Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

I recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. It’s harmful and hurtful to the startup and those that lead it. When you move from a 10-person startup to a growth company – meddling restricts growth.

Startup 150

Startup CTO Hire Sales Leadership 150

Steve Blank

JANUARY 5, 2023

compete more effectively through new operational concepts, organizations, and/or strategies. ” Team 3: Acquisition. We were integrating a lecture class with a heavy reading list with the best practices of hypothesis testing from Lean Launchpad/Hacking for Defense/I-Corps. Class Organization. national security issues.

Technical Review 372

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Technology China 372

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

We tend to associate the government with words like bureaucracy rather than lean innovation. Department of Defense by adopting Lean Methodology inside their agency. The NGA has adopted Lean Innovation methods to make this happen. Their goal is to integrate these techniques into their own Lean innovation processes.

Lean 182

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 182

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

We tend to associate the government with words like bureaucracy rather than lean innovation. Department of Defense by adopting Lean Methodology inside their agency. The NGA has adopted Lean Innovation methods to make this happen. Their goal is to integrate these techniques into their own Lean innovation processes.

Lean 182

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 182

Eric Friedman

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Advisor helping a startup – Midjourney. I have had a few founder friends reach out to me asking about how much equity to give to an advisor, and had some operators reach out asking how to become an advisor for an early stage founder. I think there are 3 types of advisors to startups; Level 1 (.05%-.25%): Some are not.

Early Stage 103

Early Stage Equity Vesting Cap Table 103

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Doing so meant they would have to take risks for IP acquisition and customer/market risks outside their experience or comfort zone. I earnestly believe that large corporations should emulate Lean Startups (Business model design, Customer Development and Agile Engineering.)

Programming 270

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 270

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, The COGS (costs of goods sold) tells me about how big your customer acquisition costs will be. portfolios.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web. I realized the Customer Development model needs to be clearer in what exactly a startup is supposed to do, regardless of the business model.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 228

OnlyOnce

JULY 9, 2013

Startup CEO (OnlyOnce – the book!), My book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business , is now available for pre-order on Amazon in multiple formats ( Print , Kindle ), which is an exciting milestone in this project! Part III – Pre-Order Now. questions”. Writing a book is a LOT harder than I expected!

Startup 95

Startup Advisory Board Elevator Pitch Forecast 95

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. On October 8 at 10a PT, we’ll be talking about bringing Lean Startup methods to established companies, precisely the kinds of businesses that are most resistant to experimentation, even as they desperately need it. That''s hard. That’s Eric Ries’s job.

Lean 167

Lean Startup Agile Leadership 167

Hunter Walker

MAY 13, 2023

“Worst case scenario we’ll sell to a larger startup or public company for about ~$1.5m Especially in the early days of mobile/iOS engineering, if you hired strong technical talent into your early stage company, you basically created an acquisition outcome floor. per engineer.” of the time my answer is no f **g way].

Early Stage 117

Early Stage Cap Table Acquisition Sales 117

Steve Blank

APRIL 8, 2022

Think of the Deputy Secretary of Defense as the Chief Operating Officer of a company – but in this case the company has 3 million employees (~1.4 Innovation incorporates lean methodologies (customer discovery, problem understanding, MVPs, Pivots), coupled with speed and urgency, and a culture where failure equals rapid learning.

Security 224

Security Silicon Valley China Private Equity 224

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As part of The Startup Magazine Female Founder Series, we interviewed Ms. She has some great advice for startups and businesses of all size. She has some great advice for startups and businesses of all size. Our clients have more efficient operations, higher profits/value and streamlined processes after they work with us.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Founder Due Diligence Early Stage 84

Steve Blank

JANUARY 18, 2022

was fighting Al-Qaeda and ISIS, China built new weapons and developed new operational concepts to negate U.S. What if our assumptions about the survivability of these naval platforms and the ability of our marines to operate, were based on incorrect assumption about our investments in material, operational concepts and mental models?

Agile 404

Agile China Artificial Inteligence Taiwan 404

The Startup Magazine

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As part of The Startup Magazine Female Founder Series, we interviewed Ms. She has some great advice for startups and businesses of all size. She has some great advice for startups and businesses of all size. Our clients have more efficient operations, higher profits/value and streamlined processes after they work with us.

Technical Review 69

Technical Review Founder Due Diligence Early Stage 69

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2017

The MVP concept, popularized by Eric Rice of Lean Startup , assumes that before going all in and pouring significant sums into product development, you test the grounds with a “beta” version of your product. Take a closer look at the data you gathered at the MVP stage or during your early operations.

Mobile 81

Mobile Application Development Web Software Review 81

Up and Running

JUNE 25, 2020

You’ll likely want to build out at least a lean business plan to make sure the new initiative is viable and that your current business can support it. Consider startup and operational costs , your goals with the expansion, and how long it will take to break even. Treat any new income stream as an expansion of your business.

