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1. Agree with your comments. The text was never intended for a general audience. 2. The "book" is actually my class notes from the Customer Development class I
by sblank 17y ago
1. Agree with your comments. The text was never intended for a general audience.
2. The "book" is actually my class notes from the Customer Development class I teach at Haas.
3. Students started asking for hard copies of the notes. I sat on the board of Cafepress so as a favor, I bundled the notes together, slapped a cover on it and put it on the cafepress.com site
4. When Eric Ries took my class he pointed out that I could ship the copies to Amazon and that would give others broader access to it. Amazon wanted something more than "these are my class notes" as a description.
5. You can think of the book as a $39 ripoff for class notes, or a steep discount on the $30,000 Haas Business School tuition.
6. The book title was a pun on my last company, Epiphany
7. The web site is a running commentary on the origin of customer development, how the ideas evolved and what they mean
- gruseom 17y agoOh man, now I feel bad for harshing on it. The something we got is infinitely better than the nothing that was its alternative. Thanks for taking the trouble to do the favor, and, uh, what can I say? I'll go home and re-read it.
- BobbyH 17y agoYour post and Steve's response made me realize that Steve's book was basically a minimal viable product. Now that his buggy MVP has proved the market, he should follow up with an improved v2.0! :-)
- megamark16 17y agoSometimes it's all about expectations. Perhaps a friendly Amazon reviewer could inform people about the nature of your book to set the appropriate expectations.
- gruseom 17y agoIt's true, the frame makes all the difference. It's a book in the sense that it's a bound text, but not in the sense that I was using the word. Having adjusted the definition, the criticisms pretty much evaporate. Maybe I'll do penance by posting such a review.
- gruseom 17y agoMaybe I'll do penance by posting such a review. Ok, I did: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3TQFQYY3B3WNE/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm http://www.amazon.com/review/R3TQFQYY3B3WNE/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...