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More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development
- pclark 18y agothis is an awesome presentation - I really recommend anyone that has a product and wants customers read it. Before I wrote my first line of code for my startup I went and interviewed about 50 regular people. I'd go sit at a train station and grab a guy reading a newspaper, and ask him why he wasn't reading it on his phone. I'd grab people on the bus or in a queue for groceries on their phone (eg, using it, not talking) and spark up a conversation as to what they're upto. Most of the time they'd happily give me their phone number after a brief chat, I kept in contact with them all, and rang them once I'd developed my product - quizzed them what I thought and so on. I have another 100 or so users from Mechanical Turk about my product market that I've been too busy to analyze properly.
- phil_KartMe 18y agohow did you use mechancial turk with your product? would you recommend i test a consumer web app with it?
- phil_KartMe 18y agoalso, here is a podcast by stephen blank that a friend just recommended http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2048 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2048
- earl 18y agoWorking link: http://www.scribd.com/full/10601416?access_key=key-mf4icwvtdyiklcrmdw8 http://www.scribd.com/full/10601416?access_key=key-mf4icwvtd...
- chris11 18y agoThis is a really great presentation. It seems to go along with the idea of releasing early and often. I've never really been comfortable or understood sales. In school my only few real experiences in sales was selling some product for some benefit or fundraiser.From that, I got the idea that successful selling required convincing some unknown person that the finished product solved their specific needs that I was basically unaware of. So it was pretty much a numbers game, more attempts mean more money. I like the idea of a product development cycle where the customers and users are shaping the product. I also really like the idea that I can easily validate a product concept by seeing if the people advising me would actually buy in to demo. This presentation has helped me feel more comfortable with the process of successful product development and sales.
- andrewljohnson 18y agoThis is academic gobbledy gook. I felt like I was hearing a bad tech sales pitch flipping through this with all of its markitecture diagrams. Beware - just because something comes from Stanford, doesn't make it meaningful or insightful. This is just restating common knowledge with flow charts.
- DenisM 18y agoSteven Blank has founded 4 startups, participated in 8, sat on many advisory boards and otherwise actively participated in the startup process(es). On meta note, to elevate the level of discussion here I suggest that you try addressing substance of the matter being presented, not attacking the personality of the presenter.
- andrewljohnson 18y agoI didn't attack his personality - I attacked 1) the content of the presentation 2) the presentation of the presentation and 3) cautioned against accepting this presentation as great because of the source. My argument wasn't very detailed, but it certainly wasn't an attack on the presenter. You, on the other hand, did not defend the content of the presentation, but rather cited some qualifications of the author - ironically, just what I warned against accepting as proof of credibility.
- DenisM 18y agoYour point: Author is theorizing without connection to reality, more literally "This is academic gobbledy gook." My counterpoint: Steven Blank has vast first-hand experience in startups. Any more questions?
- andrewljohnson 18y agoAcademic opinions are almost always formed from experiments, and this presentation is academic. My point was not that the author is theorizing without connection to reality. My point was I've heard the same thing said in half a sentence that he took dozens of slides to say. But it's got that nice academic sheen!
- sachinag 18y agoAnd more startups fail from a lack of money than from a lack of product development.
- DenisM 18y agoIf you would rather watch video or listen to MP3, here's the link: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2056# http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2056...
- lallysingh 18y agoLooks like a movement from waterfall to iterative development in the customer devel side. That much I got. How to do that with a startup idea, without developing enough to make a showable prototype, I donno. pclark's mechanical turk idea sounds pretty awesome.