Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up 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).

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Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 146

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 146

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Home About Contact Me How To Make It as a First-Time Entrepreneur Vinicius Vacanti Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder September 7, 2010 | View Comments Steve Job's Technical Co-Founder “I’ve got this HUGE idea. I just need to find a technical co-founder.&# I was in this situation and we barely escaped.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play?

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Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 327

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Lets Try to Make the World Match Our Spreadsheet. They told the CEO (who was the technical founder) that the sales team should focus on “other markets.” The founder was doing his best to try to explain that his vision today was the same as when he pitched the company to the VC’s and when they funded the company. What went wrong?

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. These founders have not managed, to borrow a phrase from Steve Blank , to create a scalable and repeatable sales process. Get product into customers’ hands. More on that in a moment.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2010

The team hired only the best and the brightest. They are leaders, visionaries, founders and managers having tremendous success. This feedback is a nasty trap, and it’s just how this room full of otherwise rational adults wound up in a screaming match about rounded corners. The team hired only the best and the brightest.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Software Review 164

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Yet this same network of connected people affects who gets funded, how startup teams form, and who gets hired. . The show follows the journeys of founders sharing their experiences of what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Dave Kashen. We had this mission.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders! goap #ericries InvisibleGaijin : #goap #leanstartup Eric Ries talks about importance of "visionary customers" in startup success. For one, it doesnt match my experience having worked with some true visionaries at all.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

In a subscription business, maybe your attrition starts matching your acquisition, balancing like magic. In an eyeballs business, you just cant seem to acquire or activate that next step-up of customers. Or your cost of customer acquisition just magically floats up to match your customer lifetime value.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

This is often a tough concept for engineering founders who believe that if we just tell customers about the features that make their product faster, cheaper, etc. Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Craft messages to match what your audience has already told you. they’ll win.).

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Marketing Technical Review Audience PR 319

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

Ill do my best to match deserving people up with appropriate sponsors, and Ill be glad to recognize those that give on the blog and at the conference itself. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Scoring Founder “Dates” On My Own.

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Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. If there aren’t any that match your company, create some. Offer a free bestselling book in your industry (can you have the author there to autograph it?); Leading or speaking at any? No is the wrong answer.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 207

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Back in 2016, I read a book called Sprint by Jake Knapp, founder of Google Ventures. Start small, and then start hiring new talent to expand upon what you’ve started. As a solo-founder at the time, that was huge. It was a tough decision, as we spent a lot of work researching, developing offers, and producing our messaging.

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PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 31, 2009

A common question I get asked is "do you know someone amazing that we can hire?" I do my best to play matchmaker, but as those of you who have ever tried to fill a job in a startup know, the most important and elusive quality for a startup hire is fit. Great startups are always hiring, if the fit is right.

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San Francisco Lean Startup Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 27, 2009

For founders, I think it also has another big attraction: the ability to avoid a lot of " free vs paid " arguments. However, its not very useful to mix and match features from different models. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 148

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

Its power is matched only by the amount of confusion that it causes, because its actually quite hard to do. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? It certainly took me many years to make sense of it. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R.

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San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 168

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. It’s his job to introduce new startups to the world.

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Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 215

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. So that means stuff like thinking about what a business model might be, it does mean customer development. So I have a question for you, Jason.

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal. Its easier to believe in a glorious future when you have only zeroes, for everyone: founders, investors, and employees. I believe this is one reason why the myth of the dictatorial startup founder has such enduring appeal.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I first did it for the founder.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. Jason: It does, because one of your goals is to have enough runway to try lots of stuff and fail a lot of times, or hire a really good person.

Widget 204

Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

In fact, I remember sending him and his obscure-to-me co-founder (aka Reid Hoffman ) a bug report early-on, instead of taking them up on their offer of an in-person meeting. I managed to be envious of dozens of other companies, founders, and colleagues who seemed to be having tremendous success but later turned out to be a mirage.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

He focuses on having a clear idea of the problem you are trying to solve, running experiments, and then: "Did the results of your test match what you expected? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The first is his version of the Code/Data/Learn feedback loop.

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Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 68

YoungUpstarts

MAY 20, 2013

It’s the “big” things like growing your company, expanding your client base, hiring more employees, and making a profit that are most important, right? You don’t have to give away trade secrets, but you can offer advice, for example, or refer a customer whose needs are better matched to what another business has to offer.

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Flash Customer Customer Development Employee 133

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2013

Especially when you’re trying to get a small business off the ground, it’s easy to get caught up in pursuing the “big” goals: growing your company, expanding your client base, hiring more employees, and making a profit, for example. If you take care of your customers, they will take care of you.

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Small Business Reputation Customer Employee 185

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 27, 2013

Especially when you’re trying to get a small business off the ground, it’s easy to get caught up in pursuing the “big” goals: growing your company, expanding your client base, hiring more employees, and making a profit, for example. If you take care of your customers, they will take care of you.

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Small Business Reputation Customer Cofounder 185

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

So you decide to try to reposition around a different value proposition, one that more closely matches what your product is best at. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? You could try and drive home that positioning with an expensive PR campaign, superbowl ads, and whatnot.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 12, 2009

At IMVU, when wed hire a new engineer, we could get them to ship code to production on their first day, even if they had never programmed in PHP before. Which makes them exactly the kind of programmers companies should want to hire. This let us hire extremely high-caliber programmers to work on it. As always, Paul is right.

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PHP Software Review Ruby San Francisco 166

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

On the other hand, we could match them strength-for-strength as soon as we knew where to go. Im also a big fan of John Boyds work, and your story "from the inside" is a really insightful way of matching maneuver warfare to the political arena. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile 84