Bob Dorf

 Bob Dorf is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, author, and recognized adviser on various startup company strategies, including customer development and the Lean Startup concept. Nicknamed the “midwife of Customer Development,” Dorf has worked with retired serial entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank. Dorf helped deploy Blank’s Customer Development methodology when the startup E.piphany launched in 1996, and provided criticism and feedback for Blank’s first book, The Four Steps to Epiphany. Dorf coauthored The Startup Owner’s Manual, published in 2012. He teaches and lectures about the Customer Development methodology at Columbia University Business School and at venues in London, Paris, Moscow, Colombia and Brazil.

Early startups and Peppers & Rogers Group
Before launching his first startup, Bob Dorf was a news editor at WINS radio in New York. At age 22, he founded Dorf & Stanton Communications in his living room, which Shandwick P.L.C. purchased with a down payment of $6.4 million in 1989.

Dorf cofounded Marketing 1to1 (which later became Peppers & Rogers Group) and expanded the company to a staff of more than 400. In addition to growing the company, his previous “three decades of hands-on experience in growing successful companies and forming strategic alliances between prime movers across a variety of industry sectors” qualified him as CEO at Peppers & Rogers Group.

In 1999, he coauthored The One to One Fieldbook with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. Fortune (magazine) said of the book: “If your company is launching a customer-focused strategy…it sets the agenda.”

In addition to coauthoring The One to One Fieldbook, Dorf contributed to the Harvard Business Review with Peppers & Rogers in January 1999.

Dorf remained CEO of Peppers & Rogers Group until late 2000.

The Four Steps to Epiphany
After leaving Peppers & Rogers Group, Dorf advised Steve Blank on his first book, The Four Steps to Epiphany, published in 2005 and considered a “guiding light for the tech startup industry.” The book is credited with launching the lean startup movement by teaching entrepreneurs how to “get out of the building” and talk to customers, then use that customer feedback to develop and refine their product before it is launched.

During this time, Dorf also advised Blank on the startup E.piphany.

The Startup Owner’s Manual
By 2010, Dorf was working with Blank on the The Startup Owner’s Manual, hailed by entrepreneurs like Alexander Osterwalder as a “must-have,” and by Patrick Vlaskovits as “a seminal text in the new experiential and inquiry-based methods of entrepreneurship education.”

After two years of research on ideas first introduced in The Four Steps to Epiphany, the manual was published in early 2012.

Published by K&S Ranch, The Startup Owner’s Manual encompasses the best practices embraced by entrepreneurs since The Four Steps to Epiphany was published. The how-to guide is a step-by-step manual to building a startup and is a text used to teach entrepreneurship at more than 50 major universities, globally.

Customer Development
Bob Dorf runs K&S Ranch’s consultancy, helping large companies and corporations deploy customer development strategies through workshops and hands-on exercises.

He led customer development programs at 3M, Bertelsmann, Hewlett-Packard, NCR Corporation, Jaguar Cars, Oracle Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Charles Schwab Corporation.

Teaching
In the spring of 2012, Dorf began teaching a course on startups at Columbia Business School called “The Lean LaunchPad.” He has lectured at MIT.

Charity
Dorf is on the Board of Directors at the National Income Development Advisory Board, American Cancer Society, Stamford Health Foundation, and Shelter for the Homeless Incorporated, Stamford. Dorf advises a number of charitable organizations on fundraising, member activation, and customer development.

Family and personal
Dorf lives in Stamford, Connecticut, with his wife, Fran Dorf, a therapist and published novelist.

Authorship

 * 2012: The Startup Owner’s Manual, By Steve Blank and Bob Dorf (Coauthor)
 * 1999: The One to One Fieldbook, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, and Bob Dorf (Coauthor)
 * 1999: “Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing?” Harvard Business Journal, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, and Bob Dorf (Coauthor)
 * 1999: “Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing?” Harvard Business Journal, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, and Bob Dorf (Coauthor)
 * 1999: “Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing?” Harvard Business Journal, by Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, and Bob Dorf (Coauthor)