476: How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank

Steve Blank: The Startup Owner’s Manual Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and academician. He is recognized for developing the Customer Development methodology, which launched the Lean Startup movement. Steve is also the co-founder of E.piphany. His Google Tech talk, The Secret History of Silicon Valley, offers a widely regarded insider’s perspective on the emerging Silicon Valley’s start-up innovation. He’s also published three books: The Four Steps to the Epiphany*, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, and The Startup Owner’s Manual*. In this conversation, Steve and I discuss the steps that leaders should take when making pivots. We explored the importance of creating a Minimal Viable Product or Minimum Viable Service, followed quickly with customer discovery, rapid testing, and refinement. Key Points What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. -Friedrich Nietzsche To pivot quickly: Create a MVP (Minimal Viable Product) or MVS (Minimum Viable Service). Conduct customer discovery: validate your idea by speaking with existing/potential customers about the new product/service. Do rapid testing: get your work into the hands of existing/potential customers quickly. Don’t try to get it perfect right out of the gate. Refine your offering: use fast feedback to make the product/service better. Resources Mentioned Seven Steps to Small Business Recovery The Virus Survival Strategy For Your Startup How To Keep Your Company Alive – Observe, Orient, Decide and Act Customer Discovery In the Time Of the Covid-19 Virus Related Episodes Ideas Worth Stealing From Top Entrepreneurs, with Dorie Clark (episode 318) Serve Others Through Marketing, with Seth Godin (episode 381) How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470) If You Build It, They Will Come (Dave’s Journal) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.