sets. BTW, I don’t know to be hopeful or concerned that that this is the state of the art of analytical thinking at this [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Tips for Startups | 2 Comments »
The Sharp End of the Stick At some point in my career as I began to formulate thoughts about mission and intent, I started to think about the broader role of marketing in a growing technology company. It became clear to me that the mission of marketing in most companies has to be to support sales. While this [...]
Filed under: Customer Development | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Startups, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 16 Comments »
Eric Ries of Lean Startup fame and the author of the Lessons Learned blog joined me at Startup2Startup for a joint Customer Development talk. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak. The Customer Development talk can be seen here. 74HGZA3MZ6SV Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The slides are here. If you’ve [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Market Types | Tagged: Customer Development, Customer Discovery, Customer Validation, Startups, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 6 Comments »
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