Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Huge Technical Visio n. Larry always had a 10-year technical vision that he could draw on the whiteboard or spin like a yarn. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was way more right than wrong, It informed our product development to a great degree and kept us working on more or less the right stuff. Larry just blew them away.

Technical Review 335

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What does your Chief Technology Officer do all day? Often times, it seems like people are thinking its synonymous with "that guy who gets paid to sit in the corner and think technical deep thoughts" or "that guy who gets to swoop in a rearrange my project at the last minute on a whim." But along the way, something strange happened.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2011

“Scope creep” (or feature creep) is an insidious disease that kills more good startups than any other, especially high-tech ones, and yet most founders (who may be the cause) never even see it happening. This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can.

Technical Review 241

Technical Review Startup Software Review Database 241

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

I could have listened to her for hours as many of her lessons were ones I hadn’t heard before such as how she used online gaming when she was younger as a way of both teaching herself tech as well as learning to lead remote teams. Nanea Reeves has a storied career in senior leadership roles at technology companies.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Leadership Engineer RSS 315

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

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. Bartering technically means exchanging goods or services as a substitute for money. Apply for contests and business grants.

Intellectual Property 341

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 341

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

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. Bartering technically means exchanging goods or services as a substitute for money. Apply for contests and business grants.

Finance 320

Finance Intellectual Property Technical Review Incubator 320

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Perhaps you’re an aspiring technology entrepreneur with a great idea of a product you believe would take off, but due to the lack of technical knowledge or funds have no way to turn your business idea into reality. With funds you could maybe even consider outsourcing the development.

Technical Review 268

Technical Review Incubator Product Development Developer 268

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. These are probably the two sites where I've posted the most reviews. One out of ten of Americans are out of work.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g. some came from our customer service, some were to improve performance / scalability from tech ops, some were bug fixes, etc.) and product management worked with me to decide what to build & when.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2021

Product development. For a great idea person, the product details keep changing for the better, but nothing ever gets finished. Lists of project milestones and technical issues are created, but nothing happens on time, because follow-up on issues is missing. They expect prompt formal follow-up to questions.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Startup Software Review Retention 333

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 26, 2011

At the big consulting firms, investment banks and established large technology companies we’re taught to produce long reports, make sure that every document is perfect quality and that every possible bit of diligence has been done. It says that you need to take due care in selecting team members. Good enough isn’t.

Hiring 335

Hiring Technical Review Startup Framework 335

The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 5, 2025

Leverage Technology for Growth Technology is a powerful tool for driving efficiency and innovation. Technology is also going to enable you to have better communication and collaboration. You should make sure that you are regularly reviewing your financial statements to understand your cash flow.

Software Review 147

Software Review Technical Review Retention Campaign 147

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2022

In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Missions and products that are too broad confuse your team, your customers, and potential investors. Product development chasm.

Technical Review 375

Technical Review Startup Dilution Early Stage 375

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

“Scope creep” (or feature creep) is an insidious disease that kills more good startups than any other, especially high-tech ones, and yet most founders (who may be the cause) never even see it happening. This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can.

Technical Review 187

Technical Review Startup Software Review Database 187

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. Customer development (the understanding of customer needs) must be married to agile development (a process which drives waste out of product development).

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 21, 2020

Product development involves the creation or modification of a product, satisfying a market niche or newly defined customer. Now more than ever, plastics are very useful in product design because there are a lot of benefits of using plastic. The process can be a critical part of product development.

Product Development 114

Product Development Developer Product Technical Review 114

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Hes a new employee, and he was not properly trained in TDD So far, this isnt much different from the kind of analysis any competent operations team would conduct for a site outage. What started as a technical problem actually turned out to be a human and process problem. We didnt even practice TDD across our whole team.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

During a lull in her practice she got a serendipitous opportunity to shift gears completely and ended up leading software product development teams. Their products are over-priced, buggy, lacking features, and every experience I've had with their tech support has been atrocious, but man their stuff looks and feels nice!

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

It should go without saying that this post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply my observation of how companies using Customer Development positioned themselves to successfully raise money from venture investors. Raising Money Using Customer Development « Steve Blank [.] Great post!

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 12, 2024

While artificial intelligence has been decades in the making, only recently has the tech industry generated such high expectations for how it will usher in a new era for digital innovation. Following the AI boom in 2023, the spotlight has been even more on this technology, ensuring that this would be the year when companies went all-in on AI.

Technical Review 167

Technical Review Cost Artificial Inteligence Analytics 167

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

In other parts of the world, innovators often need to develop both the ultimate product or service, as well as the enabling infrastructure that underpins it. Even here, Elon Musk faced this issue with Tesla, needing a support ecosystem as well as new technology. Develop new venture models for tougher ecosystems.

