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Here is "a radical reexamination of the entire new product introduction process"...and almost everything that precedes it
HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICEon November 6, 2012
Note: The review that follows is of the Third Edition, published in 2007.
In this volume, Steven Gary Blank introduces and then explains in thorough detail the "Customer Development" model, one that he characterizes as "a paradox because it is followed by successful startups, yet has been articulated by no one [other than Blank, prior to its initial publication in 2005]. Its basic propositions are the antithesis of common wisdom yet they are followed by those who achieve success. It is the path that is hidden in plain sight." In fact, Blank insists that what he offers is a "better way to manage startups. Those that survive the first few tough years "do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers of the venture capital community." And this is also true of product launches in new divisions inside larger corporations or in the "canonical" garages.
Moreover, "through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful [whatever their nature and origin] all invent a parallel process to Product Development. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery. I call this process `Customer Development,' a sibling to `Product Development,' and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not." Wow! This really is interesting stuff and I haven't even begun to read the first chapter.
Few start ups succeed, most don't, and Blank notes that each new company or new product startup involves (borrowing from Joseph Campbell) a "hero's journey" that begins with an almost "mythological vision - a hope of what could be, with a goal few others can see. It is this bright and burning vision that differentiates the entrepreneur from big company CEOs and startups from existing businesses." Although Blank suggests that the aforementioned "journey" involves a four-step process, it should be noted that not one but several epiphanies or at least revelations can and - hopefully - will occur during that process, one that is multi-dimensional rather than linear, from Point A to Point Z.
These are among the dozens of reader-friendly passages I found of greatest interest and value:
o Customer Discovery Step-by-Step (Page 30)
o The Customer Discovery Philosophy (33-37)
o Customer Discovery Summary (76)
o The Customer Validation Philosophy (82-83)
o Customer Validation Summary (118)
o Customer Creation Step-by-Step (120)
o Customer Creation Philosophy (123-124)
o The Four Building Blocks of Customer Creation (129-132)
o Customer Creation Summary (157)
o Company Building Step-by-Step (158)
o The Company Building Philosophy (162-163)
o Company Building Summary (205)
No brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the scope and depth of material that Steven Gary Blank provides in this volume but I hope that I have at least suggested why I think so highly of him and his work. Also, I hope that those who read this commentary will be better prepared to determine whether or not they wish to read it and, in that event, will have at least some idea of how the information, insights, and wisdom could perhaps be of substantial benefit to them and to their own organization.
In this volume, Steven Gary Blank introduces and then explains in thorough detail the "Customer Development" model, one that he characterizes as "a paradox because it is followed by successful startups, yet has been articulated by no one [other than Blank, prior to its initial publication in 2005]. Its basic propositions are the antithesis of common wisdom yet they are followed by those who achieve success. It is the path that is hidden in plain sight." In fact, Blank insists that what he offers is a "better way to manage startups. Those that survive the first few tough years "do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers of the venture capital community." And this is also true of product launches in new divisions inside larger corporations or in the "canonical" garages.
Moreover, "through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful [whatever their nature and origin] all invent a parallel process to Product Development. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery. I call this process `Customer Development,' a sibling to `Product Development,' and each and every startup that succeeds recapitulates it, knowingly or not." Wow! This really is interesting stuff and I haven't even begun to read the first chapter.
Few start ups succeed, most don't, and Blank notes that each new company or new product startup involves (borrowing from Joseph Campbell) a "hero's journey" that begins with an almost "mythological vision - a hope of what could be, with a goal few others can see. It is this bright and burning vision that differentiates the entrepreneur from big company CEOs and startups from existing businesses." Although Blank suggests that the aforementioned "journey" involves a four-step process, it should be noted that not one but several epiphanies or at least revelations can and - hopefully - will occur during that process, one that is multi-dimensional rather than linear, from Point A to Point Z.
