Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

We hired union laborers to do that. I hired a Director of Product Marketing who in his last company had ran its marketing and then went out into the field and became its national sales director. What’s your advice about hiring sales/marketing folks? (I Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 271

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 145

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 145

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. 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. Corporate elephants can dance. So why this post? They will build the sales team that follows.

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Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 239

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Examples are Hollywood for movies, Milan for fashion, New York for finance and today, Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurship. It has become China’s Silicon Valley. They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups.

Programming 179

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 179

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 220

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 220

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. Supercomputers get Personal Back in Sunnyvale my friend had not only been hired but had convinced the team that we should be building hardware – making a new class of computers not a software application. Order Here.

North Carolina 133

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 133

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. He’ll talk about making a profit and making a difference in a conversation with New Media Ventures’ Christie George. Todd Park convened the team that saved Obamacare.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Reply steveblank , on March 28, 2009 at 7:27 am Said: Denis, Over time the blogs tagged under the “customer development&# category will build up a narrative of illustrative stories of how customer development evolved in practice. You need to hire the right type of sales people for the type of [.]

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Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 161

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here.

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets. I cover this in the Four Steps to the Epiphany.)

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 146

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

The department had hired a recruiter and was interviewing candidates from other chip companies. I’ve built my company using the Customer Development Model from Day One. I recently completed the Validation step (less the industry analyst presentations) and am ready to move on to Customer Creation. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, February 11, 2009 The free software hiring advantage This is one of those startup tips Im a little reluctant to share, because its been such a powerful source of competitive advantage in the companies Ive worked with. This approach gives you an edge in hiring. Instead, engage with the project.

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Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Bad Customer Development Questions and How to Avoid My Mistakes – [link]. What to do when you hire someone better than yourself…. |

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Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customer development?

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Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. It’s much easier to just steal their ideas and hire their employees. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. In the U.S.

Silicon Valley 275

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 275

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Hire around you to fill those weak spots. …. Being in Ohio, which lacks the startup ecosystem of an entrepreneurial cluster like Silicon Valley, made it difficult for Will to get funding for his first startup, Huddlewoo : The type of business that we were building needed an investment of capital ahead of revenue.

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Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

Id like to call special attention to Kurt Carr s perspective (lets hope he finishes his five-part series): Now that I’m back in Ohio (I was one of the token foreigners in a room full of Silicon Valley residents), I have found myself reliving and rethinking much of what I saw there. We all owe him our thanks for persevering.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

These are just a few of the powerful, growth-fostering impacts “Rock Star” customers are creating for a variety of companies. And engaging customers in such ways is generally much less expensive than hiring costly employees or agencies. But it does require some new thinking. You have to make it easy for them to do so.

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Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs beyond Silicon Valley, including those working abroad, often have to retool Lean Startup methods to apply them in places with very different business cultures. Those conversations can often circle around the difficulties of entrepreneurship outside Silicon Valley. On September 24 in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 168

Silicon Valley Lean Puerto Rico Japan 168

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Customer development. For those interested in getting started with agile or customer development, I thought Id include a few links. For customer development, start with Steves book The Four Steps to the Epiphany or take a look at his recent Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Im not offering extensive studies or research to support this conclusion; the evidence from my peers right here in the innovation capital of America, Silicon Valley, is absolutely overwhelming. Asked to help, I am confident that Silicon Valley and every other innovation center will step up. They are nerds.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: Five Whys Where did Silicon Valley come from? What is customer development?

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

And it hires very smart people from the best schools. BTW, by the standards mentioned in the Times article, the following people would never have been interviewed or hired at Google. College Dropouts - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison These guys realized that customers don’t ask for your transcript. I love Google.

Silicon Valley 333

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 333

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time!

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

A college degree is great if you’re looking to get hired. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. You’re never going to come up with a different strategy for how you approach the world.

Cofounder 147

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 147

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: Five Whys Where did Silicon Valley come from? What is customer development?

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: Five Whys Where did Silicon Valley come from? What is customer development?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. It’s much easier to just steal their ideas and hire their employees. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. In the U.S.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

A college degree is great if you’re looking to get hired. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. You’re never going to come up with a different strategy for how you approach the world.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. How did Silicon Valley start?

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 302

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Posted on March 29, 2009 by steveblank This is post II of how I came to write “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley “ 1974. Sure the rest of the stories diverge though… can’t really imagine a Soviet counterpart to the Customer Development method.

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Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 231

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Most publishers are still caught up in an outdated “vision vs. metrics&# argument, which is already obsolete here in Silicon Valley. The world is generally not as tech-savvy as Silicon Valley and will continue to rely on traditional mechanisms for content distribution for the foreseeable future.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

If I have some budget for outside help, should I hire a vendor to help us drive down our payment fraud rates by 1% (ROI easy to predict), or hire a market research firm to give us insights into potential customers (ROI hard to predict)? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 17, 2009

I plan to apply these models to my own ventures, especially within new contexts separate from software and web development. The problem is that the most authentic innovators and entrepreneurs are in the Valley. I want more than anything to come to Silicon Valley after I graduate and join the vibrant ecosystem.

Lean 76

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 76