Global 345

Global Silicon Valley Marketing Indonesia 345

The Next Web

MARCH 6, 2014

Here’s a problem I bet every non-technical founder has experienced: the communication gap between what the biz dev team wants and what the tech team thinks they want, and vice versa. Give those teams the resources they need to be successful — both in business development and tech personnel. Their answers are below.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Development Team Review Developer Agile 129

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 10, 2013

These include preparing and launching one’s business/product, overcoming resistance, using push/pull technology, and managing stakeholders (employees and bosses). Due to the breadth of its range (it is ambitious!), It begins with a core of likability and trustworthiness before covering other topics.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Japan Employee Management 145

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 16, 2013

Product development. For a great idea person, the product details keep changing for the better, but nothing ever gets finished. Lists of project milestones and technical issues are created, but nothing happens on time, because follow-up on issues is missing. They expect prompt formal follow-up to questions.

Entrepreneur 275

Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review Retention 275

Up and Running

JULY 6, 2016

Often, a business plan introduces a new technology that requires some explaining. On one hand, as a reader of business plans for investors, I see way too many business plans that ask a reader to wade neck-deep through technology to get to the business. Establish technology as a differentiator, when it is.

Technical Review 72

Technical Review Software Review Business Plan Development Team Review 72

YoungUpstarts

JULY 14, 2013

While marketers go gaga over social technologies and their impact on digital commerce, it is often our physical perceptions of a product which influence buying decisions. The challenge, however, is this: How can we design our products, advertisements and experiences such that they push the right sensory buttons in our consumers?

Technical Review 159

Technical Review Customer Michigan Framework 159

TechEmpower

MARCH 4, 2024

Focusing on generative AI applications in a select few corporate functions can contribute to a significant portion of the technology's overall impact. It plays a crucial role in product development too, where generative AI speeds up design processes, streamlines testing, and tailors user experiences effectively.

Generative AI 297

Generative AI CTO Hire Fractional CTO Software Review 297

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do. They hire key staff.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Revenue Venture Capital 309

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

I am convinced one of Joel Spolskys lasting contributions to the field of managing software teams will turn out to be the Joel Test , a checklist of 12 essential practices that you could use to rate the effectiveness of a software product development team. This is the approach of test-driven-development (TDD).

Software Review 144

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 144

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 7, 2006

In addition, there are many factors that go into the release of a new product that includes fixing bugs, soliciting customer feedback, responding to competition, and adding new features that will maintain a company’s technological lead in the market. The post Facebook and product development first appeared on BeyondVC.

Product Development 78

Product Development Developer Product Development Team Review 78

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

After helping build the first Ethernet switch startup, I was attracted by Asynchronous Transfer Mode 25Mbit/sec technology, (ATM25) which was 2.5x The result: great success of my third startup, a load balancing technology for web servers back in the late 1990’s. faster than Ethernet and ran data but plus voice and video.

Japan 305

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 305

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

To be clear Airbnb posted a GAAP profit in Q3 2020 of over $200M which is impressive given travel remains materially depressed due to COVID. For reference, high-flying megacap tech stocks like Apple and Google have operating income margins >20% and Facebook and Microsoft have operating income margins >30%.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2020

In other parts of the world, innovators often need to develop both the ultimate product or service, as well as the enabling infrastructure that underpins it. Even here, Elon Musk faced this issue with Tesla, needing a support ecosystem as well as new technology. Develop new venture models for tougher ecosystems.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Indonesia Venture Capital Global 312

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 2, 2014

An estimated 75 to 95 percent of new products fail in the marketplace. These cycles are particularly pronounced in the technology industry, where rapid innovation leads to rapid product releases, and often to rapid failures. pound paperweight,” said the New York Times’ David Pogue in a technology review.

Product 222

Product Technical Review Software Review Green 222

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

This article previously appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. In government agencies process versus product has gone further. And these forces are completely reshaping both commerce and defense.

Government 322

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 322

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Though development was already underway, I kicked-off SyncDev in early November. The core team — a cross-functional team who could make all the business and technical decisions within a set envelop ? consisted of product manager, hardware-engineering manager, software-engineering manager, applications analyst, and software designer.

San Jose 261

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 261

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 4, 2014

The key here is to transfer foreign management expertise and technologies to China while tapping on its huge domestic entertainment market. To market to Muslims, companies could take note of the holy month of the Ramadan, offer halal products, develop shariah-compliant Islamic financial services, or create mobile apps.

Technical Review 171

Technical Review United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia China 171