

The Startup Death Spiral - ojbyrne
http://steveblank.com/2009/09/07/the-customer-development-manifesto-the-death-spiral-part-3/

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andrewljohnson
Well, I gotta say. That was exactly what happened at a start-up I used to work
for.

The sales guy didn't produce, survived a couple rounds of the Board getting
anxious, and then he got canned.

At that point, we were already redoing the marketing materials ad nauseum. The
Board was bringing in various consultants, and the engineering staff was even
getting pared down (a year and a couple million bucks in).

Then, the marketing guy quit, probably just before he got fired (that was me).
Then, the CEO got axed a couple weeks later.

That experience is one of the big reasons I write code today, instead of
focusing on marketing. It sucks being in a position where you know you are
getting blamed for the failure of the product (at least partially), but you're
not sure what you can do to make it better, or if it's your fault at all.

It's more clear cut in programming if your code or your product sucks.

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mahmud
Pretty fantastic actually.

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pclark
I find it somewhat offensive that he isn't giving any solution to steps.

is this simply to sell his (very good) book?

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Estragon
He's following the structure of the book very closely, covering essentially
exactly the same material. If he keeps going the way he is, he will cover the
book's contents. Also, versions of his book are available for free on the net,
or at least were when I last looked. So it's not clear that it's a marketing
exercise.

