Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

This meeting was a biannual gathering of all the leadership involved in the corporate-wide initiatives to out-innovate their new disruptors. The company had hired a leading management consulting firm that helped them select 15 critical areas of change the Tsunami Initiative was tasked to work on. Creative destruction.

Framework 395

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 395

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. 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.

Customer Development 221

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 221

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 253

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 253

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. In ten years, from the early 1950′s to the early 1960′s, the valley went through a hiring frenzy as jobs in microwave companies went from 700 to 7,000. I’ll stop channeling James Burke now.

Silicon Valley 283

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 283

SVPG

OCTOBER 14, 2014

” We were big practitioners of what we now call Customer Development, and our customer was typically the IT organization of large companies. I remember being immediately struck by how different we designed and built technology, versus how our customers did. 10) Leadership. 6) Process.

Product 91

Product Technical Review Engineer CTO Hire 91

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe 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. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference?

Customer Development 205

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 205

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

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. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 140

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 140

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Even if they become part of the founding team, it’s not a given that the founder, having come up with the idea has a “guaranteed” leadership role (CEO or VP) in the new company. If any of the answers are “Yes,” then hire them a bit later as an early employee. May or may not be on the founding team or have a leadership role.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. Reply Jerry Ji , on May 15, 2009 at 4:56 pm Said: When my startup starts hiring, I’ll make “The Four Steps to the Epiphany&# a prerequisite reading for every interviewer. Lessons Learned N ew buildings are a distraction.

Silicon Valley 215

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 215

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. We hired union laborers to do that. I hired a Director of Product Marketing who in his last company had ran its marketing and then went out into the field and became its national sales director.

Silicon Valley 266

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 266

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs Pivotal Tracker – Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams. Bontq – hosted bug tracking and project management needs. Thus, these pages.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. I help lead the Engineering Leadership SIG at SDForum and wonder if you would be interested in speaking to our group about lean starups. hope to hear from you.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? My answer to that was to be part of the team whose whole is better that its individual parts as its mentioned in the article, a team leadership rather that a point leadership. Expo SF (May.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Thats the ultimate task for the companys technology leadership. Just change it.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

I want to especially recognize Vivek Wadhwa and Brad Feld for their leadership.) After all, if you already have an all-male startup, you’re already at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring the very women that could fix that imbalance. When we change a hiring policy, especially if we do it in a visible way, we reap two benefits.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

We might be a ways away from the reality of a Chief Engineer or Product Director role commonly in software development, but ultimately it's going to be a matter of getting the culture right so that people stick around long enough to develop not only the tactical skills, but also the honed instincts and senses. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 166

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) If your don’t have enough employees on the payroll, hire relatives, friends, or part-timers and train them. For bigger booths a good rule of thumb is to have two to four staffers for every 100 square feet of exhibit space. What didn’t?

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 130

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2012

By the 1960’s, the MPPA achieved regulatory capture (where an industry co-opts the very people who are regulating it,) when they hired Jack Valenti , who ran the studios’ lobbying efforts for the next 38-years. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Customer Development.

Silicon Valley 336

Silicon Valley Distribution Washington Channel 336

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

And it hires very smart people from the best schools. BTW, by the standards mentioned in the Times article, the following people would never have been interviewed or hired at Google. College Dropouts - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison These guys realized that customers don’t ask for your transcript. I love Google.

Silicon Valley 331

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 331

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

Here in Tampa, our biggest challenge is convincing the regions technology "leadership" that grassroots economic development is a good thing. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? I just emailed your article to him and recommended that he take your advice to heart.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

PayPal, under the leadership of David Marcus and Bill Scott, re-defining and re-engineering itself by embracing Lean Startup to improve the product experience. Struggling to explain the successes and failures of those companies, I discussed principles like continuous deployment, customer development, and a hyper-accelerated form of agile.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The leadership art is to balance the needs of the present with the needs of the future. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? My career has been full of " student body right " moments, where the whole team is suddenly forced to change direction. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Obama understood the two concepts that are essential for building a high-performance, highly adaptable, agile organization: 1) rapid iteration and 2) clear values-based objectives. Mission synchronization If an organization is changing on a daily basis how is it that it doesnt look "erratic" yet feels "agile." Expo SF (May.

Campaign 84

Campaign San Francisco Lean Agile 84

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Additionally, if you want to hire more engineers, how hard will it be to find people using this language. You might as well hire an outsourced team. San Jose, CA.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

We also learned that law is code , and that leadership was needed to build thriving communities in a digital age. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? You can find the origins of many successful companies in these early lessons. Expo SF (May. Expo (and a call for he.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

SVPG

JULY 31, 2013

I believe in leadership. The surprising thing is that the accomplishments I feel proudest of today are not the actual products I helped create, but rather, the many people across our industry I have helped to hire and develop. I love how technology constantly changes, and I love how what is now possible is constantly changing.

SCRUM 60

SCRUM Continuous Deployment Agile Lean 60

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 It got bigger by inventing new test and measurement equipment and it hired people who knew how to execute that strategy. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 171

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 127

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

Sure the rest of the stories diverge though… can’t really imagine a Soviet counterpart to the Customer Development method. Reply Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank , on June 29, 2009 at 7:02 am Said: [.] Reply Ben C. , The invention of electronic warfare, part I and II. [.]

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 206

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

While both Stanford and MIT encouraged commercially oriented research and courted federal research contracts in the postwar years, MITs leadership focused on building relations with government agencies and seeking financial support from established electronics producers. What is customer development? Expo SF (May.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 18, 2009

The Thought Leadership talks are awesome. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? J oe Mathes set a great example by sponsoring a ticket to the Boulder workshop out of sheer generosity. Thanks, Joe! Hope to see you soon! 3comments: Lincoln Nguyen said. Great talk tonight.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco DC Sweden Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

Does lean startup xlate into sustainable success where a fast feedback/iteration loop yields market leadership? Does it make sense to play the customer chase with investors as well? The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? " Is there a direct, causative link?

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 68