Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

. — Over the last three years the Lean LaunchPad class has started to replace the last century’s “how to write a business plan” classes as the foundation for entrepreneurial education. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 290

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 290

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley Haas Business School is a leader in entrepreneurship education. It has replaced how to write a business plan with hands-on Lean Startup methods. The final deliverable for that class was a 30-page business plan. We had multiple business plan competitions. The Business Plan is Dead.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. We were positing that 20 years of teaching “how to write a business plan” might be obsolete. This post is part one.

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

.” It defined a startup as a “temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” Today its concepts of “minimum viable product,” “iterate and pivot”, “get out of the building,” and “no business plan survives first contact with customers,” have become part of the entrepreneurial lexicon.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Up and Running

JANUARY 25, 2018

What exactly needs to be included in a business plan, and in how much detail? You may have been told that the more detail you can include in your business plan, the better, but this is not necessarily the best strategy for everyone. Digital businesses need to be agile and reactive too.

eCommerce 96

eCommerce Business Plan Audience Lean 96

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2023

Many of the business plans I have seen as an investor, like trying to integrate all the social media features of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn into a new platform, don’t do it. It’s tough for an elephant to be agile. Focus is the art of limiting your scope to the key function that really matters for the majority of customers.

Startup 287

Startup Bandwidth Distribution Agile 287

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition. They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric. Order Here.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

Most principles of Lean Startup remain true, as described by Steve Blank in The Lean Startup Changes Everything : Business Plans are dead: Startups a series of hypothesis that need to be tested. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs.

Lean 214

Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2014

Many of the business plans I have seen as an investor, like trying to integrate all the social media features of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn into a new platform, don’t do it. It’s tough for an elephant to be agile. Focus is the art of limiting your scope to the key function that really matters for the majority of customers.

Bandwidth 262

Bandwidth Distribution Agile Social Media 262

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan. Given the stock market was buying “the story and vision” of anything internet, inflated expectations were more important than traditional metrics like customers, growth, revenue, or heaven forbid, profits.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Given this certainty, it’s logical that a startup will hire a sales and marketing team to simply execute your business plan.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.) It gets really tough when these projects are launched and have to fight for survival against current corporate business models. Lessons Learned.

Programming 273

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 273

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model. Learn how to put together a business model , not a business plan. Class Logistics. As described in the previous post , this is a hands-on class.

Business Model 236

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 236

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2019

Amazon is famous for their Two-Pizza.Teams (no bigger than two pizzas will feed), allowing an entrepreneurial mindset more autonomy, agility, and accountability. The business owner must be the leader of the team, written specs are required, and the team must be populated only with A+ people. Master the magic of small autonomous teams.

Artificial Inteligence 222

Artificial Inteligence Agile Technical Review Demand 222

The Equity Kicker

MAY 7, 2013

As much as I seek to empower our portfolio companies to do what they think is right and to avoid over-planning I sympathise with these ‘traditional managers’ in the sense that when you switch from operating with a detailed operating plan to operating without one it feels like you are flying blind.

Development Team Review 94

Development Team Review Business Plan Agile Operations 94

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. This “get out of the building” activity is the Customer Discovery step of the Customer Development Model.

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

Up and Running

AUGUST 8, 2018

This article, which originally appeared on our LivePlan Blog , is part of our “Business Planning Guide” —a curated list of our articles that will help you with the planning process! For us, business planning isn’t just a one-time or annual event. Most people think that meetings are a waste of time. They’re right.

Software Review 65

Software Review Business Plan Product Forecast 65

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. I observed that teaching case studies and/or how to write a business plan as a capstone entrepreneurship class didn’t match the hands-on chaos of a startup.

Lean 417

Lean Security Asia SBIR 417

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Best practices in software development started to move to agile development in the early 2000’s. With Agile you could end up satisfying every feature a customer asked for and still go out of business. A major improvement over Waterfall development, Build Measure Learn lets startups be fast, agile and efficient.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

It starts with “Plan-As-You-Go” instead of detailed, formal business plans. Lean Planning started with Tim Berry ‘s 2008 “ Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan ” which was a new way for entrepreneurs to think about planning. The business plan should no longer be just a single event.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

SoCal CTO

MAY 4, 2010

Some great posts from April 2010 that talk to me in terms of being a CTO at a Startup.

