1. Advanced Entrepreneurship:
Customer Development and the Lean Startup
Introduction to the Course
Steve Blank & Eric Ries
sblank@kandsranch.com eric@theleanstartup.com
www.steveblank.com www.startuplessonslearned.com/

2. You Are Here
Plan Liquidity
Company Timeline
Idea 1st Round

3. You Are Here
Plan Liquidity
Company Timeline
Idea 1st Round

4. How do You Get Here
Plan Liquidity
Company Timeline
Idea 1st Round

5. Entrepreneurship
Logical
Process

6. Entrepreneurship
Logical
Process
Intuitive
Passion

7. Today
Part 1: Introduction to the Course
Part 2: Key Concepts

8. Course Introduction
 Course Objectives
 Intro and Backgrounds
 How the Class Works
 Customer Development

9. Course Objectives
 Learn how to:
 Reduce product/market risk
 Organize sales, marketing and business
development when bringing a product to market
 Understand its relationship with engineering
 Have Fun
 Learn from Each Other

10. Course Prerequisites
 Officially – none
 Realistically:
 Experience in bringing a new product to market
 Entrepreneurship 295 or equivalent
 Have written a business plan

11. Introduction and Backgrounds
 Steve Blank
 Eric Ries
 Guest Speakers
 Class

12. Introduction: Steve Blank
8 startups in 20 years
2 strikeouts Rocket Science, Ardent
2 walks ESL, Zilog
2 singles Convergent, MIPS
1 double SuperMac
1 home run E.piphany
Non profits: Audubon, POST, Coastal Commission,
CLCV, Trustee UCSC
Blog: www.steveblank.com
Twitter: sgblank

13. Introduction: Eric Ries
Author: Lean Startup, co/author Black Art of Java
Game Programming
Company: Co-founder/CTO IMVU
There.com
Co-founder Catalyst Recruiting
Blog: www.startuplessonslearned.com
Twitter: ericries

14. Introduction: Class
Why are you taking the class?
 How many of you have:
 Been in start-ups?
 Been in a startup that failed?
 Raised or tried to raise money?
 How many are:
 Sales, marketing or business development?
 Engineers?

15. How the Class Works
 Syllabus
 3 Application Exercises
 Research Project
 Grading
 Research Project (50%)
 Application Exercises (25%)
 Class Participation (25%)

16. Class Issues
 Tech-heavy
 Enterprise-heavy
 For-profit versus non-profit
 Startups versus existing companies
 Methodology focused on product/customer
risk reduction
 Doesn’t work for technology risks (i.e Biotech)
 Doesn’t match your experience or opinion

17. Logistics
Steve Blank and Eric Ries
sblank@kandsranch.com eric@theleanstartup.com

18. How the Class Works
Part 1
Class Case Application Research
Exercise Project
Class 2/Jan 26th Three Types of In & Out
Startups Burger
Class 3/Feb 2nd Customer E-Ink Market Type Think!
Development
Class 4/Feb 9h Discovery - Part 1 Webvan/ Team Selection
Amazon
Class 5/Feb 16th Discovery – Part 2 IMVU/ Draft Concept
Linden Labs
Class 6/Feb 23rd Discovery – Part 3 Motive Approved
Concept
Class 7/Mar 2nd Validation Part 1 Wildfire Discovery
Class 8/Mar 9th Validation Part 2 HPKittyhawk

19. How the Class Works
Part 2
Class Case Application Research
Exercise Project
Class 9/Mar 16th Creation - Part 1 Ecton
March 23rd No Class
Class 10/Mar 30th Creation – Part 2 Erox
Class 11/Apr 6th Creation Cases Tivo Interviews
Done
Class 12/Apr 13th Building - Part 1 Documentum Customer Creation
Class 13/Apr 20th Building - Part 2
Class 14/Apr 27th Wrapup
Final Paper Due 5/4/09

20. Study.Net
 All materials are on Study.Net
 Syllabus
 Reading
 Assignments
 Presentations (after each class)

21. Reading
Class Text: Four Steps to the Epiphany
Assigned Reading: In Reader
Blogs: www.steveblank.com
http://startuplessonslearned.com/
Presentations: www.slideshare.net/
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-circle
Twitter: sgblank
ericries
watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2lE3fgj7QA for what you could be in store for

22. The Course
Steve Blank and Eric Ries
sblank@kandsranch.com eric@theleanstartup.com

23. Customer Development
 Business Plans
 The Value of “Models” for an Entrepreneur
 Key Concepts
 Market versus Technology Risks
 Vertical Markets
 Three Types of Startups

