Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. It might be its most important. ———-. Cold War Spin Outs.

Engineer 314

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 314

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. The motivations are the same – profit – driven by entrepreneurs and venture finance. business models. Of course “copy” is too strong a word.

China 221

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 221

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ?

Search 327

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 327

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

These resulting business models made them look incredibly profitable. Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. They knew how to execute the current business model. Risk capital has provided financing for new ideas in the form of startups.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress. a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance.

Sacramento 315

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 315

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany."

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.).

Wiki 319

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 319

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Business Model Issues. Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. Business Model Issues.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 304

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2010

One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. Our goal is to teach students the key concepts of the startup process and help them understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model.

Intellectual Property 265

Intellectual Property Business Model Customer Development Distribution 265

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model. 1) It’s an obligation that came with the check.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model. 1) It’s an obligation that came with the check.

Silicon Valley 274

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 274

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

They used Customer and Agile development to search for a scalable and repeatable business model to become a large company. A “ scalable startup” takes an innovative idea and searches for a scalable and repeatable business model that will turn it into a high growth, profitable company. Take No Prisoners.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 304

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

— I just watched a very smart company try to manage innovation by hiring a global consulting firm to offload engineering from “distractions.” This was a very large and established tech company; its engineering organization developed the core day-to-day capabilities of the organization. There’s a much better way.

Incubator 320

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 320

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

After a week of hectic customer discovery , the team further refined their new business model. Their initial customer segment were upwardly mobile professionals with $2-10K discretionary purchases/year (excluding travel,) and their revenue model was affiliate program fees. Where is the best place for your business?

South Dakota 233

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 233

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

By getting out of the building on a team project, the class helped students viscerally understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 128

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He argued that software engineers don’t finish what they start, and that you’re better off paying a technical person than partnering with one. He picked engineers who were technically-driven but not entrepreneurially-driven. He picked engineers who weren’t comfortable taking risks as great as he wanted to take.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Of course this is not at all true of many profitable small businesses, but they are not what I mean by startups.) This is an incredible skill, one that most engineers overlook. dave - glad somebody noticed.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

But all that investment in growth and sales force didn’t have a long-term payback, and the actual value of the product to small businesses wasn’t as high as claimed, even though the simplest of customer development reveals this fact (ask any restauranteur).

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

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. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. The process, which Blank detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany," uses customer feedback to refine and improve a product before scaling a business.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Who better to answer than the company's engineering lead. The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. Finance, IT, Legal). This post is an accusation.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Many startups don’t innovate at all in the product dimension, but use other kinds of innovation: repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was previously hidden, or even simply bringing a product or service to a new location or set of customers previously underserved.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

I hear similar things for pre-revenue startups that are on schedule, on time, and on budget - even though they are busy building something that nobody wants. (In In fact, this crisis was at the heart of Steve Blank ’s original impetus to develop customer development as an alternative set of milestones to use for startups.)

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. Patrick: Exactly.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2011

What really matters are the business model canvas diagrams in the body and appendix of each presentation. By comparing the changes the teams made week-to-week-week in their business model canvas diagrams, you’ll see the dynamics of entrepreneurship, as they iterate and Pivot over time. Team Agora. Team Autonomow.

Lean 289

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 289

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. Edwin: Oh sorry, so the business model. Edwin: I know. Jason: Yeah.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2010

The company had innovated, found a business model, grown successfully but now even as revenues continued to grow, the company was slowly but surely dying. The company’s two co-founders had created a new technology and an innovative business strategy. There’s nothing harder than making radical changes when the numbers look great.

Silicon Valley 276

Silicon Valley Cofounder Acquisition Kansas 276

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. When a new engineer started at IMVU, I had a simple rule: they had to ship code to production on their first day. We didnt have that many customers, after all.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

Especially because I could have used this time on marketing, sales and customer development, and actually helped our business move forward. Go for a convertible notes/equity and save the legal nightmares for when you actually have proven that you’ve got a credible business model. You’re not alone.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

So in 2011, with support from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (the entrepreneurship center in the Stanford Engineering School), we created a new capstone entrepreneurship class – the Lean LaunchPad. When we started this class, the concept of Lean (business models, customer development, agile, pivots, mvp’s) was new to everyone.

Lean 257

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 257

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to. I have the vision, model and the core elements of the ideas established. With that live, you’ll be able to show other smart engineers and advisors that you’re willing to take some risk and build something.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Our business model was Pinterest. It goes to show you that the business model was good but we just … We’re not the right team. They presented themselves as business attorneys and they had in fact, worked with other businesses but they never worked with the high gross startup. Taste the product.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

I was told they werent sure, because all of their engineers were currently busy refactoring. The engineering team has decided its reached a breaking point, and is taking several weeks to bring it up to modern standards, including unit tests, getting started with continuous integration , and a new MVC architecture.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

Continuous innovation requires the imagination and courage to challenge the initial hypotheses of your current business model (channel, cost, customers, products, supply chain, etc.) A 20 th century VC was likely to have an MBA or finance background. Not kind of wrong but going out of business wrong. The founders.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249