Rethinking the Product Development Process

This free online course features Steve Blank who is a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in high technology companies and management. He is also a Consulting Professor at Stanford in the Graduate School of Engineering. In this course he discusses rethinking the product development model so that early stage companies can reduce their overall exposure to risk. You will learn that most start-ups fail because they don’t target the right market or the right customer. Steve Blank explains the customer development process and how successful businesses seek out real customers, ask for their feedback and analyse and fix any problems these customers encounter. He gives advice about not seeking media coverage too soon and also why company founders have been thrown out of their own companies. This course shows why customer feedback must not be outsourced and why it is important that company founders speak directly to their customers. You will also learn why there shouldn’t be vice presidents in a start-up and what a customer development team is for. This course will be of great interest to business professionals and entrepreneurs who want to gain greater knowledge and understanding about rethinking the product development model in business start-ups.

To qualify for your official ALISON Diploma, Certificate or PDF you must study and complete all modules and score 80% or more in each of the course assessments. A link to your Diploma certificate will then appear under the My Certificates heading of your My Account page.

Learning outcomes: - Learn why entrepreneurs should rethink the product development process; - How the failure of entrepreneurs to pinpoint the right market or the right customer is the reason most start-ups fail; - How an entrepreneur can prove a working hypothesis in relation to their customers and markets; - Why the company founders should be the first to try to generate sales; - Explain why you shouldn’t seek publicity and media coverage too soon; - Learn how starting a company and growing a company are two different skill sets; - Why customer feedback shouldn’t be outsourced; - Discuss why start-ups are not junior versions of larger companies;