Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Five Easy Pieces – The Marketing Mission After a few months of talking to customers , talking to our channel and working with sales we defined the marketing Mission (our job) was to: Help Sales deliver $25 million in sales with a 45% gross margin. In our case it was to sell $25 million in graphics boards with 45% gross margin.

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Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2009

Two Million Students First some background. Some 2 million students have trained there since it opened in 1942. I created havoc at an air force base by convincing thousands of airman that gravity would be turned off so that the Air Force could make repairs under their buildings. Ever since WWII U.S.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Things Change In 1956 Hewlett Packard (HP) was a 17-year old company with $20 million in test equipment sales with 900 employees. Creative Destruction Most established companies fall into the seductive trap of following short term profits all the way into the ground – leaving only their t-shirts and coffee cups.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

It was amazing to see the two founders, Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain, build a $100 million company from coffee cups and T-shirts. Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room.

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Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

A Venture Capitalist I respect reminded me that he thought about investment risk as either: investing $1 million in 10 companies and have all ten succeed. With each of those ten companies returning 2x their money for $20 million. His point was that it was in the VC’s interest in having entrepreneurs swing for the fences.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

And then to their surprise I offered them either a SuperMac coffee cup or T-shirt for their troubles. Spending $4 million/year on marketing After three weeks I stopped the customer survey when I started hearing the same stories again and again. Then when I told them I was actually the VP of Marketing they were flabbergasted.

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