7 Fascinating Data Points When “Customer Development Cycle” Fails

By Larry Chiang

	Asse9 Austin Secret (@asse9)
4/5/15, 10:50 AM 7 Fascinating Data Points When “Customer Development Cycle” Fails cc @LarryChiang #ENGR145

The “Customer Development Cycle” itself doesn’t fail. 

All y’all fail at teaching 7 “Customer Development Cycle”. I name names because this issue kills dead ivy alums and even a few GSB kids who haven’t heard of me. How many have to die? Let’s look at 7 data points (aka “The Problem” 🙂 Problem, Along with an IP-free #LarryChiang solution. Let me repeat Problem + Solution, that I hold no copyright or trademark or Intellectual Property. Heck, don’t even cite and source me. Just stop dying.

FIRST data pointing to a massive apathy to “Customer Development Cycle”

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 11:32 AM 3 of 18 #CS183B lectures dedicated to #DTTDS  ( #dttdsBHM )

It’s a problem when CS 183b, How to Start a Start” just glosses right over Customer Development Cycle. When I tweet 3 of 18 lectures were “dedicated”, I mean mentioned. 

SOLUTION: 
Download PG’s post https://bit.ly/pgrahamCh6 (his lecture #3 of CS 183b barely mentioned his own blog post!!!)

Problem: customer development cycle and dttdsBHM is so painful that literally no one in Silicon Valley speaks about it. Dolphin suicides get more coverage here. 

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 11:00 AM 30 upvotes!! #ENGR145 is the subroutine to memorize if you want to be a Silicon Valley insider. quora.com/How-do-I-becom…

Problem: 30 upvotes is a fraction of the up-voting for Quora posts. 

Solution: see the answers for the specific citation of sales, engineering tech co-founders who sell

Problem: before Paul Graham’s #CS183B lecture in front of 500 live at Nvidia and 36,000 on YouTube, 20 people read the required pre-readings https://bit.ly/pgrahamCh6

(and my PG notes here https://bit.ly/pgrahamCh6a)

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 10:58 AM 12 people out of 300 will read this. In 2015, maybe 1 in 60 #ENGR145 .com/blog/2013/04/2…

Solution: as an engineer, read the assigned #CS183b / #ENGR145 / #Stramgt353 / #ChemEng296 #ENGR245 / 

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 10:43 AM Executing #CSmajorCEO‘s Alex Salazar’s Best Starting a Startup Tip bit.ly/asalazar710

Alex Salazar is a legitimate CS major from GT. 

Problem: 12 people have viewed this genius google exec

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 11:02 AM CTO to CTO mentorship on “Customer Development Cycle” #ENGR145 ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-808426

Problem: Your YC classes are huge. Your partners stress “do things that don’t scale but have momentum” #dttdsBHM

But you provide one document that’s #dttdsBHM flavored. 12 that have to do with VC

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 11:29 AM 12 PDFs on VC. One PDF for revenue via “sales” ycombinator.com/documents/

Problem: Your fund is huge and your GP’s hark on sales. Yet all y’all offer zero solutions 

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 11:28 AM $400mm fund. 6 blog posts on sales: a16z.com/tag/sales/

Solution: 

Watch

Master

Take ENGR145

https://bit.ly/buster14512c

	Larry Chiang (@LarryChiang)
4/5/15, 10:51 AM Spending a summer doing sales as an engineer, helped me immensely after graduating Illinois, BS Engr, #1 salary #csMajorCRO