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. ” Groucho Marx.

Technical Review 331

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 331

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 263

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 263

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

We think teaching teams a formal methodology around the Lean Framework (Business Model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering) is a natural evolution of how successful incubators/accelerators will build startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Lean 322

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 322

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.&# If it stuck to this theme then I would stand by my top 11. It isn’t a “must&# for me but it’s certainly a huge positive when entrepreneurs have it. So the whole customer development cycle is very streamlined.

San Diego 267

San Diego Entrepreneur Philadelphia Cloud 267

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK.

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 21, 2013

gather data essential to customer purchases before doing the science. And we recruited a team of world class Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs to teach and mentor the class including Alan May , Karl Handelsman , Abhas Gupta , and Todd Morrill. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Science and Industrial Policy Teaching'

SBIR 321

SBIR Technical Review Lean Startup 321

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Grade A Entrepreneurs , September 5, 2010 Why Krispy Kreme failed in Australia - Start Up Blog , November 3, 2010 Mellow Johnny’s: Retail Stores as Community Hubs - IDDICTIVE.COM , July 14, 2010 Is crowdfunding an option for my business?

Silicon Valley 378

Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. Experienced entrepreneurs know that business model iteration and validation occurs outside the building. Without much thought it has been used ever since.

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Most business plans are worse than useless in preparing an entrepreneur for the real world as “no business plan survives first contact with customers.&#. Utah: Entrepreneurial Surprises.

Business Model 285

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 285

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary. Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!)

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

In both cases, the answer was that the founder would go to find other ideas, turn those into paper descriptions and validate it with customers. Customer Validation 101. The Fallacy of Customer Development Hubris Versus Humility: The $15 billion Difference Less is More, More or Less Yes, but who said they’d actually BUY the damn thing?

Customer 227

Customer Fractional CTO Viral Lean 227

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 One difference between VCs and Entrepreneurs « Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog , on April 20, 2009 at 7:06 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 309

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 309

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. What I found in Finland was: a whole lot of smart, passionate entrepreneurs who want to build a startup hub in Helsinki.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

I remember thinking, “Wow, whoever’s on the other end of phone sounds just like an entrepreneur, they were asking for the impossible.” We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Some incubators would have labeled this group too old to be entrepreneurs.

Incubator 310

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 310

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. As a young entrepreneur in his first startup, this post hits our current situation spot on.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. I’m going to save that for a future blog post.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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. The first class was an introduction to the concepts of business model design and customer development. The Adventure Begins.

Lean 307

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 307

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. ” Groucho Marx.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

It was only after returning to Stanford and taking the Lean Launchpad class that I became convinced that a radically different, customer-centric approach was the solution. I returned to the Air Force Academy as an instructor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, intent on spreading the gospel of Customer Development and Lean.

Lean 271

Lean Technical Review Acquisition Software Review 271

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2010

The company loses customers, then revenues and profits decline and it eventually gets acquired or goes out of business. If you’re an entrepreneur, you spend your time worrying about how to get out of the box on the left and move to the right. Filed under: Customer Development , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies.

Search 251

Search Agile Customer Development Technical Review 251

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

A big piece of the solution lies in the scalable impact of entrepreneurship and an increase of successful entrepreneurs. Max continued, “That’s why I’m really interested in ways of optimizing the entrepreneurship ecosystem to allow more entrepreneurs to go from idea to reality. I was feeling pretty old.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Almost every entrepreneur I met was using VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall. There’s a noticeable lack of tenacity in young, new entrepreneurs. Perhaps it’s the weather. In the U.S.

China 328

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2010

The question is whether you are born with innate entrepreneurial talent or whether you can be taught to operate like an entrepreneur. Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jason Calacanis , founder of Mahlo.com, and Mark Suster of GRP Partners, have all weighed in on the nature side – you’re born being an entrepreneur or your not.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley Venture Capital China New York 235

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2018

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, establishing a personal brand through a website is critical to success. If you want to compete with them, you’re going to have to develop a reputation and a strong web presence yourself. Here’s the entrepreneur’s guide to getting your first website off the ground. Custom development.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Technical Review Hosting SEO 107

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. One of the key tenets of Customer Development is that your business model is nothing more than a set of untested hypotheses. Business Model Design.

Customer Development 332

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 332

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

One of early surprises of this class for me is finding out that the broad category of “Life Sciences” fails to provide the important nuances of each category to entrepreneurs, investors, educators, policy makers, etc. It turns out that for commercialization, the business model (Customers, Channel, Revenue Model, etc.)

Lean 266

Lean Customer Business Model Customer Development 266

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Experienced entrepreneurs We’ve got speakers who are justifiably respected by a lot of entrepreneurs. Another way to learn more about who’s speaking is to sort the conference program by category and find people addressing specific topics. For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. c-level entrepreneur funding startup titles' Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Marty Zwilling.

CTO Hire 252

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 252

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. As an entrepreneur, and later as an investor, I came to see sometimes, by associations, and sometimes very directly, what a good team can do.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

I don’t recommend anyone become an entrepreneur. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Jeremy dropped out of Princeton to become an entrepreneur. Wanting to create impact is great. It’s too hard.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

One of the attributes of great entrepreneurs is that they are tenacious and relentless. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. Here’s our story: We started like most entrepreneurs — an idea, an opportunity, and very little money.

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

These topics were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). And before he was an entrepreneur, when he was at a foundry, things were going really well, and he was promoted to foreman.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

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

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 23, 2015

Knowing your customers is the single biggest driver of startup success, and there’s no substitute for getting out of the building to learn about their problems and needs. Clips from their interviews are below, but first a word about the show: Entrepreneurs are Everywhere airs Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern on Sirius XM Channel 111.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Colorado Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JULY 6, 2016

How and why the State Department is involving the nation’s top innovators in its efforts was the focus of my interview with Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Next on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere : Jessica Mah , founder of InDinero and Peg Burke , founder of 1185 Design.

North Korea 135

North Korea SEC Silicon Valley Entrepreneur 135