Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

The mantra of “ first mover advantage ,” the idea that winners are the ones who are the first entrants in their market, became the conventional wisdom of investors in Silicon Valley.“ Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios. The result?

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Johansen knows this space, as a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, and Ronn is a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners in Palo Alto. Learn by experimenting in low-cost and iterative ways. Maintain the agility to quickly pivot or quit.

Partner 328

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Cloud 328

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

The Energy Storage division is acting like a startup, and Prescott Logan its General Manager, has lived up to the charter. He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. And they’ve being doing this while driving product cost down and performance up. You couldn’t be more wrong. Corporate elephants can dance.

Silicon Valley 228

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. What’s the customer acquisition cost? Who recommends a sale? Who is the decision maker? Who is the economic buyer?

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 250

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

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. Too often, CEOs and small business managers suffer from analysis paralysis. This happens for any number of reasons.

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 302

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Given the tech-centricity of Stanford and Silicon Valley, Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. If you can’t see the slides click here.

Technology 345

Technology North Korea Silicon Valley Artificial Inteligence 345

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Johansen knows this space, as a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, and Ronn is a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners in Palo Alto. Learn by experimenting in low-cost and iterative ways. Maintain the agility to quickly pivot or quit.

Partner 310

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. But part of his life that that doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry is that Bill Perry used Silicon Valley to help end the cold war.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 176

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Help them?!!

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

The Next Web

JANUARY 24, 2014

To put it into management speak, our digital infrastructure is world-class. Think of Stanford and Sandhill road in Silicon Valley, Route 128 in Boston or IIT in Bangalore India. As a general rule, the more trust a society has, the lower the cost/friction of transacting with each other. A top-notch infrastructure.

Netherlands 143

Netherlands Technical Review Stock Silicon Valley 143

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. However, I’ve seen this story repeated time and again, and not just in Silicon Valley. If the management team is thinking they’ve made it, the new building is just symptomatic of a company heading for a crash.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 212

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

As Eric puts it in the webcast, “I’ve met now the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world, and I still spend time with the CEOs of high-growth Silicon Valley companies from the garage on up, and what all those people have in common is that they are seeking out sources of sustainable growth…. So that doesn’t harm the brand.

Lean 167

Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

At first only the national laboratories and the largest companies could afford to buy supercomputers, (the Cray-1 cost ~$9 million) but over time scientists and researchers were also starting to use them. Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank (tags: customer-development product-management startup) [.] Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 151

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

agile engineering. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. I got tired watching dignitaries fly into Silicon Valley, visit Google, Facebook, Apple, and Stanford and then say they understand startups and entrepreneurship. So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

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). In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

Lean 178

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 178

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

Lean 178

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 178

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” It will cost you your job.”

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

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. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. the manager followed us still yelling.

Founder 302

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 302

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

Given the tech-centricity of Stanford and Silicon Valley, Joe Felter , Raj Shah and I designed a class to examine the new military systems, operational concepts and doctrines that will emerge from 21st century technologies – Space, Cyber, AI & Machine Learning and Autonomy. If you can’t see the slides click here.

Technology 123

Technology North Korea Silicon Valley Artificial Inteligence 123

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.

Engineer 307

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 307

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 11, 2009 The cardinal sin of community management Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. Nothing worked, until we finally had one of our community managers start talking to real customers on the phone.

Community 158

Community Management Lean Software Review 158

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. DF-21 and Islands in the South China Sea. They are experts in leveraging Web 2.0

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Boyd emphasized the importance of agility in combat: "the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than ones opponent." Lean startups have the ability to use this commodity stack to lower costs and, more importantly, reduce time to market. Agile software development.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

Johansen knows this space, as a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, and Ronn is a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners in Palo Alto. Learn by experimenting in low-cost and iterative ways. Maintain the agility to quickly pivot or quit.

Intellectual Property 150

Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Cloud Agile 150

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2014

Johansen knows this space, as a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, and Ronn is a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners in Palo Alto. Learn by experimenting in low-cost and iterative ways. Maintain the agility to quickly pivot or quit.

Partner 251

Partner Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Cloud 251

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

We had endless arguments internally about what features it should include, how the avatars should look, and how much it should cost. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click. Seems like a fairly low-cost method of gauging customer interest for a would-be product. We finally settled on a $1.99 I used to use $.05,

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

Ironically, it was Valenti’s skill in hobbling competitive innovation that negated any need for studios to develop agility, vision and technology leadership. Management of Innovation. ” We wonder, “Why can’t the film industry innovate like Silicon Valley?” and Public Relations.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

It also puts another chink in the armor of the meme that monster internet companies can only be built in Silicon Valley (LivingSocial, Kayak, Gilt Groupe, CSN Stores, et al doing damage here too). and again only a portion of these subscribers will ultimately buy a Groupon, so the cost to acquire a true customer is higher than that.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

This approach is a the heart of breaking down the "time/quality/cost pick two" paradox , because these small investments cause the team to go faster over time. Wed never heard of five whys, and we had plenty of "agile skeptics" on the team. As a management consultant who concentrates on thinking and problem solving, I use it often.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

This theory has become so influential that I have called it one of the three pillars of the lean startup - every bit as important as the changes in technology or the advent of agile development. Tom Peters called the Management By Walking Around - MBWA. Otherwise it is just Management By Wandering Aimlessly. Expo SF (May.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. The last thing you need is a manager telling you how to do your job. Sure, it seems efficient. Not necessarily.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2015

Johansen knows this space, as a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, and Ronn is a serial entrepreneur and managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners in Palo Alto. Learn by experimenting in low-cost and iterative ways. Maintain the agility to quickly pivot or quit.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup Cloud 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In the old days, the brand manager of a consumer packaged goods product had to spend energy inferring the effectiveness of their television ads through a combination of trailing indicators (like market share) or time-consuming market research. I’ve met a lot of gatekeepers in the past few months. Though technology tools and Web 2.0

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113