These are among the dozens of reader-friendly passages I found of greatest interest and value:
o Customer Discovery Step-by-Step (Page 30)
o The Customer Discovery Philosophy (33-37)
o Customer Discovery Summary (76)
o The Customer Validation Philosophy (82-83)
o Customer Validation Summary (118)
o Customer Creation Step-by-Step (120)
o Customer Creation Philosophy (123-124)
o The Four Building Blocks of Customer Creation (129-132)
o Customer Creation Summary (157)
o Company Building Step-by-Step (158)
o The Company Building Philosophy (162-163)
o Company Building Summary (205)
No brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the scope and depth of material that Steven Gary Blank provides in this volume but I hope that I have at least suggested why I think so highly of him and his work. Also, I hope that those who read this commentary will be better prepared to determine whether or not they wish to read it and, in that event, will have at least some idea of how the information, insights, and wisdom could perhaps be of substantial benefit to them and to their own organization.
on November 7, 2016
An excellent introduction to anyone who wants to implement the Customer Development and Lean Startup. The book clearly explain the theory and the incentive for it. Next, you will be able start practicing with companion (and more practical) books such business model generation (the canvas model), the The Startup Owner's Manual. my recommendation is also to find mentor on this area. Enjoy the book.
on July 8, 2016
This book was recommended to me by a friend when I told them that I had enjoyed reading Lean Startup. He insisted that Four Steps to the Epiphany was far more detailed, instructive and thought out. This is pretty much an iterative recipe book, walking you through steps in detail with specific recommendations to return to earlier steps if milestones aren't achieved.
on May 4, 2017
Great book, very easy to read and with great tips
on June 22, 2011
I learned more from reading The Four Steps to the Epiphany than any other business book that I've read. It is a powerhouse that you must read if you're working in a startup, consulting, or any role involved with driving business strategy.
Steve Blank hammers home several big ideas, the most prominent being that startups will greatly increase their chances of success by following a model called Customer Development as opposed to the traditional Product Development model.
The Customer Development concept is only one of the big ideas that Blank introduces. Other big ideas include:
- The identification of different market types and their associated impact on business strategy
- The concept of a mission-centric organization as a transition between startup / learning oriented and process-oriented organizations
Blank's experience, hard-earned through multiple successes and failures, clearly shows in the content. The book contains a step-by-step guide to each element of Customer Development, from the very earliest stages through the transition out of startup mode. He offers a nice balance of philosophy/theory and practical advice, illustrating his points with examples from his experience or well-known case studies. He demonstrates excellent breadth of knowledge, frequently offering points of view from various parts of the organization, including Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Management/Leadership, and the Board or venture capital companies.
The book is split into six chapters - two introductory chapters then one for each of the four steps in the Customer Development process. Each chapter is long and packed with information. Each chapter concludes with a one page summary that serves as a quick reference guide. The appendix contains a checklist for each step in the Customer Development process as well as a useful bibliography with Blank's comments.
Like other readers, I noted issues with the editing - words are missing, grammar is sometimes incorrect, and fonts are different throughout the book. However, these editing issues did not diminish my understanding of the content at all. I found them to be harmless compared to the quality of the concepts, ideas, and advice. In many ways, the editing reflected the spirit of Blank's message - get your product out there and try to sell it.
One of my former jobs was in consulting, where I worked with a few startup companies. I wish that I read The Four Steps to the Epiphany years ago - the knowledge I gained from this book would have helped me tremendously in working with startup clients.
The Four Steps to the Epiphany should be on the desk of every person who works for a startup company.
Steve Blank hammers home several big ideas, the most prominent being that startups will greatly increase their chances of success by following a model called Customer Development as opposed to the traditional Product Development model.
The Customer Development concept is only one of the big ideas that Blank introduces. Other big ideas include:
- The identification of different market types and their associated impact on business strategy
- The concept of a mission-centric organization as a transition between startup / learning oriented and process-oriented organizations
Blank's experience, hard-earned through multiple successes and failures, clearly shows in the content. The book contains a step-by-step guide to each element of Customer Development, from the very earliest stages through the transition out of startup mode. He offers a nice balance of philosophy/theory and practical advice, illustrating his points with examples from his experience or well-known case studies. He demonstrates excellent breadth of knowledge, frequently offering points of view from various parts of the organization, including Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Management/Leadership, and the Board or venture capital companies.
The book is split into six chapters - two introductory chapters then one for each of the four steps in the Customer Development process. Each chapter is long and packed with information. Each chapter concludes with a one page summary that serves as a quick reference guide. The appendix contains a checklist for each step in the Customer Development process as well as a useful bibliography with Blank's comments.
