Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

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Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. Berkonomics , November 29, 2010 Rice Alliance IT/Web 2.0 Forum December 9th Lineup - Startup Houston , November 27, 2010 When to step on the gas and go for it?

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Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

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. The syllabus for the Stanford course can be seen here.

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Chile Silicon Valley Lean Agile 241

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

It may just be that the message of building companies that have predictable revenue and profit models hasn’t percolated through the VC business model. Unfortunately, regardless of a VC’s age, their business models are suffering and IPOs seem to be a thing of the past for at least a while longer. Order Here.

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

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Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

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?

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Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

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. By now the company may have found and settled on a repeatable business model.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

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.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

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.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 236

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Lean Planning is a set of tools for discovering a business model that works, building an action plan to test your assumptions, creating financial models and a plan for a viable business, and tracking your performance so you can adjust your plan on the fly, quickly and easily. Do startups have a manual?

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Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

At a university business plan competition, for the first time they can swim in the sea of expertise that we/I take for granted in the middle of Silicon Valley. I love business plan competitions (and with my valley-centric bias, I think Berkeley and Stanford have two of the best.) I now think that was a mistake.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

This week, the startup tribe from Harvard Business School is making their annual trek to Silicon Valley. It’s a common refrain around Silicon Valley to disparage the role of MBA’s in entrepreneurship. That’s why I am so excited about a new course that is debuting this year at Harvard Business School.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

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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Lean Security Asia SBIR 417

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

All teams raised their hands and screamed: we hundreds of angels and dozens of VCs, all of them say they will only fund deals with prototypes, beta customers, first revenue and executive teams all in place, and they say it will be 2 years from now because their coffers are out of cash and LPs in default. Yeah, I said. Bootstrap for years!

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Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing.

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

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 315

Oakland Asia Lean Video 315

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

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The class teaches the three basic skills all entrepreneurs need to know: business model design. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Two studies have shown that only about 10 percent of promoters actually refer profitable new customers. Some of the most creative technology coming out of Silicon Valley is designed to do exactly that. Find and engage customer advocates using a gamification platform that makes it interesting and enjoyable to advocate.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Job creation in Bend is everyone’s business.

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Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Angel Investor 320

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Reinventing the board meeting may allow venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Silicon Valley, New York).

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Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. Alex, vice provost for Innovation & Economic Development at Weber State University in Utah and completing his first year of teaching entrepreneurship.

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Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 313

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). And going for crowdfunding before you do customer discovery with customers can lock you into the wrong idea too early. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Here’s what happened: We got the product out; we got paying customers. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time. Our revenue model was wrong. Wanting to create impact is great.

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Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. startups search for a business model, large companies execute an existing one. They can be the scorekeepers in Customer Discovery and Validation as the company iterates and pivots the business model and refines the minimum feature set.

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Silicon Valley Management San Francisco Product 267

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ? A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

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. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. It might be its most important.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 313

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. Silicon Valley, New York). Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 300

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 27, 2011

The following week Ron Morris interviewed Regis McKenna , who for decades was the “gold standard” for high tech Public Relations in Silicon Valley. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development.

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Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Public Relations Business Model 239

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In cohort one, 25 teams chosen from a field of 100+, worked fulltime for eight weeks to take their ideas from a “cocktail napkin” business idea to a viable, scalable business model. Second, technology education is more skill-based, graduating lots of smart coders and IT managers, but not a lot of true development visionaries.

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Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 327

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. Silicon Valley, New York). Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 273

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 273

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Here’s what happened: We got the product out; we got paying customers. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time. Our revenue model was wrong. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 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.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

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. 8:05 Business Model Canvas – Alexander Osterwalder. Or just parts of the interview: 1:20 Failure and Lessons Learned.

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Silicon Valley Lean Government Boston 260