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1 of 1 members found this review helpful.Excellent, but realize its origins
“The ideas in this book are as vital as the other reviewers here are saying, and I agree: anyone interested in startups or product development should buy it. However, adjust your expectations about what this product is. It's not really a book; it's course notes from the class the author teaches at Berkeley. Why does this matter? Well, otherwise you might think, as I did, "Great stuff but why the hell is it so hard to read?" The answer is that it wasn't written for a general audience. It's here because his students felt that even just the course notes, published as is, would be valuable to a lot of people (and they were right). I hope one day Steve Blank writes a real book, one that is as engaging as his wonderful blog. In the meantime, we can count ourselves lucky to have access to this material in rough form today.”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-11-04. -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
This book resembles realities of startups - My own experience
“In my experience I can tell that the ideas in this book are not just theory, in my own experience I can tell I have passed through several problems included here, and also have been successful with principles recommended, however this is a guide step by step and well structured, Should be a reference for any new product/service on startups.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-23.
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1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
insightful, systematic, actionable... wish I'd found this years ago
“Caveat: This book doesn't describe the mechanics of starting and operating a business. There are many other sources of information for those skills. Instead, the book assumes you have that knowledge, and goes directly into meticulous, reasoned detail about how to develop customers who will buy what you're selling.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-20.
The book's critical approach fills a gap in literature on actually reaching profitability - a question not as well answered by otherwise useful technology business books like "Getting Real" or "Crossing the Chasm". This book brings a familiar "fail fast/cheap/often" mentality to the business aspects of introducing a new product or service. Designers will recognize elements of user centered design in his ethnographic approach to fast iteration with customer feedback. Engineers will recognize elements of agile development in syncing tight release cycles with customer feedback.
The reading experience was a series of forehead smacks towards clarity. I was surprised to (un)learn so much about marketing and sales from this book. I've witnessed and committed many mistakes mentioned here for new markets, resegmented markets, and even existing market share wars between software behemoths. Before this book, I lacked a conceptual framework for learning from past experiences to improve the odds next time. Steven Blank's market types and actionable roadmaps significantly improve those odds by explaining how to choose the right question to ask at the right time.
The only things I didn't like about this book are the title and cover image. The cheesiness lessens its credibility when I cajole friends into reading this book. I only bought it after watching a university lecture online by the author.” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Absolutely amazing
“This was an amazing read...I am a first time entrepreneur and I feel like reading this gave me the confidence the that serial entrepreneurs have in the process and get the understanding of why vc place their bets on them. The approaches described in the book are practical though get pedantic at times, but more than anything else it made me think a lot more practically about the problems that I was solving. The difference between customer development and product development is the primary thesis of the book and in my mind is the smartest way to get to grounded operating plan for your start-up.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-13.
The book is written well and is an easy read and is something that I carry in my backpack all the time and refer to it constantly. ” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Get this book now!
“Already loving this book. It's painfully clear that in my own startup we were pursuing a product development only approach and had forgotten about customer development (an engineer's mistake). There is a process to developing the customer and customer-testing your hypotheses and Steven Blank creates a great framework for this. I'm not usually effusive with praise but GET THIS BOOK if you are an entrepreneur... it could save your startup.”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-09-29.