Like other readers, I noted issues with the editing - words are missing, grammar is sometimes incorrect, and fonts are different throughout the book. However, these editing issues did not diminish my understanding of the content at all. I found them to be harmless compared to the quality of the concepts, ideas, and advice. In many ways, the editing reflected the spirit of Blank's message - get your product out there and try to sell it.
One of my former jobs was in consulting, where I worked with a few startup companies. I wish that I read The Four Steps to the Epiphany years ago - the knowledge I gained from this book would have helped me tremendously in working with startup clients.
The Four Steps to the Epiphany should be on the desk of every person who works for a startup company.
on February 27, 2010
If you were to interview entrepreneurial high-tech CEO's having just sold their companies, or less than successful CEO's who wound them up, they would provide a great source of information; however their reflections could sound like Tiger Woods at his recent press conference, "Regrets, I've had a few....too few...I mean too many to mention".
Underachievement of potential is an opinion many investors will have reached on exiting their high-tech investment. In a conversation with Nic Brisbourne, investment partner at Esprit Capital Ventures in London last week, we concluded that the principal factors causing underachievement are generally people, not product related and the root cause is nearly always poor sales and marketing execution.
In hindsight CEO's will generally agree that they should have made changes earlier and knowing what they know now, can tell you what they would have done differently.
But what if entrepreneurs had a method or set of best-practices that were proven to create early sales and marketing success in both startups and new product introductions in high-tech companies...would this change the odds of survival and over/underachievement and the value of the company on exit?
I believe it would and am currently reading and absorbing the wisdom and four steps cover knowledge captured in Steven Gary Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany", subtitled "successful strategies for products that win", a book about building successful high-tech companies.
Blank is better known in the US than in Europe, having started 8 companies in CEO or Marketing roles, five of which were IPO's including names you may remember: E.piphany an enterprise software company, Ardent a Supercomputer company, two semiconductor companies MIPS Computers and Zilog and according to Blank 3 very deep craters.
Blank teaches entrepreneurship and Customer Development at UC Berkeley's Haas Business School, in the Colombia/Berkeley MBA program and at Stanford University at the Graduate School of Engineering.
I love this book!; it's the best advice I have ever read in one volume for entrepreneurs. So many times through this book I said aloud, "wow if i'd only known this back then.....
Blank's core thesis in building companies is that there are four discrete stages in the process:
4 steps to the epiphany
1.Customer Discovery - is about finding out if there are customers for your idea and if and what they would be willing to pay for it, before you write a line of code. This must be done by leaving the office and talking to real potential customers and of course this removes the guess work in initial product specification - as the spec. is the founders vision and the mimimum working set required to win first customers (or earlyvangelists as Blank calls them). Customer Discovery removes pricing risk because prospects tell you what they would be prepared to pay and it removes the hiring and market failure risk of alternate approaches, including the popular "build it and they will come" start-up strategy.
2.Customer Validation creates a repeatable sales and marketing road-map based on the lessons learned in selling (not giving it away) to the first early customers. These first two steps validate the assumptions in your business model, that a market exists for your product, who your customers will be, the target buyers, establishes pricing, sales process and channels strategy.
3. Customer Creation builds on early sales success and after completion of Customer Validation. Blank states that customer creation is dependent on the market entry type which is governed by the nature of the product - is it a disruptive innovation or a me-too. Customer Creation strategies define the four types of start-up
* Startups entering an existing market
* Startups that are creating an entirely new market
* Startups wanting to resegment an existing market as a low cost entrant
* Startups that want to resegment an existing market as a niche player
4. Company Building is where the company transitions from its informal learning and discovery
oriented Customer Development team into formal sales, marketing and business development teams to exploit the company's early success.
If you are an entrepreneur or a sales, marketing or business development leader responsible for introducing new products or services, then this book is a must read.
Underachievement of potential is an opinion many investors will have reached on exiting their high-tech investment. In a conversation with Nic Brisbourne, investment partner at Esprit Capital Ventures in London last week, we concluded that the principal factors causing underachievement are generally people, not product related and the root cause is nearly always poor sales and marketing execution.
In hindsight CEO's will generally agree that they should have made changes earlier and knowing what they know now, can tell you what they would have done differently.
But what if entrepreneurs had a method or set of best-practices that were proven to create early sales and marketing success in both startups and new product introductions in high-tech companies...would this change the odds of survival and over/underachievement and the value of the company on exit?
