Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

If these sound like reasonable answers to you, and you are in a startup/small company, update your resume. Most startups put together a corporate mission statement because the CEO remembered seeing one at their last job, or the investors said they needed one. What I was actually hearing was a failure of management.

Silicon Valley 263

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another?

Vertical 123

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) For bigger booths a good rule of thumb is to have two to four staffers for every 100 square feet of exhibit space. Even for the smallest trade show, no one shows up without booth training. Messages, themes, demo’s. These two posts were amazing.

Silicon Valley 129

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Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. How did Silicon Valley start?

Silicon Valley 279

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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.

Sales 120

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. I was stunned.

Agile 251

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Most publishers are still caught up in an outdated “vision vs. metrics&# argument, which is already obsolete here in Silicon Valley.

San Francisco 113

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

Customer Development 220

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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. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

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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. This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model.

Customer Development 246

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Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2009

Filed under: Secret History of Silicon Valley « Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA Rocket Science 2: Drinking the Kool-Aid » 2 Responses Ben , on July 1, 2009 at 2:31 pm Said: Great post Steve. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 136

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

If you are a founder of a startup ethics begin with you. Posted on April 2, 2009 by steveblank A comment left on the previous post made me realize that it was time to discuss a subject I was going to save for latter – ethics. And in a big company most of it is illegal and can have enormous consequences. A final note. Do the right thing.

Silicon Valley 124

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Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Posted on March 29, 2009 by steveblank This is post II of how I came to write “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley “ 1974. The Vietnam war was winding down. I was always kind of curious. I was always curious about, and asking about, the big picture.

Silicon Valley 202

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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 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers.

Silicon Valley 169

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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. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

Customer Development 264

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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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2009

Reply Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank , on June 29, 2009 at 7:02 am Said: [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Avid Editor’s Insights , on May 17, 2009 at 1:31 am Said: [.] To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 215

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Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, is you move from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek to jowl. We’re no longer a small struggling startup. You can stop working like a startup and start working like a big company.”

Silicon Valley 212

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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 why all of you operated so well in the unpredictable environment that all startups face.”

Founder 302

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

After these slides, these VC’s recognized that this company had dramatically reduced risk and built a startup that was agile, resilient and customer-centric. The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development.

Venture Capital 216

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

Funded by military contracts, these 1950′s microwave tube startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Stanford’s Dean of Engineering, Fred Terman, encouraged scientists and engineers to set up companies to build these microwave tubes for the military.

Silicon Valley 158

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 6, 2009

Funded by military contracts these 1950′s startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Air Force also needed improvements in frequency agility to protect its cold war bombers. Frequency agility can be best described by what happened over Germany in WWII.

Silicon Valley 147

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Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. I love Google. I think its one of the smartest companies out there. And it hires very smart people from the best schools. And if you meet their criteria of a “good student”, you ought to go to work there.

Silicon Valley 329

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Their own internal culture would tie them up in knots, and agile startups could run rings around them. No one was confused after that. Who’s on the Sharp End?

Silicon Valley 127

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

And while others in our new startup came from companies like Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) that had sold computers to automate scientific instrumentation and process control, the computers we were building at Ardent were targeted to different customers and markets. The problem was I didn’t have a clue.

Silicon Valley 151

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Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2009

The reality is that independent electric vehicle startups will win over time (closer to the customer, more agile, etc.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. with the auto bailout. with the auto bailout. with the auto bailout. was somewhat incomprehensible at first to the Energy and EPA team.

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Useful blogs and links for startups Click Here ————– 2.

Software Review 110

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