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. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile. You’re not joining a big company.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Vision Synching in a Lean Startup - Startup Marketing Blog , November 12, 2010 In the age of the lean startup , we often forget about the importance of vision.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. So why would you treat your debt investors (somewhat) like equity investors?

Burn Rate 153

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 153

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an exclusive excerpt which sets up a common pitfall regarding equity splits. In Noam’s dataset, 73% of founding teams split equity within a month of founding, a striking number given the big uncertainties early in the life of any startup. Lessons Learned. by Eric Ries.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. You can click here to learn more.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 60

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

Four books helped me out a lot over the last few years: Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, Running Lean by Ash Maurya, The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. I couldn’t write a single line of code, and I didn’t have any clue how to start a business. You’re not alone.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The Lean LaunchPad course online. I teach potential founders a hands-on, experiential class called the Lean LaunchPad at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and Caltech. customer development. Some general customer development slides click here. Online Guide to How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

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.

Silicon Valley 313

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 313

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. Founders Pad.

Silicon Valley 320

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Angel Investor 320

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Not surprisingly, the list above also is ranked from least to most equity stake in an investment for the investor, relative to the cash they invest. How would one set up such a startup to eventually raise capital from outside VCs, who will be wary of ‘dead equity’ (i.e., equity that belongs to departed cofounders)? The cliffs?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 5, 2010 The Lean Startup Bundle People often ask me if they can buy "Lean Startup in a box" from me. Its a strange thing, to be asked by a potential customer if they can give you copious amounts of money, and then to have to refuse. And theres so much more.

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2013

The program pays scientists $50,000 to attend the program and takes no equity. universities teaching the Lean LaunchPad curriculum organized as I-Corps “nodes” across the U.S. The nodes are now offering their own regional versions of the Lean LaunchPad class under I-Corps. Currently there are 11 U.S.

Lean 270

Lean Washington Incubator Agile 270

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

Our Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences is one of them. The Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH ) uses the Lean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model. The Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH ) uses the Lean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model.

San Diego 267

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 267

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Step 1: Start with a lean plan. It’s the fastest way to get your idea onto paper, and it’s the very first step in the lean planning process, which is much easier and more iterative than traditional business planning methods. Introducing Lean Planning: How to Plan Less and Grow Faster. How to Write a Traditional Business Plan.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. The process they use to guide their search is customer development. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Weekly blog of the customer development narrative.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 292

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. It needs the tools and processes pioneered in Lean Startups. What to Do?

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, October 30, 2008 John Doerrs 10 lean startup tips I just saw video of John Doerrs talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn&# roundtable event. Offer equity instead of cash. Over-communicate with employees, investors, customers.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

At different times over the last year or so I’ve been writing about combining design thinking with the lean startup and the importance of doing great customer development , and it has just come home to me that the underlying point of it all is to add customer empathy to the lean start up process.

Lean 128

Lean Startup Customer Development Design 128

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 13, 2014

In his new startup Michael is rigorously applying lean principles. They quickly found a small group of passionate users which he says is what kept them going until the market turned, but looking back Michael thinks that if they applied lean principles they might have made some different decisions.

Lean 122

Lean Portfolio Design Customer Development 122

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

If you’re negotiating my equity percentage by nickels and dimes, I probably don’t want to work with you. If you offer me 1% of the equity, I’ll do 1% of the work. I would recommend a deep understanding how roles and responsibilities will be divided prior to discussing the equity split. Learn from [.]

Cofounder 47

Cofounder NDA Founder Sweat Equity 47

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. After that, I did it for a private equity firm then we became a part of a larger corporation. I think I might be able to speed things up, especially now that everybody always talks about the book The Lean Startup. Why not get a partner?

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working on. In the end, the CEO couldn’t get his board to give us the cash in exchange for the Japanese distribution rights and some equity.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 171

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

” I believe that by this he means they want cash rather than equity. My hunch is that most good software engineers only work for cash because they don’t feel that working for equity is worth the risk of failure. I absolutely want cofounders when the time comes. But conceptually it does ring of some truth.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

— — — — In this second segment, Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino talk about how they brought the Lean Startup to Japan. Prior to that, he worked for the Industrial Bank of Japan and General Electric specializing in deliberative trading, private equity investment, and post merger integration.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

I hadn’t really thought of it that way before, but there’s a certain comfort in thinking about having a team of people you can lean on for advice, help, questions, support, etc. This is typically done with a small piece of equity. Why wouldn’t you? But I suspect that’s often done for name brand and recognition.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

I do believe the only reason the developers were willing to work for some equity is because they became friends with us at Hackers and Founders, so that part worked. What this did allow us to do was HIRE PROGRAMMERS again, but this time, we got a quality prototype at a great price. We were even a top 3 finalist.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

The Equity Kicker

MAY 12, 2015

I just read two articles which beautifully illustrate the brilliance and challenges with the Lean Startup methodology. They were part of Steve Blanks Launchpad class at Stanford and followed lean principles to great effect. Through more customer development they found that thinning lettuces is a bigger problem, and LettuceBot was born.

Lean 60

Lean Startup Flash Customer Development 60

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

My way of explaining our support and service role to the marketing department was that: Sales is the sharp end of the stick, and marketing at best, is the stick. But while the sales team works for commission, the rest of the employees have equity (stock) in the company. Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 133

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. What Does This Change? We Ran the Experiment.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Startups don’t have access to the same resources or brand equity. On Sean’s GrowthHackers.com , categories include… So, essentially everything from customer development and onboarding to persuasion and social marketing fall under the umbrella of growth hacking. Conducted Customer Development.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

This tendency has by now been widely recognised and the customer development work of Steve Blank and lean startup work from Eric Ries are designed in part to overcome this natural human failing. They will stick their head in the sand and build a product for 6 months, come up for air, only to realize no one wants it.

Product 126

Product Lean Customer Development Design 126

The Equity Kicker

JULY 29, 2013

We have our own version of the lean methodology in operation in Forward Labs, our startup Foundry. It orients your entire company around product picking instead of beating your head against the wall building or selling something no one wants. It’s a critical part of our process for validating businesses.

Product 108

Product Cofounder Lean Distribution 108

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 1, 2014

We have been interviewing lots of solo founders recently as we look to deepen our understanding of one of our key customer segments. Interestingly, everyone had read The Lean Startup and professed to follow it’s guidance, although many did things that we would not regard as lean. ‘What do they want?’

Lean 102

Lean Customer Development Networking Founder 102

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

How to stay lean and iterate quickly while you’re building a two sided marketplace, especially when “network effect” and “critical mass” are the two main focuses? Will developers and designers provide services for a piece of the company? Initial developer: partner or hired? A few nuggets.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Piercing the Corporate Veil – Sweat Equity Consulting. But much like becoming a co-founder, getting paid sweat equity is essentially becoming an investor in the company. If you did, why would you be consulting for sweat equity instead of investing as a VC or for yourself? GrasshopperHerder.com. • ABOUT. Jan 20 -->.

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

Dave : We’re trying to take a lot of the stuff that you’ve done with the Lean LaunchPad methodology and move that out across university into the other schools. . What’s more, as the Lean Startup revolution has gone mainstream, Dave said, it has started to change the trajectory of our economy. I’m seeing it in real time.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120