Ask HN: Web 2.0 and The Four Steps to the Epiphany

[psaccounts]

Folks,

Those of you who have read Steven Gary Blank's excellent book "The Four Steps to the Epiphany", do you think these principles apply to Web 2.0 companies. In general every commercial business entity must make profits. And most successful enterprise software/hardware companies surprisingly seem to fit the model described in the book. But the majority of the Web 2.0 companies seem to defy this model but still continue to be popular (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc). Note: popular != commercially successful.

So, my question to the startup community is -- does anyone have an opinion on how the "Four Steps ..." can be applied to Web 2.0 companies. Most, if not all (including Google), seem to have evolved using the "Product Development Model" and not the "Customer development model". Those of you who have spent time in Enterprise software know that all most all successful companies in that space seemed to have followed the "Customer Development Model".

Your thoughts?

-- PS: PG's opinion on this would be very valuable to the community.

[andhapp]

I was going to buy this book...but I read this review...http://eightpence.com/the-four-steps-to-the-epiphany-review/

[eries]

I strongly believe it's a valuable resource, especially for web 2.0 companies. You can read my review here:

http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-is-cu...

And how it fits in with agile development here:

http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/combining-...

[cubicle67]

Any chance of a quick outline of what the four steps are?