Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

I was hired as a training instructor to teach microprocessor system design for the existing Z-80 family and to write a new course for Zilog’s soon to be launched 16-bit processor, the Z-8000. So our people in the field could correct any egregious design advice I gave to customers who mattered. How did I miss that?

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 206

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

One of the times I screwed this up it left a legacy of 25 years of questionable design in microprocessor architecture. It has to be little-endian or we won’t design your chip into our systems.” The reaction from the chip circuit design guys was, “OK, we could do that. What a great idea.

Customer Development 287

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 287

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

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Customer Development 233

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 233

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. Since there was very little documentation my time was split between the design engineers who built the system and the test and deployment team getting the system ready to go overseas. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S.

Agile 269

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 269

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Education program must emphasize the need to start with customer needs and design your entire product development strategy around a customer development blueprint, as you put it so very well. when we were first building Genlighten, I might have uncovered these design issues during the Customer Development process.

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

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Silicon Valley 332

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

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Venture Capital 245

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. But make sure it fits who you are. a comment » Yet another brilliant post from Steve Blank, this time about what it takes to found, co-found, or work in a startup at various stages of [.] Blog at WordPress.com.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. Stop annoying our game designers and start working on selling and marketing the games.” Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I know what’s great and what’s not. They think we’re brilliant.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 223

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. He showed me a little Korean hard drive portable music player, not much more than the Compaq reference design it was based off of. com Michael Robertson.

Video 190

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

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Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. the “schedule fantasy factor,”) or his eleven rules of supercomputer design but also a real appreciation for how a technical visionary thinks. (I The response from across the country? Glad you two called, we were trying to get a hold of you guys. We’re building a supercomputer.”

North Carolina 133

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 133

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

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Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building.

Technology 145

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

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Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

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Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

My daughter, now 14, has her own company, doing web design and PHP and CSS and who knows what else. I have brought my wife in helping with the graphic design so she can be part of it and feel the intensity and fun. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Now they’re even older. Balance is important. It’s not easy.

Entrepreneur 295

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 295

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

The quintessential California couple, they stood out in our crowd as the engineer (in his late 20′s, respected by his peers and the customer) had hair down to his shoulders, sharply contrasting with the military crewcuts of the customers and most of the other contractors.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

This year, with the kids grown, their choice was to fly up from Southern California and spend the holidays at our ranch. California, where even the rabbits are bigger than life! Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Imu turkey can’t be beat if you’re trying to exceed any rational amount of salt intake.) Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 156

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

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Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

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. could design and produce, and a good part of it was coming from Silicon Valley. Terman became a consultant to the company.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 201

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

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Customer Development 129

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 129

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

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Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

We talked about some simple design rules and I remember him thanking me for coming, saying we were the only chip company who cared enough to call on him (little did he know.) Long gone from Zilog I saw the picture of the original Macintosh design team. I thought nothing about the meeting until years later.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

So they systematically designed electronic devices called “jammers&# to shut down each part of the German air defense system. My first business trip to the valley was to visit California Microwave. Chaff used 3/4′s of all the aluminum foil in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 210

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

These damn models weren’t designed right so we’re fixing them on the line.” Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. I had a queasy feeling that perhaps this wasn’t the way to solve the car quality problem. Blog at WordPress.com.

Founder 312

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 312

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

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Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Finally, since no one would believe a set of benchmarks named after our company, we needed a façade of independence, so we named them after the street the company was headquartered on in Sunnyvale California – they became known as the Potrero Benchmarks. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 128

Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

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Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Customer RSS Philippines 150

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I had no idea what I wanted to do next, and would get paid to think about it?

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Next, we needed to focus our messages away from technology and onto what the customers told us they needed – performance solutions for four key publishing applications.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 161

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Someone from your company has to be designated the official competitive intelligence officer for this show. Someone from your company has to be designated the opportunity monitor, responsible for coordinating potential partner information and disseminating it in writing after the show. One of them is a loser.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 139

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

I distinctly remember this is the first time I head the phrases “features and benefits.&# And since I saw our ads (but didn’t quite understand them,) I knew marketing was the group that designed them, somehow to get customers to think our products were better than Intel and Motorola’s. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

The design was actually a negative drag on selling anything off a retail shelf. From grumbling skeptics, they all became packaging design converts. And for sure they were never going to win any design awards. We were on the bottom row – with an invisible box. We labeled this our “Black Hole of Packaging&# strategy.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

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Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160