Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

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 offer angel-funded startups that don’t have formal boards or directors (because of geography or size of investment) to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e.

Silicon Valley 284

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 284

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The public markets for venture-backed technology stocks never really recovered after the collapse of the dot-com boom. Here’s why.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 299

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups – which because of geography or size of investment typically don’t have formal boards or directors – to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups – which because of geography or size of investment typically don’t have formal boards or directors – to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 146

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 146

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. David Lerner is an entrepreneur, angel investor and director of entrepreneurship at Columbia University. The stuff founders are made of. Culture matters whether you’re starting up or helping others to do so. Dave Lerner.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas. Yet even with all these tools, early stage startups still need to physically meet with advisors and investors.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

And not keep investors informed about changes to your business model can have serious consequences. How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher.

Columbus 246

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 246

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups - which because of geography or size of investment typically don't have formal boards or directors - to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

female founders. founder friday. Lessons learned from female founders and women entrepreneurs. Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White on Building a Successful Startup » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder. Tweet By Elizabeth Knopf (Co-Founder & CEO, Sorced). Scoring Founder “Dates” On My Own.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

David Crow just posted about this very topic: Founders vs. Early Employees and shows the Venture Hacks chart. But nevertheless, I do think that the first few employees – especially those ever-critical developers – need to be more properly incentivized and made to feel closer to founders than employees.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 11, 2016

And not keep investors informed about changes to your business model can have serious consequences. How to recognize when it’s time to pull the plug on your startup idea, and why founders can’t operate afford to operate in a vacuum were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Dan Miller. Brian Zuercher.

Columbus 120

Columbus Entrepreneur Ohio Cofounder 120

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. m the f%*kin’ boss.”. Dying at 70? Final Thought.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. Once funding takes place, the angels or VCs will want a seat at the table. The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs Tweet When a startup receives financing it will need to setup a Board of Directors. There’s no surprise there.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

We still have some collective scar tissue: the idea conjures up the hordes of dot-com hopefuls that descended on VC’s and angel investors with little more than a business plan. We also cavalierly lampoon the “suits” that get brought in to run startups after the founders are fired by callous VC’s. And there’s a worse fate, too.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. We now have the tools, technology and data to take incubators and accelerators to the next level. We think we can do better.

Oakland 327

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 327

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? I think it’s a huge mistake to outsource technology as a startup. Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup?

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

These IPOs meant that technology companies didn’t have to get acquired to raise money or get their founders and investors liquid. Ampex’s first customer was Bing Crosby who wanted to record his radio programs for rebroadcast (and had exclusive distribution rights.)

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 126

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Angel vs VC? - Customer Care Today.

Software Review 217

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Technical Review 217

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? They are many more examples.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Every startup faces multiple choices and decisions when it comes to technology. ” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Codeacademy.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53