{"id":4013,"date":"2010-09-08T06:06:30","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T13:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=4013"},"modified":"2017-03-03T23:22:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T04:22:01","slug":"startup-organizational-design-the-customer-development-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/startup-organizational-design-the-customer-development-team\/4013\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean Startup Organizational Design: The Customer Development Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<!--powerpress_player--><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_flv\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/media\/lean-startup\/steve-blank-no-vp-in-startup.flv\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?powerpress_pinw=4013-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/media\/lean-startup\/steve-blank-no-vp-in-startup.flv\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"steve-blank-no-vp-in-startup.flv\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/shmula.com-lean-leadership\/id930098243?mt=2&amp;ls=1#episodeGuid=https%3A%2F%2Fstaging.opexlearning.com%2Fresources%2F%3Fp%3D4013\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_itunes\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on Apple Podcasts\" rel=\"nofollow\">Apple Podcasts<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><p>A startup is not a junior version of a big company. That means the roles and responsibilities are not the same. In fact, most organizational schemes that make sense for larger companies are not right for the startup.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<table border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"5\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4 Steps to the Epiphany Video Series<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"customer and market risks video from steve blank\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/the-lean-startup-customer-and-market-risks\/3980\/\">Customer and Market Risks<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"customer discovery explained by steve blank\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/customer-discovery\/4008\/\">Customer Discover<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"customer development process from steve blank\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/the-customer-development-process\/3988\/\">Customer Development Process<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"build your company by steve blank\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/customer-development-company-building-standard-work\/4002\/\">Building a Company<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"organizational design in a startup\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/startup-organizational-design-the-customer-development-team\/4013\/\">Startup Organizational Design<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"role of publicity in a startup\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/publicity-and-the-lean-startup\/3998\/\">Publicity for your Startup<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"knowing your customer is important according to steve blank\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/intimately-know-your-customer\/4017\/\">Know Your Customer<\/a><\/li>\r\n\t<li><a title=\"rethinking product development in a startup\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/rethinking-product-development-a-customer-development-approach\/3973\/\">Rethinking Product Development<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n&nbsp;\n<div class=\"university-transcript\">\n<h2>Steve Blank Acting on Customer Discovery Transcript<\/h2>\n<p>This is a great question. One of the problems with entrepreneurship and I think I&#8217;ll kind of answer your question is that we treat startups as junior versions of large companies. I mean, just fundamentally that&#8217;s wrong. Think about it. In a startup like a big company, we say, &#8220;Big companies have VPs of sales. We need VPs of sales. Big companies have VPs of marketing. We need VPs of marketing.&#8221; This is just a junior version that if we water correctly, we&#8217;ll grow into a big company. This is just like IBM but smaller or just like Google but smaller. It turns out until you have your first customers, all the tools and tricks that large companies use are divided by zero. They really don&#8217;t work in small startups, because you are actually a different type of animal.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m just riffing on the &#8230; Should we use salesforce.com or other CRM stuff? That implies that you actually have a sales force that&#8217;s just a smaller version of a larger company, and my experience is no. Actually the titles are wrong, if you really want to get into it. One of the first tools I do now with startups are. Really? VP of sales? No, you&#8217;re not. VP of marketing? No, you are on the customer development team. Holy cow! What&#8217;s a customer development team? VP of sales assumes that all we have to do is drop an additional salesperson and sales will go up at a fixed increment. Customer development says, &#8220;We don&#8217;t even know who our customers or markets are.&#8221; Therefore. the title that says, VP of sales, implies we&#8217;re scaling a sales organization is just wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In fact, Steve Blank argues that all members of a startup should be on the Customer Development team &#8211; that means, no VP of Marketing or other lofty title.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0976470705?ie=UTF8&amp;ref_=sr_1_1&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1282662643&amp;sr=8-1&amp;linkCode=shr&amp;camp=213733&amp;creative=393173&amp;tag=sixsigma09-20\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3714 aligncenter\" title=\"four-steps-to-epiphany\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/four-steps-to-epiphany.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/four-steps-to-epiphany.jpg 490w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/four-steps-to-epiphany-300x151.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSSA startup is not a junior version of a big company. That means the roles and responsibilities are not the same. In fact, most organizational schemes that make sense for larger companies are not right for the startup. Steve Blank Acting on Customer Discovery Transcript [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":9596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,697],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lean Startup Organizational Design<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lean Startup Organizational Design is important to understand. Find success here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lean Startup Organizational Design\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lean Startup Organizational Design is important to understand. 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