CTO Hire 150

CTO Hire Vesting Startup Venture Capital 150

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 11, 2014

by Taffy Williams, author of “ Think Agile: How Smart Entrepreneurs Adapt in Order to Succeed “ The New Year brings new events that may positively or negatively affect your business. Known events are possible to plan for in advance. Many plans require adjustments to make them work. Execute & Adjust.

Agile 260

Agile Small Business Charlotte Business Plan 260

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. Most likely, your business plan is loaded with opinions and guesses, sprinkled with a dash of vision and hope. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

With an out-of-this-world business plan. When it was spun out as a a separate company, Iridium’s 1990 business plan had assumptions about potential customers, their problems and the product needed to solve that problem. A Business Plan Frozen in Time. No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

deal architect

APRIL 7, 2019

Tom Bogan is CEO of Adaptive Insights, a company whose business planning cloud automates previously manual planning tasks—for finance, sales, and workforce planning—and supplements those capabilities with enterprise-scale reporting and analytics. Tom joined Adaptive Insights when it was at $40.

Agile 335

Agile Analytics Cloud Finance 335

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 7, 2024

Nowadays, they can leverage AI solutions to create a business plan. What’s more, organizations equipped with scalable AI solutions are more agile in navigating unexpected changes and industry fluctuations. But luckily, gone are the days when entrepreneurs have to spend countless hours on these beginning steps.

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Algorithm Cofounder 156

Up and Running

AUGUST 23, 2016

“I had a lot of requests for freelance work,” Kinsman says, “so I decided to set up a branding and marketing business in Hong Kong.”. Thirteen years later, Kinsman is a veteran of the industry and a thought leader advocating in Forbes for an agile approach. The agile strategy is all about brand flexibility. It makes sense.

Agile 60

Agile Viral Social Media Differentiation 60

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

It’s hard to imagine, but in the 20th century there were no startup blogs or books on startups to read, and business schools (the only places teaching entrepreneurship) believed the best thing they could teach startups was how to write a business plan.

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

YoungUpstarts

MAY 9, 2017

Lean is a methodology that can be applied to all disciplines of knowledge work to increase business efficiency, agility, and visibility. Research shows that 95% of organizations do not start as Lean organizations – they implement Lean after identifying a need for better agility, visibility, and efficiency. 9 Reduced Costs.

Lean 124

Lean Agile Technical Review Dilution 124

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Lean manufacturing , agile software development , and Theory of Constraints are all examples of this idea in action. But when it comes to the specific of a product release, business plan, or marketing launch, all that matters is: do we have a strong hypothesis that will enable us to learn? If so, execute, iterate, and learn.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 9, 2024

Here are some effective strategies to upscale your business and help you stay competitive. Develop agility and adaptability Image credit Having agility in decision-making is a vital aspect of achieving business success. It is important to understand that no plan will remain unchanged, and it should not.

Programming 147

Programming Agile Advertising Lead Generation 147

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. I observed that teaching case studies and/or how to write a business plan as a capstone entrepreneurship class didn’t match the hands-on chaos of a startup.

Oakland 315

Oakland Asia Lean Video 315

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 7, 2022

When messaging an audience online, you could potentially reach billions of people – but that also means you’re opening the door to competitors from all over the world, and potentially millions of different businesses and individuals. Only the most adaptable companies survive. Stay agile to avoid competition.

Marketing 198

Marketing Advertising Metrics Technical Review 198

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer – The 5.2 Online Video on Lies About Business Planning - Up and Running , November 19, 2010 Business plans are a waste of time? think his slides are great (and by far much easier on the eye then mine.). billion dollar mistake. Don’t bother?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

Established businesses execute business models while startups search for them. I was a lone voice inside one of the country’s leading business schools challenging the conventional wisdom of the last 40 years, proposing that everything we were teaching about starting companies was wrong.

Lean 224

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 224

Up and Running

AUGUST 17, 2020

As a small business owner, in order to compete with the big players, you need to be able to sell like them. Typically this means investing in sales technology that makes you more agile and is easily scalable as you drive long-term growth. Remember to review your business plan , financial forecasts , and current cash position.

Software Review 113

Software Review Software Sales Small Business 113

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2021

In this piece, we look at how you can start growing your SEO business, from business plans to lead generation. What is an SEO business? As the name suggests, an SEO business is a company or agency that performs SEO services for and on behalf of a brand. How to write an SEO business plan that outlines your goals.

SEO 147

SEO Vertical Metadata Forecast 147