Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Examples of some leaders in this space include Ron Conway in Silicon Valley and Jeff Bezos , CEO of Amazon, who each may have over 500 startups in their portfolio. Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. The large investment amounts preferred by VCs are no longer needed to launch winners.

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Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Portfolio 342

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Steve Weinstein , 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies. He runs H4X Labs.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. To begin with, the product development model completely ignores a fundamental truth about startups and new products.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. Order Here. Now In Print!

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Examples of some leaders in this space include Ron Conway in Silicon Valley and Jeff Bezos , CEO of Amazon, who each may have over 500 startups in their portfolio. Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. The large investment amounts preferred by VCs are no longer needed to launch winners.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Startup 314

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Steve Weinstein 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies. He runs H4X Labs.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model. Learn how to put together a business model , not a business plan. Class Logistics. As described in the previous post , this is a hands-on class.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The class teaches the three basic skills all entrepreneurs need to know: business model design. agile engineering. Called “ How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad ,” it walks you through the Business Model Canvas and an overview of the customer development process. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 21, 2017

Listen to the entire interview here: Taking the Lean Startup From Silicon Valley to Corporations and the State and Defense Department. 7:11 Agile Engineering – Eric Ries. 8:05 Business Model Canvas – Alexander Osterwalder. Or just parts of the interview: 1:20 Failure and Lessons Learned.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

If you’ve tried to slog your way through my book on Customer Development you know that I’m insistent that the founders need to be the ones getting outside the building (physically or virtually) to validate all the initial hypotheses of the business model and product. Find out Memorex’s position in Silicon Valley.

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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. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Reinventing the board meeting may allow venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Silicon Valley, New York). Victor Hugo.

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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. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. It might be its most important.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ? A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. Carpe Diem.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. They don’t need an office in Silicon Valley to figure out what’s out there. Terrorists today live on the ‘net and they are all early adopters.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Examples of some leaders in this space include Ron Conway in Silicon Valley and Brian Cohen , chairman of the New York Angels, who each may have over 500 startups in their portfolio. Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. Some VC firms are bogged down by their own weight.

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Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Based on those results we believe that we can do the same with Diplomacy so working with the State Department’s innovation cell in Silicon Valley we will prototype the Hacking for Diplomacy course at Stanford this fall. (see the final Hacking for Defense class presentations here ). Result: Hell yes. Lessons Learned.

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Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. VC’s invested in things that ran on electrons: hardware, software and silicon. The VC business took off with the rapid growth of the semiconductor business.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Based on those results we believe that we can do the same with Diplomacy so working with the State Department’s innovation cell in Silicon Valley we will prototype the Hacking for Diplomacy course at Stanford this fall. (see the final Hacking for Defense class presentations here ). Result: Hell yes. Lessons Learned.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 120

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). Yet this system isn’t perfect. – seems like another planet.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2011

I did a keynote on innovation hubs at the newly created DoFuture program , spoke at Santiago’s Startup Weekend on Customer and Agile Development, and at a Conference in Patagonia supported by the Ministry of Economy’s Innovation Division. Creating the Next Silicon Valley – The Chilean Experiment.

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Silicon Valley Chile South America Venture Capital 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Steve Weinstein a 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Our Lean LaunchPad class teaches scientists and engineers that starting a company is another research project that can be solved by an iterative process of hypotheses testing and experimentation built around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. And I am definitely enjoying it.”.

Silicon Valley 242

Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development Business Model 242

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. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Here's how.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. A few successful ones do all these things.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). They may decide to license their intellectual property based on their research.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Innovation – Business Model? Waterfall, Agile, Lean? Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Others you need to know when you execute the plan. Here is the list of basic startupactivities/functions our class discussion generated: Opportunity – How big? Where do the ideas come from? Technology?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

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.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Is there a profitable business model? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions. Can it scale?”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

His posts are born of tremendous research into the secret history of Silicon Valley , and if you haven’t read those essays, you should. We have to continually invent new categories of products, new platforms, and new business models – all extremely risky bets. Let me be clear: Steve is the historian.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

To turn your company’s stock into cash, you engaged a top-notch investment bank (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) and/or their Silicon Valley compatriots (Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens). — all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model. Board Control.

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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. Do startups have a manual?

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Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

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. I coach agile teams for a living, and I do most of my work with start-ups. I said, “well for me you’d have to add coming from a dysfunctional family.”

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