Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” One of the times I screwed this up it left a legacy of 25 years of questionable design in microprocessor architecture. All I had done was proudly go out and get customer input.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&# Context here.) At the time this was a pretty controversial decision.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.”

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.)

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. In these markets it’s all about customer/market risk.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

They had this great architecture, and Apple had figured out to get movies into their own computers for a demo, but for the rest of us there was no physical device that allowed an average consumer to plug a video camera or VCR into and get video into a Mac. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Prior to that, she spent 12 years at Stanford; worked at Monsanto and Sigma Chemical as a research scientist; administered a dialysis clinical trial at University of California; and taught chemistry and basic engineering courses. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Government 120

Government Entrepreneur Intellectual Property Silicon Valley 120