Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first time a few brave corporate innovators tried to overlay the Lean tools and techniques that work in early-stage startups in an existing corporation, the result was chaos, confusion, frustration and ultimately, failure. Horizon 1 activities support existing business models. Horizon 1 is the company’s core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. That’s why startups are agile. Startups that are agile have mastered one other trick – and that’s Tempo – the ability to make quick decisions consistently over extended periods of time. Good Enough Decision Making [.]

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. Yet, in my view, every early-stage entrepreneur should be exploring this new funding alternative before approaching VCs. It’s the right way to get money without giving up too much equity or control of your business.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Startup 314

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. 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.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Up and Running

AUGUST 8, 2018

By reviewing major initiatives on a monthly basis, we can stay agile and make changes as needed. As we learn more about our customers and our market, we might shift strategies and develop new milestones. For those early-stage startups, this step of the meeting may be the most important step and take the longest.

Software Review 65

Software Review Business Plan Product Forecast 65

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

The class is intensely and deliberately experiential to develop the mindset, reflexes, agility and resilience an entrepreneur needs to search for certainty in a chaotic world. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Lean 256

Lean Business Model Agile United States 256

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. ” “A pivot is a substantive change to one or more of components to your business model. he’d declare. “We

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

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? What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&#

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. Yet, in my view, every early-stage entrepreneur should be exploring this new funding alternative before approaching VCs. It’s the right way to get money without giving up too much equity or control of your business.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even when we went out to dinner before we hired him he said, he said he read the Four Steps and couldn’t wait to try this Customer Development stuff.”. “So Every time we iterate even a small part of our business model or product he gets upset. Companies Have Titles to Execute a Known Business Model.

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Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

YoungUpstarts

MAY 22, 2018

Small businesses everywhere tend to look at their larger competitors with a mixture of casual envy, grudging respect, and a healthy dose of dismissiveness. To many small business owners, the big business model embodies everything that they don’t want their own company to become. The Path To Success.

Small Business 147

Small Business Early Stage Agile Social Media 147

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? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

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. LitMotors approach to using Lean Startup to create a new vehicle category. It's a big tent.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

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. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

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.&# To that I say baloney. Engineering/QA.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the startup, it's time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven't changed since the early 1900's. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

This was a very large and established tech company; its engineering organization developed the core day-to-day capabilities of the organization. At least it succeeded in not distracting the developers. One of the quickest ways to sort innovation ideas is to use the McKinsey Three Horizons Model. What went wrong here?

Incubator 312

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 312

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 31, 2016

To maintain stability, you have to update your operating procedures, processes, and people as your organization develops. Some days, the business will be going at breakneck speed, while others will feel like you’re moving in fits and starts. Stay agile so you can respond intelligently to your company’s needs.

Los Angeles 100

Los Angeles Stealth San Francisco Cofounder 100

Version One Ventures

MARCH 8, 2016

Of course, the clearer you are about your vision, business model, and key drivers, the easier it will be to prioritize. In the very early stages, you should be shipping product as fast as possible, potentially even daily. The bottom line is that speed and agility are the biggest advantages you have at the beginning.

API 60

API Early Stage Agile Business Model 60

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

billion fund (CRV XI), though the firm’s roots were modest (Rick Burnes started CRV back in 1970 with a $4M first fund) and until then CRV had mostly stuck to its knitting of early-stage investing with small-mid sized funds. Like many leading firms CRV used this opportunity to raise a huge $1.2

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. However, no markets last forever.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth. Lauren : How so? Andrew : Right.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Lean Planning is a set of tools for discovering a business model that works, building an action plan to test your assumptions, creating financial models and a plan for a viable business, and tracking your performance so you can adjust your plan on the fly, quickly and easily.

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Do some Customer Development instead.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Yet at their early stages, they are not small versions of larger established companies. The good news is this team found a business model, product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. The table below helps elucidate some of the characteristics of entrepreneurial executives by stage of the company.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery. We focus on evidence and trajectory across the business model.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. No business model, either. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. Heck, Id already seen Friendster flame out.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. And that’s just to get started.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2010

If you read the academic literature or business press, you might believe that large companies and their business models are brought by the stork. This series of posts are going to offer a new three-stage model of how startups grow into large companies. The same is true for startups and companies.

Laos 286

Laos Startup Business Model Early Stage 286

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Updated Business tools for Startups. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. s helpful to find an developer tool that allows you to write html/css and renders the view in real time, so you donâ??t s easier to use/develop with.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53