Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. Our vision was that just as the PC was revolutionizing the business market, we were going to do the same for scientists and engineers.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

One of the things he mentioned was that when it came to decision-making he still tended to think and act like an engineer. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. The same is true in your company.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

Ive personally been involved in the start-up world in Los Angeles for about 15 years, and have had the opportunity to work on many early-stage companies (e.g., Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. eHarmongy) as an acting CTO. in Computer Science.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

View from Seed

APRIL 21, 2015

On the heels of our research on HBS entrepreneurs , NextView’s Dimitri Dadiomov (HBS ’15) interviewed several top founders on the early stages of their companies. On Launching and Finding Early Traction. How did you find your first customers and hit important, early milestones?

Founder 120

Founder Las Vegas Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Their engineers hated us. Engineers as Salesmen I thought (and still do) that this sales guy walked on water.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

SoCal CTO

MARCH 13, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles Internet 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Networking Southern California Los Angeles 150

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

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. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Since I wasn’t an engineer, my contribution was around the team-building and fund raising. This could be useful information for those that want to get involved with a early stage start-up and want to evaluate it but not necessarily for funding. I was an idiot. These questions I know will be on top of the list that VC’s will ask.&#

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

In the early stages of every technology, the market is usually dominated by products built for early adopters who are typically tech savvy – this mainly consists of developers who like to have full control over a product and its features. In general, at the time, you had to be an engineer to even think about creating a website.

PHP 143

PHP Management HTML Framework 143

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 28, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles Mobile 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Los Angeles Southern California CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 5, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Open Source 150

Open Source Business Model Technical Cofounder Southern California 150

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. 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.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Technical Cofounder Southern California CTO Hire 150

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Would you mind sharing them?

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 27, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Incubator 150

Incubator Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

ReadWriteStart

MAY 5, 2011

The smart home business is still in the very early stages in India, and it will take some time before Evolutech ramps up. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Discuss.

Costa Rica 115

Costa Rica Incubator Silicon Valley India 115

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

Take a look at some of the emails between us from 2010: We were attending NYU from 2008–2012. Before graduating, I decided to forgo the finance path and instead dove into engineering and later sales and product management roles at VersaSuite (health IT) in Austin. PPPS, we’re also hiring a blockchain engineer.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

The presentation was on outsourcing generally, not just software engineering and the audience was very early stage companies (some yet to be founded). Now, for very early stage companies, you may be thinking, “I don’t have any cash, so outsourcing isn’t an option.&# Engineering/QA.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

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 Continuous Deployment 113

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.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 23, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Technical Cofounder Southern California Networking 150

View from Seed

DECEMBER 10, 2014

He is currently a second year student at Harvard Business School and will be focused on supporting the early-stage startup community in Boston and its schools. When I was a freshman, a wise mentor told me, “Pick your major based on something for which the Stanford engineering department is creating new buildings.”

Boston 328

Boston Seed Stage San Francisco Startup 328

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. Discuss.

Early Stage 116

Early Stage India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 116

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2015

While apps excel at cultivating customer loyalty, the web remains the main engine driving mobile traffic and revenue, with the mobile web contributing 95% of traffic growth to retail sites, versus just 5% by apps. Tablets burst onto the scene in 2010 with the launch of the iPad. Quarter after quarter, sales of tablets were on the rise.

Mobile 100

Mobile Software Review eCommerce .Net 100

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? This is an incredible skill, one that most engineers overlook. But all things are never equal. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Another advantage of the early stages is that most dont have to juggle too many competing priorities. Tell your Startup Visa story Speaking 2010: Webstock, GDC, Web 2.0, April 23, 2010 in San Francisco. Facebook Fans Recent & Upcoming Events 2010 I am experimenting with using Plancast to track my 2010 event schedule.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88