I believe it would and am currently reading and absorbing the wisdom and four steps cover knowledge captured in Steven Gary Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany", subtitled "successful strategies for products that win", a book about building successful high-tech companies.
Blank is better known in the US than in Europe, having started 8 companies in CEO or Marketing roles, five of which were IPO's including names you may remember: E.piphany an enterprise software company, Ardent a Supercomputer company, two semiconductor companies MIPS Computers and Zilog and according to Blank 3 very deep craters.
Blank teaches entrepreneurship and Customer Development at UC Berkeley's Haas Business School, in the Colombia/Berkeley MBA program and at Stanford University at the Graduate School of Engineering.
I love this book!; it's the best advice I have ever read in one volume for entrepreneurs. So many times through this book I said aloud, "wow if i'd only known this back then.....
Blank's core thesis in building companies is that there are four discrete stages in the process:
4 steps to the epiphany
1.Customer Discovery - is about finding out if there are customers for your idea and if and what they would be willing to pay for it, before you write a line of code. This must be done by leaving the office and talking to real potential customers and of course this removes the guess work in initial product specification - as the spec. is the founders vision and the mimimum working set required to win first customers (or earlyvangelists as Blank calls them). Customer Discovery removes pricing risk because prospects tell you what they would be prepared to pay and it removes the hiring and market failure risk of alternate approaches, including the popular "build it and they will come" start-up strategy.
2.Customer Validation creates a repeatable sales and marketing road-map based on the lessons learned in selling (not giving it away) to the first early customers. These first two steps validate the assumptions in your business model, that a market exists for your product, who your customers will be, the target buyers, establishes pricing, sales process and channels strategy.
3. Customer Creation builds on early sales success and after completion of Customer Validation. Blank states that customer creation is dependent on the market entry type which is governed by the nature of the product - is it a disruptive innovation or a me-too. Customer Creation strategies define the four types of start-up
* Startups entering an existing market
* Startups that are creating an entirely new market
* Startups wanting to resegment an existing market as a low cost entrant
* Startups that want to resegment an existing market as a niche player
4. Company Building is where the company transitions from its informal learning and discovery
oriented Customer Development team into formal sales, marketing and business development teams to exploit the company's early success.
If you are an entrepreneur or a sales, marketing or business development leader responsible for introducing new products or services, then this book is a must read.
on May 1, 2014
Content-wise, this is hands down the best book I have ever read on entrepreneurship. However, it is not lite reading. It reads like a step by step playbook (or textbook) and has little in the way of entertaining narrative. You need to be prepared for a degree of repetition in content and in structure since the author is making the case there there is a rigorous, repeatable process to building a startup. I devoured every page, including the appendices, and discovered insight after insight.
on October 23, 2010
The Four Steps to the Epiphany is a must-have because too many business models fall victim to unproven assumptions that look good on paper and in a business plan.
This book will help you avoid that trap by reducing the risk and increasing the success chances of your start-up or corporate project. In The Four Steps Blank outlines a practical approach that will help you move from a business model hypothesis to a tested and scalable model in an concrete way and with low initial cash requirements.
I use Blank's method in conjunction with the Business Model Canvas to help companies reduce their risk of implementing new business models. Blank's 4-step method shows readers how to systematically test and validate business models 'by getting out of the building and talking to customers' before moving on to launching and scaling.
Blank's book convinces not only through its content, but through the author's proven entrepreneurial track record. If you are really serious about succeeding with your start-up or corporate project buy the book now.
This book will help you avoid that trap by reducing the risk and increasing the success chances of your start-up or corporate project. In The Four Steps Blank outlines a practical approach that will help you move from a business model hypothesis to a tested and scalable model in an concrete way and with low initial cash requirements.
I use Blank's method in conjunction with the Business Model Canvas to help companies reduce their risk of implementing new business models. Blank's 4-step method shows readers how to systematically test and validate business models 'by getting out of the building and talking to customers' before moving on to launching and scaling.
Blank's book convinces not only through its content, but through the author's proven entrepreneurial track record. If you are really serious about succeeding with your start-up or corporate project buy the book now.
on October 2, 2015
Steve Blank presents an incredible treatise on building companies, especially in high-tech that, as many people know, anchored the worldwide "Lean Revolution." As a serial entrepreneur, and early customer of epiphany, I found the ideas and advice relevant and timely, even today 12 years after the first publication. Worth the investment and the time!!!
