Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

The mantra of “ first mover advantage ,” the idea that winners are the ones who are the first entrants in their market, became the conventional wisdom of investors in Silicon Valley.“ First Movers” didn’t understand customer problems or the product features that solved those problems (what we now call product-market fit).

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

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Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. At the same time Berkeley was also developing Cold War weapons systems. See the presentation here.).

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Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. 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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, November 6, 2008 Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile I thought Id share an interesting post from someone with a decidedly anti-agile point of view. Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective.

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Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. Corporate elephants can dance. So why this post? They will build the sales team that follows.

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Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 238

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Here’s the course announcement from Professor Vergara (in English): Customer Development Course in Chile – Lean Launchpad. The objective of this course is that groups of students finish with a completed software product that has real customers and an identified market.

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Chile Silicon Valley Lean Agile 241

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. 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. He runs H4X Labs.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

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. Your “Customer Development Process&# has really resonated for me.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. Order Here.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Fred Terman Sent Us In 1953 the U.S.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. 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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back. Order Here.

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Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Steve Blank

JUNE 21, 2017

Listen to the entire interview here: Taking the Lean Startup From Silicon Valley to Corporations and the State and Defense Department. 6:22 What’s Customer Development. 7:11 Agile Engineering – Eric Ries. Or just parts of the interview: 1:20 Failure and Lessons Learned. 10:01 Lean in Corporations.

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Silicon Valley Lean Government Boston 258

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

However, I’ve seen this story repeated time and again, and not just in Silicon Valley. 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 [.] [.] Lessons Learned N ew buildings are a distraction.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. 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.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 229

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. 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. He runs H4X Labs.

Oakland 314

Oakland Asia Lean Video 314

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

customer development. agile engineering. Some general customer development slides click here. Called “ How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad ,” it walks you through the Business Model Canvas and an overview of the customer development process. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.

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Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 6, 2009

Funded by military contracts these 1950′s startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. 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.

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Silicon Valley RSS Germany California 162

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

Funded by military contracts, these 1950′s microwave tube startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Why Electronics Intelligence? Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves.

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Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. 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. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.” .

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 221

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

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Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

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Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Here at Palo Alto Software in 2007 and 2008, we embraced these planning concepts and moved towards a more agile planning process. This form of planning condensed the business model onto one page and is most useful for high-growth, technically focused startups (think Silicon Valley). What do you need to do to get your doors open?

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Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. And do your customer development. Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. 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.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 137

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Boyd emphasized the importance of agility in combat: "the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than ones opponent." Agile software development. Agile allows companies to build higher quality software faster. Customer development.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

As Eric puts it in the webcast, “I’ve met now the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world, and I still spend time with the CEOs of high-growth Silicon Valley companies from the garage on up, and what all those people have in common is that they are seeking out sources of sustainable growth….

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Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Id like to call special attention to Kurt Carr s perspective (lets hope he finishes his five-part series): Now that I’m back in Ohio (I was one of the token foreigners in a room full of Silicon Valley residents), I have found myself reliving and rethinking much of what I saw there. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. They don’t need an office in Silicon Valley to figure out what’s out there. Terrorists today live on the ‘net and they are all early adopters.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Lean Agile 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Silicon Valley, New York). The process they use to guide their search is customer development. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Victor Hugo.

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