I continue to reflect on Steven Gary Blanks’ Four Steps to the Epiphany and have even gone so far as to give a copy to everyone on my team.
I think it methodically and directly frames the essence of the challenges of building and launching technology products. I also believe that most of the lessons can be extended beyond to tech to just about any go-to-market effort. I marked a few pages as I read it the first time and wanted to share some of the things I thought were compelling.
One of the recurring themes Blank lays out deals with how you are trying to enter a market and how your tasks and challenges vary based on the path you choose:
1. New product to an existing market
2. New product to new market
3. New product to existing market and trying to re-segment as low cost entrant
4. New product to existing market and trying to re-segment that market as a niche entrant
Also, core to the message is the notion of a “learning and discovery process.” This is the sometimes uncomfortable and frustrating process of testing your hypothesis on the market and refining based on what you learn. A customer engagement process vs. building something and tossing it into the market assuming it will be adopted….what a concept.
“Learning and discovering who a company’s initial customers will be, and what markets they are in, requires a separate and distinct process from Product Development”
I became aware of this book via Marc Andreessen’s post on it and it ties together nicely with his thoughts (and mine) on achieving product/market fit, the steps to get there, and knowing what it feels like once the market begins to “pull” your product or service.
Venture Vice 