Steve Blank

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Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

More often than not the results of these acquisitions are disappointing. The goal is to get a corporate investment or an outright acquisition of the startup. VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup.

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Why Companies and Government Do “Innovation Theater” Instead of Actual Innovation

Steve Blank

Disruption today is more than just changes in technology, or channel, or competitors – it’s all of them, all at once. HR processes, legal processes, financial processes, acquisition and contracting processes, security processes, product development and management processes, and types of organizational forms etc.

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How Do You Want to Spend Your Next 4 Years of Your Life?

Steve Blank

Now that you’ve gotten to know your potential channel and customers, regardless of how much money you’re going to make, will you enjoy working with these customers for the next 3 or 4 years? Or is it something that can grow to a size that will result in an acquisition or some liquidity event? (see 0:30 in the video below).

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Why Build, Measure, Learn – isn’t just throwing things against the wall to see if they work

Steve Blank

Learning could be about product features, customer needs, the right pricing and distribution channel, etc.) These hypotheses span the gamut from who’s the customer(s), to what’s the value proposition (product/service features), pricing, distribution channel, and demand creation (customer acquisition, activation, retention, etc.).

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Born Global or Die Local – Building a Regional Startup Playbook

Steve Blank

But other critical hypotheses such as activities, resources, partners, channels needed testing offshore. channel partners and Chinese manufacturers and customer acquisition and activation programs outside their home country. Test channel and demand creation activities in the U.S. while building their products in China.

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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 17: Tiffani Bell and Clay Hebert

Steve Blank

These topics were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Tune in Thursday at 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET on Sirius XM Channel 111. Want to be a guest on the show?

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Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic – Pivoting the Business Model

Steve Blank

It can be more complex if you find the your target customer or users need to change or the feature set is wrong or you need to “repackage” a monolithic product into a family of products or you chose the wrong sales channel or your customer acquisition programs were ineffective.