24. The Top Lies of Venture Capitalists
1. “I liked your company, but my partners didn't.”
2. “If you get a lead, we will follow.”
3. “Show us some traction, and we'll invest.”
4. “We love to co-invest with other venture capitalists.”
5. “We're investing in your team.”
6. “I have lots of bandwidth to dedicate to your company.”
7. “This is a vanilla term sheet.”
8. “We can open up doors for you at our client
companies.”
9. “We like early-stage investing.”
Source: Guy Kawasaki

25. The Top Lies of Entrepreneurs
1. “Our projections are conservative.”
2. “(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010.”
3. “(Big name company) is going to sign our purchase order next week.”
4. “Key employees are set to join us as soon as we get funded.”
5. “No one is doing what we're doing.”.
6. “No one can do what we're doing.”
7. “Hurry because several other venture capital firms are interested.”
8. “Oracle is too big/dumb/slow to be a threat.”
9. “We have a proven management team.”
10. “Patents make our product defensible.”
11. “All we have to do is get 1% of the market.”
Source: Guy Kawasaki

26. One Way to Plan a Startup

27. Business Plans – Why?
 Why write a plan?
 VC’s require it
 Planning (Strategic/Financial/Ops)
 Articulate Bus Model/Assumptions
 What’s wrong with a plan?
 Static
 Execution Oriented

28. The Value of “Models”
 Model = shorthand for complicated idea
 This class teaches a “model” for product
introduction
 How to reduce risk for customer/market fit
 Side effect is rethinking timing in Sales,
Marketing & Business Development

29. Timmons Model of Entrepreneurship
(The Business Plan)
Communication
Resources Opportunity
Business
Plan
Creativity Leadership
Team

30. Moore Model of Entrepreneurship
(Chasm + Life Cycle)

31. New Product Introductions
What’s the Model?
 New Product introduction models
 Checklist of what to and when to do it
 Market size and business case
 Models try to ensure that product matches market
 Technology and development “gates”

32. StageGate™ Model
(New Product Introduction)

34. Steve Blank Model of
Entrepreneurship)

35. Venture Capital Model of a Startup
(Execution)
Concept/ Product Alpha Test/ Launch/
Bus. Plan Development Beta Test 1st Ship

36. New Product Introduction
It Doesn’t Always Work
 New Product Development Process
 Works great for some new products, fails
miserably for others
 Products usually are late, over cost
 Typically fails to understand and satisfy
customer needs
 Why?

37. Issues in New Product Intros
 Current models:
 Confuse product development process with
customer needs
 Treat all startups as the same
 We need a New Product Intro Process
 Reduces Market RiskSimple, understood by all
 Founders commitment
 Cross function organization
 Solid homework

38. What is a startup?
 A startup is a human institution designed to
deliver a new product or service under conditions
of extreme uncertainty.
 Nothing to do with size of company, sector of the
economy, or industry

39. Entrepreneurship is management
 Our goal is to create an institution, not just a
product
 Traditional management practices fail
 “general management” as taught to MBAs
 Need practices and principles geared to the
startup context of extreme uncertainty

40. Value vs. Waste
 In a lean transformation, question #1 is – which
activities are value-creating and which are waste?
 In traditional business, value is created by
delivering products or services to customers
 In a startup, the product and customer are
unknowns
 We need a new definition of value for startups

41. Traditional Product Development
Unit of Progress: Advance to Next Stage
Waterfall
Requirements
Specification
Design
Problem: known
Solution: known
Implementation
Verification
Maintenance

42. Agile Product Development
Unit of Progress: A line of Working Code
“Product Owner” or in-house customer
Problem: known
Solution: unknown

43. Product Development at Lean Startup
Unit of Progress: Validated Learning About Customers ($$$)
Customer Development
Hypotheses,
Problem: unknown Experiments,
Insights
Data,
Solution: unknown Feedback,
Insights

44. Two Kinds of Waste
 Type 1 waste – “activities which generate no
value but are currently necessary to create value”
 Requires a change in structure
 How do we prioritize?
 Type 2 waste – “activities which create no value
and could be eliminated immediately”
 Requires only a change in behavior
 Usually caused by “best practices”

45. Speed
Wins
IDEAS
LEARN BUILD
DATA
CODE
MEASURE

46. Customer Development
Turns Market Risk/Product Fit Hypothesis into Facts
Customer Customer Customer Company
Discovery Validation Creation Building
 Discovery: Test hypotheses i.e. problem and product
 Validation: Build a repeatable and scalable sales process
 Creation: Create end-user demand and fill the sales pipeline
 Building: Scale via relentless execution

47. Lean Startup Advantages
Customer
Development
 Builds low-burn companies by design "
 Low cost market risk testing"
Agile
Product
 Organized around learning and Development
discovery"
 Right model for current conditions"
The next wave of capital efficient startups!

48. This is Our Class
Hypotheses,
Problem: unknown Experiments,
Insights
Data,
Solution: unknown Feedback,
Insights