Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 302

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 223

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

After talking to its resellers and customers I realized that SuperMac was the only company that could be described as “fifth in a group of three.” The assets were a series of products already developed and on the market or in the development pipeline. In essence it was a restart with a mixed bag of assets and liabilities.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 150

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. —– When I came to U.C. Seeing Is Believing.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems. “Oh I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO.

Silicon Valley 126

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 185

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. In these markets it’s all about invention risk.

Vertical 147

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Reply Karma in the Lean Startup Era , on January 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm Said: [.] Not a trivial job considering our computer was one of the first parallel architectures, and our compiler required specific knowledge of our [.] The cheapest way to get promotion is getting colleagues to [.]

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

His most recent company, Filtrbox, participated in the inaugural Techstars class (Techstars Boulder 2007) and was a win for all parties involved; Filtrbox was acquired in 2010 by Jive Software (NASDAQ: JIVE). Following is his advice to early stage entrepreneurs for creating structure in their company.

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Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 146

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 146

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

The companies I spoke to all agreed that the community there was extremely supportive, especially in the critical ulta-early-stage. Then, create an encouraging environment for early-stage companies. Provide early seed capital, and be the ones to make those introductions. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. They might have some seed money and are thinking or raising a Series A based on success of an early release (MVP). Bill Payne is an expert on how early-stage investors should look at valuation.

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Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow. Go to trade shows like it matters.

Silicon Valley 129

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

This continues my series of posts: Top 30 Startup Posts for July 2010 Top 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March Here they are: How to Minimize Politics in Your Company - Ben's Blog , August 24, 2010 “Who the f@#k you think you f$&kin’ with.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. In 2002 I became exposed to the idea of “agile software development&# and subsequently was a first round investor in Rally Software which is now the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management software.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

The people who are the lifeblood of an early-stage startup are earlyvangelists. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

User-centric and interaction design, test-driven development, continuous integration, services-oriented architectures - the list goes on. Yet a huge class of modern software projects are being developed in a very different context. The economics of these process trade-offs are discussed in the Principles of Product Development Flow.)

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

Here in Tampa, our biggest challenge is convincing the regions technology "leadership" that grassroots economic development is a good thing. Unfortunately, they are disinterested in doing the hard work to help early stage entrepreneurs and companies. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0,

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me – “Have you used Company x’s product?

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

Customer Development This strategy of starting on faith, and quickly turning them into facts is the core of the Customer Development process. Employ customer development. Because at times facts may create cognitive dissonance with the beliefs that got you started and funded.

Silicon Valley 219

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Many founders dont like to hear that visionary customers are as smart, maybe even more so, than they are. Startups need to spend time with these customers. In fact, early stage companies shouldnt be able to get time from anyone else - who else would be crazy enough to try an truly innovative new product?

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that.

Vertical 130

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 130

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Reply steveblank , on March 8, 2010 at 4:29 pm Said: Thanks! steve Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Redemption 127

Redemption Silicon Valley RSS California 127

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

In other words, we want to use the spreadsheet to quantify our progress using the most important unit: validated learning about customers. One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery.

Silicon Valley 128

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty. It may not be for you.

Silicon Valley 173

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Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Did this help them to understand your company/product Part 2 of the memo, to be posted tomorrow: using a trade show to generate leads. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 250

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , SuperMac | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup « Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II Movie was Wrong » 7 Responses David , on April 23, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Excellent!

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

AppFog creating "high-hurdle" experiments to surface authentic early adopters with real pain. The Embrace infant warmer was developed - by getting out of the country -- and how Rob Emrich learned and scaled his non-profit, Road of Life. BetaBrand building apparel MVPs and testing them quickly with targeted customer communities.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Instead of bemoaning the demise of an old company we should be celebrating new companies that develop new helpful technologies. Reply Sujoy Neogi , on August 14, 2010 at 10:12 pm Said: Good one, but i feel you need to listen to Steve Blank more if you are a startup. ?domiausias DO NOT develop a computer!&#

Silicon Valley 169

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Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Ill mention one last thing about knowing what channels of communication your customers engage with. This is important, especially if you are a very early stage company. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Combining agile development with customer developm.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

Don’t confuse your passion for your tools with why your customers will buy your product.

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