"Waterfall development assumes that you know the customer's problem or need on day one", Steve Blank The traditional waterfall development model follows a linear, step-by-step process where marketing defines product requirements, engineering translates these into features, designs the product, builds it, tests it, and maintains it. This model assumes that the customer's problem and needs are fully understood from the start. While this might work for large companies with established products and customer bases, it is problematic for startups. Startups often rely on the founder's vision rather than concrete customer insights, leading to the development of unnecessary features. A significant portion of software features (85-90%) are often unwanted by customers, resulting in wasted resources. The waterfall approach is deemed unsuitable for startups, which require more flexible and iterative methods to align with actual customer needs. ## Activities - Watch the video [Waterfall Development - How to Build a Startup - YouTube](https://youtu.be/ak97KUFJelM) Next: [[Product development versus customer development]] Back to [[Key Concepts on EITT]]