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That’s why startups are agile. Startups that are agile have mastered one other trick – and that’s Tempo – the ability to make quick decisions consistently over extended periods of time. Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]
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.
Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile. And you’ll still need to have a resilient and agile personality, as new customer and product opportunities will appear and change your work. How quickly will you recover?
But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. The first reaction from my CEO was, “that’s why you’re running the department.” And yes, we could have built a top-down, command-and-control hierarchy.
And in hindsight, we seemed a bit more agile and innovative in WWII.) Yet decades later the military lacked the agility to write a spec in two years, let alone get 10′s of thousands of new systems deployed on aircraft as Terman had done. My first business trip to the valley was to visit California Microwave.
Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)
When Terman said no, Sylvania, a tube company which built proximity fuse tubes in WWII, won the contract and set up its Electronic Defense Lab (EDL) in Mountain View California in the middle of an orchard. The Army offered Fred Terman, the Dean of Engineering at Stanford, a $5M contract to build an electronics countermeasures lab.
In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Others you need to know when you execute the plan.
You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. There’s a big difference between being an employee at a great technology company and having the guts to start one. You just get successful. Steve Blank [.] Midas Oracle.NET , on August 30, 2009 at 11:53 pm Said: [.]
In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. A few successful ones do all these things. But if you have a web based product the right answer may be 300-500. Thank you, Steve.
Filed under: Secret History of Silicon Valley « Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA Rocket Science 2: Drinking the Kool-Aid » 2 Responses Ben , on July 1, 2009 at 2:31 pm Said: Great post Steve. It’s interesting that the NY Times obituary makes no mention of Ted Hall.
Air Force also needed improvements in frequency agility to protect its cold war bombers. Frequency agility can be best described by what happened over Germany in WWII. B-47 - primary Strategic Air Command Bomber in the 1950's As a result, to protect its bombers flying over the Soviet Union the U.S.
Rapid Scan/High Probability of Intercept – Stanford’s contribution In the last post we described Stanford’s high power, electronically tuned microwave tubes (the Backward Wave Oscillator ) which made high power, frequency agile airborne jammers possible.
I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank (tags: startup) [.] Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. is an adventure everyone ought to do. Reply Create.
Reply Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank , on June 29, 2009 at 7:02 am Said: [.] Reply dispatches from TJICistan » Blog Archive » a secret history , on April 27, 2009 at 7:25 am Said: [.] The invention of electronic warfare, part I and II. [.]
I teach teams various Agile techniques, and occasionally get told some particular trick is cheating. One might omit, for example, “less important&# tests where one hadn’t performed as well, without crossing an ethical boundary. Reply William Pietri , on April 2, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: Well put.
Another piece of trivial: the road that is the side-entrance (during business hours) to Agilent Corporation HQ in Santa Clara is named “Terman Lane&# after Terman. Agilent, of course, was once Hewlett-Packard’s Test & Measurement, Chemical, Components and Medical organizations. to do that.
They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric. Good to see someone with authority advocating an approach to building startups that we at Agile Entrepreneurs focus on, week after week. Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development.
The Curse of a New Building At some point in my career as I began to ponder how/why startups morph from agile, “can do&# companies to [.] [.] I think there’s a size and scale where regardless of your intentions lean and agile won’t work (looking like a grandmother in a miniskirt.)
We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. I coach agile teams for a living, and I do most of my work with start-ups. I said, “well for me you’d have to add coming from a dysfunctional family.”
After these slides, these VC’s recognized that this company had dramatically reduced risk and built a startup that was agile, resilient and customer-centric. The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. There was no proselytizing about any particular methodology, yet the results are compelling.
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. The Focus on Execution Versus Agility The product development diagram has a linear flow from left to right.
Founded in 2009 by JoeBen Bevert, Joby Aviation has been working under the radar at a base in Santa Cruz, California to develop an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. We have vertical liftoff! To achieve this hugely ambitious vision, Joby has always sought key strategic partners.
Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) For bigger booths a good rule of thumb is to have two to four staffers for every 100 square feet of exhibit space. Even for the smallest trade show, no one shows up without booth training. Messages, themes, demo’s. These two posts were amazing.
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.
Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. so at least some parts are being run by people who know what they are doing.
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. Doesn’t it depend on vertical market.? Thanks for sharing.
Reply Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank , on June 29, 2009 at 7:02 am Said: [.] Reply Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Avid Editor’s Insights , on May 17, 2009 at 1:31 am Said: [.] entire story can be found at Steve Blank. It’s worth a few minutes time off from reaming [.]
The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.
In future posts I’ll describe 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. Not All Startups Are Alike There’s an urban legend that Eskimos-Aleuts have more words to describe snow than other cultures.
Their own internal culture would tie them up in knots, and agile startups could run rings around them. Build a company culture where everyone supports the “sharp end of the stick.” Stay agile, stay focused. Don’t let this happen to your company. Embrace and then c ommunicate the idea of a lead department(s).
The reality is that independent electric vehicle startups will win over time (closer to the customer, more agile, etc.) with the auto bailout. with the auto bailout. (I will admit that taking a concept such as “open source” from the software business and applying it to the auto industry and Washington D.C. over a national platform.
Therefore, you must leverage your strengths by exploiting their weaknesses due to size, brand, culture, or established historical norms which make them much less agile than a flexible yet less-capitalized opponent. The reality is that market leaders are well-capitalized and formidable opponents. Gracias for another great read Steve!
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