Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. Of all the Chinese government programs, the Torch Program is the one program that kick-started Chinese high-tech innovation and startups. Venture Guiding Fund. All the usual caveats apply.

Programming 288

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 288

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. —— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland 329

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 329

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) They went to work gathering deep knowledege of what makes successful Internet startups. Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. better user growth.

Technical Cofounder 335

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 329

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 329

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 253

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 253

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

And he recognized it was making his startup feel and act like a big ponderous company. Most decisions in a startup must be made in the face of uncertainty. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one.

Silicon Valley 310

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 310

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. 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.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 237

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building.

Customer Development 129

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 129

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Unique to Finland with its strong cultural emphasis on equality and the redistribution of wealth is a business press that doesn’t understand startups and is overtly hostile to their success.

Finland 332

Finland Naming Russia Government 332

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

I suggested that they first might want to read my post on why business plans are a poor planning and execution tool for startups. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A startup is not executing a series of knowns. Instead of business plans I have suggested that startups use business models.

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

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. As much as I loved the magazine, there was little in it for startups (or new divisions in established companies) searching for a business model.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 223

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

What’s A Startup? We’ve been teaching that the difference between a startup and an existing company is that existing companies execute business models, while startups search for a business model. (Or This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack.

Business Model 286

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 286

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. Of all the Chinese government programs, the Torch Program is the one program that kick-started Chinese high-tech innovation and startups. Venture Guiding Fund. All the usual caveats apply.

Programming 180

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 180

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. The Innovation Corps Startup Team. We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This week we saw the results. billion U.S.

Incubator 311

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 311

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

China 221

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 221

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. 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.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it. the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of Venture Capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally.

Restful 249

Restful Silicon Valley San Jose Puerto Rico 249

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Technical Marketing Years later in my career I would realize I had simply reinvented what the early pioneers in Silicon Valley knew and did – hiring engineers who were domain experts who could talk as peers to customers and communicate effectively with their own company’s engineers.

Engineer 224

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 224

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

It took me 8 startups and 21 years to get it right, (and one can argue success was due to the Internet bubble rather then any brilliance.) No internet, no blogs, no books on startups, no entrepreneurship departments in universities, etc. It took lots of trial and error, learning by experience and resilience through multiple failures.

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 208

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Almost every private equity and venture capital investor now advertises that they have a platform to support their portfolio companies. Relationships with Venture Partners, Entrepreneurs in Residence , and other non-salaried personnel who can help your companies. Customer Development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 230

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 230

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

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. I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 133

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

And they should be; the feeding frenzy in the innovation economy is in some cases because startups are eating the lunch of more established companies. Mari is now building a new venture in human-machine interaction within the Samsung accelerator, currently in stealth mode. New York Times’ timeSpace is a good example.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. I’ve gathered a comprehensive list of resources for startup learning. Startup Hiring : How to attract, hire and retain the best people. Let’s get started!

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all startups. Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs.

Vertical 159

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

If these sound like reasonable answers to you, and you are in a startup/small company, update your resume. No one had sat the marketing department down and defined what our department Mission (with a capital “M”) was. What I was actually hearing was a failure of management.

Silicon Valley 272

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 272

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology.

Lean 120

Lean Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder Channel 120

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. 9-to-5 Venture Capital.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Customers The irony is that Zilog had no idea who would eventually become its largest customers. Keep in mind this is still several years before the IBM PC and DOS. You created it and own it.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 207

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Does anyone know where the registration cards that the customers sent back are?” As a company with a past history, the company had a massive advantage over a typical startup – it had customers. Normally in a startup you spend an inordinate amount of time and energy in Customer Discovery and Customer Validation.

Silicon Valley 213

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 213

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

I just had a coffee with Mei and Bill, two passionate students who are on fire about their new startup idea. The cycle of creative destruction of the old being replaced by the new continues, fueled by angel and venture capital. How has the market/technology/customers evolved since then? Why did those fail? What’s changed?

Bandwidth 303

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 303

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Marketing , SuperMac , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , SuperMac « Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions Gravity Will be Turned Off » 17 Responses EricS , on May 11, 2009 at 11:05 am Said: I loved my Spigot. It was fun watching it happen. com Michael Robertson.

Video 190

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 190

The Next Web

MAY 4, 2013

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Stefano Bernardi, who is on the founding team of Betable , where he heads Customer Development. Previously, he worked in venture capital in Europe. You probably didn’t work in a major successful US startup. You can check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.

San Francisco 159

San Francisco Europe Technical Review Due Diligence 159

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Startups and Sales If you read this post you can come away with the impression that every startup with a direct salesforce needs a consultative sales team. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? what Market Type is your startup?

Technology 146

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 146

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This post is about the rise of Chinese venture capital and how it helped build the countries entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Rise of Chinese Venture Capital. All the usual caveats apply.

Venture Capital 279

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 279

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Over scrambled eggs and diet coke, I listened to this seasoned startup veteran describe the excitement of his students who came to the U.S. I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. to compete.

Business Plan 160

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 160