Steve Blank Quotes

Launching a successful product or startup has little to do with luck. Any business that gains traction on the market is the result of very careful strategizing and market analysis, not to mention the development of an original product or service.

The goal of a private company is, first, zero to one: Get past the product-market fit; figure out whether people actually care about what you're trying to build and someone will pay you money for that. That's the zero to one problem.

The business model is both the starting point and the scorecard for Customer Development progress.

I think, when I see entrepreneurs, they tend to talk about the market and the industry - which is obviously very important, but the most important thing is you're product. What are you selling? And does it really have product-market fit?

Whenever you start a new business, the sheer number of variables at hand makes failure a constant possibility.

The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It's understanding who to listen to and why.

In a two-sided market, focusing on the customer will increase a business's ability to extract value from the supply side.

First and deadliest of all is a founder's unwavering belief that he or she understands who the customers will be, what they need, and how to sell it to them.

You have to have a business model you believe in and like.

Business has only two basic functions - marketing and innovation.

When you're thinking about your next product or current product and wondering how to make it different so you don't have competition, understand the job the customer needs to get done.

A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.

When looking at trends I always ask myself basic and timeless questions about business, and the one I seem to always come back to is, 'How is this different than anything else in the marketplace?'

It's easier to build a business around a first-class product, even if it's a more expensive product to produce.

I learnt the hard way about positioning in business, about catering to the right segments.

The problem with entrepreneurship is we are often working really hard producing high quality products that no-one wants. The creation of stuff is not valued.

Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world - if you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world.

We're not in the business of shaping consumer demand. We respond to it.

You need to make certain decisions to expand your market.

Most marketers think there's a concept called a product life cycle. Once you realize that the world is organized by jobs that need to be done, you understand that product life cycles don't exist.

Even if someone is already in your market space, ask yourself whether you can approach it from a different angle and thereby secure your own customer base.

Certainly, the human race can be fickle, and times do change, but overall, the barriers to bringing a product to market - and understanding what 'the market' wants - have remained unchanged.

A big part of the accelerator is to help scientists become entrepreneurs. I like to think about each business being built on three major areas: creating the value, creating the product, and extracting the value. We provide help in each of these areas.

In my view, product/market fit is the most important thing to get right as a startup entrepreneur. There's a variety of ways to do it, but without solving some pain point that the customer gets so excited about they tell their friends, it's really hard in the modern age to get any liftoff.

If you haven't created the time as an owner to understand why people are choosing your model over your competition, then you are only managing the business that comes in the door, not actively seeking it out.