Small Business 180

Small Business Hosting Social Media Community 180

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. While individual VC’s inside venture firms specialized in particular domains (PC’s, peripherals, semiconductors, test equipment, operating systems, applications, etc.,) Here’s why.

Lean 263

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

Greater discipline during boom times offered more flexibility during lean years. And getting it right during the lean years, Bain reports , has a massive impact on companies’ growth rate after things improve: ( Image source ). He continues: It’s OK to continue to operate. Image source ). Why brand matters more than ever.

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. Analytics spark more questions and discussion than almost any other aspect of the Lean Startup method. Alistair and Ben, co-authors of the book Lean Analytics, will help you sort it out in our next webcast, Lean Analytics for Non-tech Companies.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. The world of building profitable startups as the primary goal of Venture Capital would end in 1995.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

And the trick is we use the same Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum — and kept the same class structure – experiential, hands-on, driven this time by a mission -model not a business model. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. Goals for the Hacking for Defense Class.

Oakland 278

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 278

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

In the last few years we’ve recognized that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. We’re now learning that companies are not larger versions of startups. But paradoxically, in spite of all their seemingly endless resources, innovation inside of an existing company is much harder than inside a startup.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Over breakfast he got me up to date on his life since school (two non-CEO roles in startups,) but he wanted to talk about his third startup – the one he and two co-founders had started. In this first step, the goal of a startup is to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Most startups die here.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

And they should be; the feeding frenzy in the innovation economy is in some cases because startups are eating the lunch of more established companies. We never seek any rights to give Amex preferential treatment at the time of a potential acquisition. When I meet with executives from large corporations, they’re often worried.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

Lean LaunchPad class developed for Stanford. And the Lean LaunchPad class I developed at Stanford was the first such class. And the odds of learning from faculty who actually had experienced the chaos and uncertainty of building a startup was low. PB: How has your Lean LaunchPad course, ENGR 245, evolved? Worth a read.

Incubator 332

Incubator Lean Programming Government 332

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 24, 2018

Most startup-lore is focused on lightning fast growth or striking out, but what about slow-growth businesses? along with the contributions of dozens if not hundreds of founders, entrepreneurs and investors, to build out the canon for the startup. There’s no one-true-path-to-glory in startup land. How do we make payroll?

Warrant 48

Warrant Bootstrapping Framework Hiring 48

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? 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?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Disruptive innovations are coming from startups – Telsa for automobiles, Uber for taxis, Airbnb for hotel rentals, Netflix for video rentals and Facebook for media. Which brings us to the fourth reason it’s harder for large corporations to offer disruptive breakthroughs: startups. Startups are unencumbered by the status quo.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

What are they, how do they differ and what can startup do to take advantage of them? Paths to Liquidity: a quick history of the four waves of startup investing. Lean Startups/Back to Basics (2000-2010): No IPO’s, limited VC cash, lack of confidence and funding fuels “lean startup” era with limited M&A and even less IPO activity.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Here’s her story of the Lean innovation accelerator she’s built for the Marines. Like a tech startup accelerator, the MCISRE Accelerator assembles a cohort of active duty Marines of all ranks, experiences, and disciplines and pairs them with developers, designers, and mentors through a 12-week “Design—Develop—Deploy” cycle.

Framework 326

Framework Lean Metrics Government 326

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Here’s her story of the Lean innovation accelerator she’s built for the Marines. Like a tech startup accelerator, the MCISRE Accelerator assembles a cohort of active duty Marines of all ranks, experiences, and disciplines and pairs them with developers, designers, and mentors through a 12-week “Design—Develop—Deploy” cycle.

Framework 326

Framework Lean Metrics Government 326

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. Business schools teach aspiring executives a variety of courses around the execution of known business models, (accounting, organizational behavior, managerial skills, marketing, operations, etc.).

Wiki 316

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Join a select cross-disciplinary class that will put you hands-on with the masters of lean innovation to help bring rapid-fire innovative solutions to address threats to our national security. Targeting, assessments, technology, recipes, and tactics all flow at the speed of a Lean Startup. We’re Our Own Worst Enemy.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

It wasn’t until I found the extremely obscure Lanchester Strategy for market share that I realized that these ratios had their basis in operations research and the Lanchester’s Laws.) Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw.

Silicon Valley 157

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 157

David Teten

DECEMBER 16, 2015

Operations should focus relentlessly on the latter.”. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Metrics for Certain Categories of Startups. Lean Analytics recommends this set of metrics for some of the major categories of startups: Create a management dashboard. The Complete Quantitative Guide To Judging Your Startup.

Metrics 60

Metrics Analytics Balance Sheet .Net 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

So I was astonished how ready and eager students were for a class that combines the toughest problems in national security, with learning Lean Innovation methods. We had more applicants (70+) for the 32 seats in this class than we usually get in our Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship class. Result: Hell yes.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 130