Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

It’s a collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop NIH-specific version of the Innovation-Corps. The class provides real world, hands-on learning on how to reduce commercialization risk in early stage therapeutics, diagnostics and device ventures. Join the I-Corps @ NIH. They cannot be done by proxies.

Lean 277

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 277

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

I’ve spoken to dozens of customers, I have a validated customer persona, built an MVP to test key behavioral hypotheses, and the data doesn’t back what you’re saying." " Today I had two conversations with early stage startups (see Free CTO Consulting ). Customer Validation 101. billion dollar mistake.

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

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.

Customer Development 255

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 255

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Today they released the first Startup Genome Report — a 67 page in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. ——-.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 334

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 334

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Hopefully, by bringing on strong partners early, you will get great advice and support to minimize your overall dilution down the road. They find weak pre-seed investors or angels who are almost predatory in their early stage pricing and add no value. Experienced founders: Consumer.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development.

Business Model 355

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 355

The Next Web

JUNE 8, 2014

Developing an enterprise-grade SaaS product is not easy. The keys are maintaining capital efficiency, launching early versions to the SMB market and constantly applying customer development methods. Yoav Leitersdorf and Ofer Schreiber of are partners at YL Ventures.

B2C 132

B2C B2B IP Technical Review 132

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

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. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. Corporate elephants can dance.

Silicon Valley 239

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. There isn’t much of a killer instinct among the masses.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. 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. Even those who asked for them never read them. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Even if they did, what if the assumption – that we had developed a better approach to teaching entrepreneurship – was simply mistaken?

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 11, 2022

You’re trying to build a software product, do customer development and find PMF. There are startups who are just amazing at marketing and comms from Day One, but for many it’s not an immediate critical workpath. But* doing marketing or comms poorly can create huge wastes of dollars or in the worst cases, get you in trouble.

Seed Stage 103

Seed Stage Cap Table Founder Marketing 103

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 31, 2011

Max and his partners had interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. In May they released the first Startup Genome Report -- an in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. If you're like thousands of other startups struggling to get started, it's worth a look.

Software Review 134

Software Review Early Stage Startup Technical Review 134

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first time a few brave corporate innovators tried to overlay the Lean tools and techniques that work in early-stage startups in an existing corporation, the result was chaos, confusion, frustration and ultimately, failure. In working with Greg Hannon , the head of Innovation at W.L. Fast forward to today.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

The company teams they work with are usually highly motivated entrepreneurs trying to engage in extensive product and customer development efforts for a product they don’t typically have a full vision of, for a customer whose needs are opaque, and for a use case which is ambiguous.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Following is his advice to early stage entrepreneurs for creating structure in their company. So, I’ll explain my reasoning through the story of ASC, a fictitious company that has a combination of characteristics I’ve seen across a number of early stage companies. Soundbites from potential customers are encouraging.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

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.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended.

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

The Startup Toolkit

MAY 25, 2012

Everything I know from 4 years of intensive customer development & sales, boiled down into an 18 minutes talk I gave at HackFwd in Berlin. HD video is here , normal is embedded below. I’m pretty happy with this one and think you won’t have heard the content elsewhere. Watch it!

Customer Development 53

Customer Development Early Stage Sales Developer 53

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

After talking to its resellers and customers I realized that SuperMac was the only company that could be described as “fifth in a group of three.” The assets were a series of products already developed and on the market or in the development pipeline. In essence it was a restart with a mixed bag of assets and liabilities.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 170

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems. “Oh I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value. 10) Time, market, and exit investment.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

HOF Capital has stitched together our workflow across Google Suite , Slack , Airtable , Asana , Copper , and some other tools (leveraging Zapier for basic 3rd party integration, in addition to custom development for certain other integrations). 9) Accelerate portfolio company value. 10) Time, market, and exit investment.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. In contrast, customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc.

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. Early Stage Startups: The Biggest Killers | Forbes – crowdspring.co/1mtenKl. A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend?

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to talk to customers.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 163

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 163

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

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. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds.

Silicon Valley 320

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Angel Investor 320

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

While it doesn’t eliminate great investor judgment, pattern recognition skills and mentoring, we’ve developed an Investment Readiness Level tool that fills in these missing pieces. The Investment Readiness Level makes the stages of development for the business very tangible. Investment Readiness Level is Prescriptive.

Sacramento 314

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 314

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. produced this analysis of engineering representation within VC firms: Selected VCs with Highest Representation of Developers in Workforce.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

We have a bias towards very early stage investing for a bunch of reasons, but it’s not easy. It’s often a good idea for founders to find a way to build something and get some early market validation before raising outside capital. I think this stage, more than others, is very dependent on the individual investor.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120