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Why Companies and Government Do “Innovation Theater” Instead of Actual Innovation

Steve Blank

The type of disruption most companies and government agencies are facing is a once-in-every-few-centuries event. Ultimately, companies and government agencies need to stop doing this or they will fail. By process I mean all the tools that allow companies and government to scale repeatable execution. Process Versus Product.

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10 Strategies To Cover New Product Development Costs

Startup Professionals Musings

This source is a major focus these days, due to government initiatives to incent research and development on alternative energy and other technologies. If your offering is exciting enough, you may get millions in small amounts from other people on the Internet to help you fly high over the valley of death.

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10 Keys To Surviving Startup Cash Flow Requirements

Startup Professionals Musings

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Leave the world of new computer chips and new drugs to the big companies, and people with deep pockets. Apply for contests and business grants.

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10 Popular Business Strategies That Most Often Fail

Startup Professionals Musings

Cash is always hard to find, but in many cases it’s even harder to find access to needed distribution channels, government contract expertise, or the special skills required to deliver your solution. Finish the product before marketing begins. Marketing should start before product development.

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10 Financing Alternatives For Your Next New Venture

Startup Professionals Musings

The problem is that professional investors (angels and venture capital) want a proven business model before they invest, ready to scale, rather than early projections and product development. Leave the world of new computer chips and new drugs to the big companies, and people with deep pockets. Apply for contests and business grants.

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The Endless Frontier: U.S. Science and National Industrial Policy (part 1)

Steve Blank

Government funding of research started in World War II driven by the needs of the military for weapon systems to defeat Germany and Japan. government has had a robust national science and technology policy, it lacks a national industrial policy; leaving that to private capital. governments approach to science and warfare.

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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

And if their initial guesses were wrong, they needed a process that would permit them to change early on in the product development process when the cost of changes was small – the famed “pivot”. And government agencies find themselves being disrupted by adversaries unencumbered by legacy systems, policies and history.

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