Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

I’m honored to be at a university noted for knowledge, and in a city with 2000 years of history – home of Gaudí one of the 20 th century’s greatest innovators. Companies horde cash and squeeze the most revenue and margin from the money they use. Thank you for the kind introduction. I’d like to start with a request.

Private Equity 326

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 326

ConversionXL

MAY 1, 2017

Reporting in the Harvard Business Review on a major study of growth stalls they conducted, Olson and his colleagues cite the case of the iconic brand Levi Strauss, which hit a historic high mark of sales in 1995, reaching revenue of $7 billion, but then, starting in 1996, saw a decline in sales so precipitous that by 2000, revenue was down to $4.6

Technical Review 127

Technical Review Algorithm Channel Analytics 127

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

The two decades from 1979 when pension funds fueled the expansion of venture capital to 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst were the Golden Age for entrepreneurs and venture capital firms. Until 1995 startups going public typically had a track record of revenue and profits. Number of Venture Backed Liquidity Events 1991-2000.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Silicon Valley is still emerging from the tech bubble and massive downturn of late 2000-2002. LinkedIn’s product had only been live for a couple months, we only had tens of thousands of registered users, and wouldn’t start generating revenue for more than a year after this point.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. We were a profitable company at that point with nearly $200M annualized revenue, one of the first tech companies to IPO after the dot-com bubble. When we started LinkedIn , it was a similar situation.

Startup 120

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 120

Agile VC

JANUARY 21, 2015

But during the year 2000, we went through three different CEOs, fraud nearly killed the company, our revenue was negligible and unproven, and at our worst point, the company was burning well over $10 million a month — A MONTH! We went public in 2002 and eBay bought the company later that year for over $1.5

Cofounder 188

Cofounder Seed Stage Employee PR 188

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2020

And I think how you think about that, whether you're a restaurant owner that didn't invest in curbside pickup, what can you do to, I'll call it, hack it or in an agile mindset, how do you think about bringing a way to be able to do curbside and do that well, and not just rely on the delivery folks to be able to support you? Let's go."

Technical Review 148

Technical Review Balance Sheet Texas Austin 148

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. We were a profitable company at that point with nearly $200M annualized revenue, one of the first tech companies to IPO after the dot-com bubble.

Startup 188

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 188

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

There’s also an armed globally-dispersed Sales and Support teams, so we’re selling to our 70,000 existing customers as well as thousands of new customers per month, which means we’ll end up adding more new revenue in one month than a small company will take in over a whole year. The tradeoff, however, is predictability.

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

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. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Agile VC

JANUARY 21, 2015

But during the year 2000, we went through three different CEOs, fraud nearly killed the company, our revenue was negligible and unproven, and at our worst point, the company was burning well over $10 million a month — A MONTH! We went public in 2002 and eBay bought the company later that year for over $1.5

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Seed Stage Employee PR 100

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

E-commerce accounts for the vast majority of LL Bean’s revenue today ( it crossed 50% in 2010 though was as low as 15% in 2000 ), but because LL Bean is over a hundred years old and started as catalog & physical store retailer we typically don’t refer to it as an internet company.

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8

Silicon Valley 169

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 169

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

My first startup job was as an early employee at PayPal, where I took a job at the end of ‘1999 and started a few months later in 2000. We were a profitable company at that point with nearly $200M annualized revenue, one of the first tech companies to IPO after the dot-com bubble.

Startup 100

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 100

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

The challenge I want to take on is to be specific in the recommendations make, and to share how we can be very nimble and agile. Outcomes: Revenue | Ideas Funded Behavior: Path Length | Cart Abandonment Rate Acquisition: Assisted Conversions | Share of Search. Every ecommerce site has to obsess about Revenue.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 13, 2017

Today, AWS is on pace for a $14 billion revenue year – just for one relatively new segment of Amazon’s business. Sometimes called “Gen Y”, millennials are the much sought after generation born between 1980 and 2000. Startups must be agile and adapt their value proposition several times until they get it right.

Small Business 53

Small Business Startup Global Design 53

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

They made other assumptions about the type of sales channel, partnerships and revenue model they would need. In 2000, new investors bought Iridium’s satellites and network for $25-million, or one half of one percent of the invested capital. All were predicated on the state of the mobile phone industry in 1990. Lessons Learned.

Business Plan 335

Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

The kinds of places where you have to sign an NDA when you walk in the lobby… When I lived and worked in the bay area (2000-2005) virtually all the startups were down on the peninsula somewhere. I think the long-tail (size in terms of market cap, revenue, employees etc – pick one doesn’t matter) is moving towards the city.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. 2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. Management of Innovation.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336