Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I would come up for air once a month to religiously read the Harvard Business Review. It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. I learned about Michael Porter s’s five forces.

Technical Review 331

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Success depends on finding startups that have identified acute customer pains in large markets where conditions are ripe for a new entrant. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. ——-. Tech investing is risky. The cloud , open-source development tools and web 2.0

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 295

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

The book has been shepherded and edited by a great Japanese VC at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, Takashi Tsutsumi, with help from Masato Iino. I asked Tsutsumi-san to write a guest post for my blog to describe his experience with Customer Development in Japan. But customers didn’t agree.

Japan 305

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 305

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2023

Three types of organizations – Incubators, Accelerators and Venture Studios – have emerged to reduce the risk of early-stage startup failure by helping teams find product/market fit and raise initial capital. But these look for founders who have a technical or business model insight and a team.

Technical Cofounder 368

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 368

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Startup Accelerators: Startup Sauna and Vigo which includes Lifeline Ventures , KoppiCatch , and Veturi. Business Angels: FiBAn , Sitra. Venture Capital: FVCA , NextIt Ventures , Primus Ventures , Open Ocean Capital , Connor VC , and Inventure. 9-to-5 Venture Capital.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It’s the time when you create tremendous value out of nothing.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Intellectual Property 341

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 341

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

So what’s wrong the product development model? The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.)

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

Growthink Blog

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Are you looking to raise venture capital ? You need a good idea – and an excellent business plan. Business planning and raising venture capital go hand-in-hand. A business plan is required for attracting venture capital. Most investors are inundated with business plans.

Venture Capital 129

Venture Capital Business Plan Technical Review Private Placement 129

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers. The VC’s response? “Nah,

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 252

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. And while the “first mover advantage” was the rallying cry of the last bubble, today’s is: “Massive capital infusion can own the entire market.” After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. IPOs dried up.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

Business Plan Versus Business Models. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. initial business model hypotheses).

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It’s the time when you create tremendous value out of nothing.

Entrepreneur 283

Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 283

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 334

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted.

Customer Development 287

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 287

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I would come up for air once a month to religiously read the Harvard Business Review. It was not only my secret weapon in thinking about new startup strategies, it also gave me a view of the management issues my customers were dealing with. I learned about Michael Porter s’s five forces.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But the purpose of this post is what happens when a founder (or large company CEO) finds a better business model. Get it done, now.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

View from Seed

APRIL 14, 2020

This led to a number of repercussions that most VC’s have lamented during this time, including higher prices, larger rounds, shoddy due diligence, and many companies raising large sums of venture capital that probably aren’t suited to VC funding. Business Models and Sectors. In a FOLD world, this is going to continue.

Early Stage 374

Early Stage Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence 374

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

He is very hands-on and helpful – especially for any company looking into customer acquisition. What better than to have capital from somebody who has actually done it in the trenches? Matt’s commitment to re-investing in tech startups is reminiscent to this great Fred Wilson post of “recycling capital. &#.

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Warrant Customer Term Sheet 304

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. For a micro-ISV, selling to big businesses can be more lucrative than selling to consumers. You could just outspend.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. The class textbooks were “ The Four Steps to the Epiphany and Business Model Generation.”).

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2011

I spent two weeks of December in Chile as a guest of Professor Cristóbal García, Director of EmprendeUC at the Catholic University of Chile , which just signed up a 3-year collaboration partnership with Stanford’s Technology Ventures Program. Venture Capital. The country needs to build a deeper Venture Capital industry.

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley Chile South America Venture Capital 335

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It’s the time when you create tremendous value out of nothing.

Intellectual Property 261

Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator Bootstrapping 261

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 345

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 345

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2020

Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. As with most business and personal interactions, first impressions tend to become lasting ones. Message delivery must be customized for each investor. Surrounded by the right people and track record.

Intellectual Property 316

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 316

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

None of this was law, and nothing in writing required this; this was just how these firms did business to protect their large institutional customers who would buy the stock. This required a repeatable and scalable sales process, which required a professional sales staff and a product stable enough that customers wouldn’t return it.

Founder 281

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 281

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 310

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Offshore 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. An example of a reversible decision could be adding a product feature, a new algorithm in the code, targeting a specific set of customers, etc.

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. It’s the time when you create tremendous value out of nothing.

Intellectual Property 219

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 219

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Finally I realized that venture capital and angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. As with most business and personal interactions, first impressions tend to become lasting ones. Message delivery must be customized for each investor. Surrounded by the right people and track record.

Intellectual Property 278

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Early Stage Venture Capital 278

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2020

Now, this age-old perspective on business may sound like a line from It’s a Wonderful Life , but putting families first has new meaning for modern entrepreneurs. They aren’t operating on big bankrolls of venture capital (at least initially), and they don’t have trust funds to fall back on if the business fails.

Entrepreneur 205

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Silicon Valley Bandwidth 205

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2014

Finally I realized that Venture Capital and Angel investors are actually humans, despite some views to the contrary. As with most business and personal interactions, first impressions tend to become lasting ones. Message delivery must be customized for each investor. Surrounded by the right people and track record.

Angel Investor 268

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Early Stage 268