Lecture

Why is Customer Development So Tough?

Chuck Eesley continues to talk about customer acquisition as well as the lean start-up model. In this video, he tries to answer the question of why customer acquisition is so difficult, describing it as a balancing act between many different factors and encourages teams to be flexible to changes in their plan.


Course Lectures
  • Silicon Valley
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses some of the popular theories on why Silicon Valley has succeeded as a startup hub.

  • Chuck Eesley provides an introduction and overview of the course on Technology Entrepreneurship (ENGR 145). Including topics such as what you will learn in the class, course design and logistics, "technology entrepreneurship" defined, and other options for entrepreneurship education at Stanford.

  • Chuck Eesley examines what he describes as the frameworks for entrepreneurship. He describes nine basic models and frameworks for entrepreneurship and hopes that by giving a very broad sense of what entrepreneurship is and what separates the successes from failures.

  • Chuck Eesley discusses entrepreneurship as a search for a repeatable, scalable business model. In this video, he discusses the group projects in the class, using the business model canvas, including creating a low-fidelity website and market size analysis.

  • The Founding Team
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses some of the basics of forming a founding team for an entrepreneurial venture. He stresses that without a strong central team a project will often have very little chance of success - everyone needs to be willing to make sacrifices.

  • Brainstorming
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses how to organize productive brainstorming sessions. In this video, he covers the factors that inhibit idea production in brainstorming and how brainstorming is useful in startups.

  • Chuck Eesley discusses technology life cycles and technology diffusion. The typical industry cycles of product and process innovation are discussed. This video also covers some insights that technology entrepreneurs might take away from these patterns when planning their technology strategy.

  • Chuck Eesley discusses the case method style of instruction and some guidelines for analyzing cases and case discussions. He also introduces the idea of the business model which will be discussed in greater detail in the following videos.

  • Chuck Eesley discusses the customer development methodology and the lean startup. In the video, he talks about how the scientific method can be applied to the process of entrepreneurship.

  • Chuck Eesley discusses the customer development methodology and the business model canvas. In this video, he talks about how the scientific method can be applied to the process of entrepreneurship. Also discussed are some examples of ways to run experiments and the value of being balanced between optimism/pessimism and being persistent/flexible.

  • Stephanie Marrus, a Silicon Valley business consultant who is affiliated with the Stanford Technology Ventures program and is a mentor for E145, discusses entrepreneurship in the life sciences. She defines life sciences as an industry, the path to test a new drug in humans, the details and funding of clinical research and trials, tech vs. life science venture characteristics, and the motivations for being a life sciences entrepreneur.

  • Chuck Eesley continues to talk about customer acquisition as well as the lean start-up model. In this video, he tries to answer the question of why customer acquisition is so difficult, describing it as a balancing act between many different factors and encourages teams to be flexible to changes in their plan.

  • FlightCaster
    Charles Eesley

    Jason Freedman, founder of FlightCaster, talks about his entrepreneurial career and lessons learned. He discusses making something people want, the importance of distinguishing good and bad advice and how optimize does not equal iterate.

  • Bjoern Herrmann and Max Marmer from the Startup Genome Project present their model and results on startup failures due to premature scaling.

  • Entreprenuerial Sales
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses entrepreneurial sales, elevator pitches, and presentation skills. Sales is presented as an experimentation process in a startup firm.

  • Alex Rampell, founder and CEO of Trialpay, discusses distribution channels and partnerships. Concepts such as bidirectional relevance and channel conflict are discussed.

  • Kirsten Leute from Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing discusses how the OTL works, statistics and how to find a technology from Stanford to license into your startup.

  • Eric Case discusses starting Domainr, a domain name search engine, as a side project. He talks about his career, the inspiration for Domainr, and how they have thought about the revenue model.

  • Clint Korver, a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, discusses the Board of Directors. He explains the duties and function of the board as well as the typical structure of board meetings.

  • Fergus Hurley, a founder of Focal Labs, discusses entrepreneurship, the role on the founding team, and the importance of networking and work experience for building the startup team.

  • Venture Finance, Part 1
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses venture financing and raising money. The three main topics covered are the amount of funding, the structure of the deal, and sources of capital.

  • Venture Finance, Part 2
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses venture financing and raising money. In this video, pre and post-money valuation along with dilution are discussed with example calculations.

  • Venture Finance, Part 3
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley discusses fundraising. In this video, he talks about the economics, structure, and types of venture capital firms and the process of raising money from VC firms.

  • Course Summary
    Charles Eesley

    Chuck Eesley wraps up the course and shares some final takeaways and pieces of advice. The key themes of turning problems into opportunities, experimentation, and iteration and the importance of teams are emphasized.