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. Most startups are facing unknown customer needs, an unknown product feature set and is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

Business Plan 320

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 320

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

The motivations are the same – profit – driven by entrepreneurs and venture finance. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' It usually doesn’t end well.

China 329

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 329

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

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 167

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Handspring’s customers understood what a Personal Digital Assistant was.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 223

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

The motivations are the same – profit – driven by entrepreneurs and venture finance. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' It usually doesn’t end well.

China 221

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 221

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy. B y Cindy Alvarez.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany." 9-to-5 Venture Capital. Yet Tekes does that and is trying to act like a government-run Venture Capital firm.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2013

China has embraced state capitalism in a way Wall Street can only dream about. Startups, Venture Capital and the Communist Party: how did this happen in China? But before startups could happen, China’s basic science, technology and finance infrastructure and ecosystem needed to be built. China is following the same path.

China 323

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 323

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. I use the Investment Readiness Level as part of my sessions to help the students understand that being ready for investment means that besides having a pretty PowerPoint, they need to do real work and show Customer Development progress.

Sacramento 315

Sacramento Framework Lean Customer Development 315

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. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 261

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance. China has the biggest Venture Capital industry outside the U.S. Entrepreneurship in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 276

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 276

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2013

China has embraced state capitalism in a way Wall Street can only dream about. Startups, Venture Capital and the Communist Party: how did this happen in China? But before startups could happen, China’s basic science, technology and finance infrastructure and ecosystem needed to be built. China is following the same path.

China 215

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 215

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. Venture Capital Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. The amount of capital being invested in new device companies is at an 11 year low.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 304

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. For the first 75 years of the 20 th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs. Filed under: Corporate Innovation , Customer Development.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”. They used Customer and Agile development to search for a scalable and repeatable business model to become a large company. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick 304

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 304

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

Venture Capital 307

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 307

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

While this signaled that investments in technology companies could be very lucrative, both Shockley and Fairchild could only be funded through corporate partners – there was no venture capital industry. government backed venture firms and limited partnerships. A wave of innovation was about to meet a pile of risk capital.

Engineer 314

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 314

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 14, 2013

“The results of programs like 500 Startups, Techstars, and Y-Combinator are well known, but due to the culture here in Europe there’s still a lot of unknowns in terms of the track record for follow on funding and results of accelerator programs based in Europe,” says Don Ritzen, co-founder and CEO of Rockstart Accelerator.

Silicon Valley 231

Silicon Valley Europe Venture Capital Incubator 231

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance. China has the biggest Venture Capital industry outside the U.S. Entrepreneurship in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 168

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 168

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

After a year and a half of running training and teaching the new Z-8000 and its peripheral chips, I began to figure out that one of the jobs of marketing was to translate what engineering built into a description that our salesmen could use to talk to potential customers. I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Do they “get&# Customer Development ? They understand that now’s not the time to hire a senior VP of Sales to start to scale the sales force or to look for a finance department to create income statements that say zero each month. Do They Get Customer Development? Have they heard about Customer Development ?

Founder 232

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 232

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

Silicon Valley 274

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 274

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

It detailed exactly what everyone was to do at every stage for every product, with instructions for every department ranging from hardware to software, and on to operations, finance, marketing, even the support teams that troubleshoot and repair the product after it goes to market.” Apple Startup general interest Venture Capital'

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

understand who their core and tertiary customers are, and the sales and marketing process required for initial clinical sales and downstream commercialization. identify financing vehicles before you need them. identify financing vehicles before you need them. Incubators are designed for teams with an idea.

San Diego 268

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 268

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

There are few courses which teach aspiring entrepreneurs the skills (business models, customer and agile development, design thinking, etc.) If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know I believe that: 1) a product is just a part of a startup, but understanding customers, channel, pricing, etc. to optimize this search.

Wiki 319

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 319

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

Vertical 126

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 126

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Is there a junior or senior developer from a previous gig who will respect you for a previous role and be ready to build their own baby with you? So, while you’re slaving away on your customer development while keeping an eye out for your technical match, you could do worse than read Paul Graham’s 2007 essay, How not to die.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Examples are Hollywood for movies, Milan for fashion, New York for finance and today, Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurship. Venture Guiding Fund. In 2007 the Ministries of Science and Finance raised the stakes to get VC’s focused on funneling more VC money into growing startups – they set up a Venture Guiding Fund.

Programming 288

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 288

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. They hear exactly what you heard.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. They hear exactly what you heard.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” We witness similar behavior in corporate finance.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Examples are Hollywood for movies, Milan for fashion, New York for finance and today, Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurship. Venture Guiding Fund. In 2007 the Ministries of Science and Finance raised the stakes to get VC’s focused on funneling more VC money into growing startups – they set up a Venture Guiding Fund.

Programming 180

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 180

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. Modern Corporation Marketing At the same time General Motors also revolutionized automotive marketing by creating multiple brands of cars, each with its own identity targeted at a specific economic bracket of American customers.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 184

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs Tweet When a startup receives financing it will need to setup a Board of Directors. What many first-time CEOs might not realize is that they may need to setup an Advisory Board as a condition of receiving financing. Mark Macleod spells it out beautifully in his post on Advisory Boards.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40