Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2022

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. On the other hand, if you are into solar technologies, there is probably an advantage to being in Arizona or a similar location. The list goes on and on.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Today with every city, state and country trying to build out a technology cluster, following Dino’s progress can provide others with a roadmap of what’s worked and what has not.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The previous post described how China built its science and technology infrastructure. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. Torch has four major parts: Innovation Clusters , Technology Business Incubators (TBIs), Seed Funding (Innofund) and Venture Guiding Fund. Innovation Clusters.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. On the other hand, if you are into solar technologies, there is probably an advantage to being in Arizona or a similar location. The list goes on and on.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. Fear of Failure.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless. Did anybody hold patents that would prevent us from using this technology? With the explosion of “wearables’ wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to charge your watch, fitness tracker or noise-canceling headphones? Did the physics actually work?

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 11, 2023

No Knowledge of Computers Silicon Valley emerged from work in World War II led by Stanford professor Fred Terman developing microwave and electronics for Electronic Warfare systems. Silicon Valley wouldn’t have a computer company until 1966 when Hewlett Packard shipped the HP 2116 minicomputer.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. ” Put simply, if you care about building a successful tech community outside Silicon Valley you should read this book.

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SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2019

Image via Wikipedia From the advice I hear these days, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, or one of the few other financial hubs around the world. Even if your town never seems to change, there are always changes in trends, people, and technology.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

For decades large companies have gone shopping in Silicon Valley for startups. Silicon Valley – a Corporate Innovation Candy Store. Corporate business development and strategic partner executives are flocking to Silicon Valley to find these five types of innovation.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Let me start with the obvious baseline that most people probably know instinctively: Los Angeles is the 3rd largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. billion in venture capital to LA’s technology startups and 2014 will shatter that figure. When you begin to peel back the onion some surprising data presents itself.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

PM’s are underrated in Silicon Valley these days. Tech teams are comprised of three distinct managements skills: people, process & technology. For the wrong reasons. PMs are a vital part of a tech startup. Engineering is critical but it is not everything. Know the difference. Some people are good at all.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2022

As a potential investor, I always think of the high rate of failure of disruptive technologies, due to the longer learning curve of customers, infrastructure change consistently required, and higher marketing costs. Technology is great, but high-tech major-step-forward solutions are not the answer to all our change challenges.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

For IBM, the Personal Computer was a paradigm shift from their big business legacy, built with new technologies for totally new markets, and battleships turn very slowly. The culture of a large technology company is to rely on internal development or large, stable, and proven external vendors.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 29, 2022

These authors speak from their own wealth of experience in creating and growing technology startups, marketing, and fundraising. Book smarts represent your current depth of understanding of technology and business concepts. If you need venture capital, maybe you need to spend more time in Silicon Valley or Boston.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

You may have heard that venture capitalists in Silicon Valley no longer read business plans. For example, “We just patented a new battery technology that will cut your smartphone charge time and cost in half.” For the rest of us, we need a business plan, as well as a product plan. Use non-fuzzy terms to quantify customer value.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). So why did Larry need to return?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

It is a “talent first” company but one under-pinned with a serious multi-million dollar investment in technology that has helped fuel our growth and will continue to provide tools & support for our talent. Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley and Who Will Win. “Without you none of this would be possible.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Our defense department and intelligence community owned proprietary advanced tools and technology. We and our contractors had the best technology domain experts. We used these tools to keep pace with the Soviet threats and eventually used silicon, semiconductors and stealth to create an offset strategy to leapfrog their military.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

But even more important than personal lessons of failure, I believe acceptance of failure at a societal level is one of the key ingredients that allows the technology startup industry in the US to flourish. Silicon Valley itself was built on the sciences with a foundation of trial-and-error and then improving the model and trying again.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

The press around the raise & company was fantastic and the promise of their technology – wireless charging that works as easily as WiFi – would positively affect many of our lives. The beauty of Silicon Valley and the ethos it has driven in all of us is acceptance of failure and a profound respect for those who at least try.

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ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

It wasn’t long ago that it made sense for companies, and especially Silicon Valley companies, to hire locally and have everyone working from one central location. Today, especially in tech hubs like Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, or Seattle, none of these facts hold. Real estate was relatively cheap.

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2014

First, most Silicon Valley startups were (and primarily still are) technology-driven. They are founded and funded by visionaries who already have products (or product ideas based on technology innovation) and now need to find customers and markets. These include: Moving with speed, speed and did I say speed?

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Things such as driver-less cars and new medicines are far more than a technology challenge. investors, for example, it may be worthwhile to set up an office in New York City or Silicon Valley. You need a big differentiator in these arenas. Products requiring changes to government regulations. If you want U.S.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

The main thrust of the post is that with YouTube taking a 45% of revenue and talent taking 70% of the remaining revenue, YouTube Networks didn’t have sustainable businesses unless they invested heavily in technology as a tool to increase margin and provide defensibility. That is the definition of Disruptive Technology.

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View from Seed

JULY 31, 2014

Furthermore, one of our recent investments was in Silicon Valley, as all three of us have lived and worked there. While all three of our most recent investments built on this foundational idea still remain stealthy, everyone utilizes connected technology to uniquely deliver a service or bundled product. Recent Investment Themes.

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Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2012

Entrepreneurial clusters like Silicon Valley (or NY, Boston, Austin, Beijing, etc.) And for Silicon Valley the investor flight to social media marks the beginning of the end of the era of venture capital-backed big ideas in science and technology. Filed under: Technology , Venture Capital.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

During my time in Silicon Valley, I was struck by the fact that most successful entrepreneurs seemed to personally know and regularly hear from all the “movers and shakers” who had the investment capital and leadership they needed. I’m a believer in the old saying that investors look for great people, more than great ideas.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2020

It seems to be part of the “fail fast, fail often” mantra often heard in Silicon Valley. Prioritize your tasks, take advantage of technology, and constantly optimize your processes. As an advisor to many startups, I’m convinced it’s an expensive and painful approach, but I do see it used all too often.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

Their firm is one of those that you think of when you think of Silicon Valley. He wanted to know what I thought of his technology deal. I got a call a few years ago from a well-known investor up North. It was the first time he had ever called me. Why am I so lucky? I got three calls from another big name, big check VC.

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The Startup Magazine

JANUARY 8, 2019

When International Technological University’s CTO Kranthi Lammatha was a boy in the Indian farming village of Kasipuram, he would walk nine miles to get to school every day and another nine miles to get back home in the evening. Looking to Solve Problems. The days of waiting weeks for transcripts are over.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

Project Agrippa , for example, piloted a new “ Hacking for Strategy ” initiative inspired by their experience in Stanford’s “ Technology, Innovation and Modern War ” class that Raj Shah, Joe Felter and I taught last fall. Steve Weinstein , 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies.

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ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 19, 2019

Silicon Valley gets significant attention for its role in producing tech startups that often go on to see massive, international success. There’s also Substrata , an AI-powered technology company in Tel Aviv that provides critical insights on conversations, email threads, and other points of human contact.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

In tech startups stock options were here almost from the beginning, first offered to the founders in 1957 at Fairchild Semiconductor , the first chip startup in Silicon Valley. It drove the relentless “do whatever it takes” culture of 20 th century Silicon Valley. Why Startups Offer Stock Options. And the bet worked.

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