Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” In our case it was to sell $25 million in graphics boards with 45% gross margin. We introduced the notion of Mission intent. What is the company goal behind the mission.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

If you don’t have facts or domain expertise to add, and your business card has the word(s) “marketing&# or “business development,&# realize you have brought no value to the table steve Michael Langford , on October 8, 2009 at 1:54 pm Said: The correct response is: Yes, I’m 24, but I learned manners by the time I was 9.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Steve,&# he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. steve BrianB , on May 30, 2009 at 4:14 am Said: Hi Steve, Thank you for this really great blog. A good case study here is most iPhone apps. I have been following for about a month, and always look forward to the next post.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

In both cases you really don’t need a skilled/consultative sales force. If it is demonstrably better as you claim your marketing department needs to communicate that competitive advantage and your sales curve should look linear as you take share from the existing incumbents. Your marketing department should be all over this.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Rocket Science seems to be a bit of an extreme case though. steve Knowtu » links for 2009-07-13 , on July 13, 2009 at 6:05 pm Said: [.] << (tags: startups) [.] Hype before shipping any product is an obvious flaw, but what about hyping products that have shipped but have zero business model?

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Steve I have to tell you some bad news, I just showed our potential channel partners and customers a few completed pieces of the games we had. I’ve discussed this with VCs and the ratios for the VC’s portfolio can be even greater (in some cases, only 1 success out of 100 but with extraordinary returns for the 1).

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Her response was surprising, “Steve, almost all my CEO’s came from very tough childhoods. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies. Let me know what you think. But what can you do?)

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Or I might have found that the company was in a business that wasn’t profitable and no way to get profitable (which I had concluded was the case with their commodity disk drive business.) Ben Reply Dmitriy Kruglyak , on March 20, 2009 at 10:48 am Said: Steve, I look forward to a similar backstory on E.piphany marketing!

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

In Apple’s case Burrell Smith was designing a computer in a skunk works unbeknownst to the rest of Apple’s engineering. Reply Terence Pua , on July 30, 2009 at 9:27 am Said: Steve, I’ve read and re-read that section in Chapter 2 re: market types and I still don’t fully comprehend.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments Image via Wikipedia Steve Blank and I had the opportunity to create a presentation about lean startups for Maples Investments. Theyve invested in many great companies , including IMVU , Digg , Kongregate , Twitter.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, etc.,)

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

In some cases, branches of the military contracted directly with Stanford which worked with local contractors in Silicon Valley to build these components or systems for the military. The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part X: Stanford Crosses the Rubicon « Steve Blank Stanford had a Customer Development loop going on inside their own lab.

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 142

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

He had just filmed the second of a series of videos called, Speaking to the Big Dogs: How mid-level managers can communicate effectively with C-level executives (CEO, VP’s, General Managers, etc.) But entrepreneurial leaders sometimes forget that in startups, you can’t allow a “corner case” to derail fearless decision making.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 176

mashable.com

JULY 18, 2012

But just in case startups feel like haggling, we hear from other conference attendees that Page has to personally approve any change whatsoever in the offer price. 20+ Beautiful Camera-Themed iPhone Cases. In July 2007 Google acquired web security and archiving company Postini for $625 million. ITA Software. Flag this comment.

San Francisco 104

San Francisco Acquisition Social Media Mobile 104

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Even though out product is targeted to a niche audience(female in our case) and have many unique features for niche audience. How should one position the product in this case ? In your case you may not have a positioning problem but a Customer Discovery problem. But if it was easy, everyone would be a successful entrepreneur.

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A successful startup strives for this latter case. They are a classic case of a company that doesn’t seem to care about charging customers money. If you haven’t figured out the ecosystem, growth is useless – whether it is a acquisition-only viral loop, like Tagged, or an advertising blitz like countless dot-bombs.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

In some cases, you can make it even simpler. In this case, the big drawback is that it works best if you store the mappings in a central directory. The mappings never change (unless you build a data migration tool, in which case they change rarely) and so are easy to cache. Let me know the use cases that Ive overlooked.

San Francisco 151

San Francisco Architecture Startup Database 151

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Only in business school case studies does progress with customers happen in a nice linear fashion.) Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto | Tagged: Customer Development « Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40? Midas Oracle.ORG , on September 17, 2009 at 7:05 am Said: [.]

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development | Tagged: Customer Development , Early Stage Startup , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « The End of Innocence The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 1) » 21 Responses Kulveer Taggar , on August 27, 2009 at 11:18 am Said: Great post.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Market Types | Tagged: Customer Development « The Customer Development Manifesto: The Startup Death Spiral (part 3) Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40? What I remind my students is that in Customer Discovery you leave your slide deck at home. What do you think?

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

College Dropouts - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison These guys realized that customers don’t ask for your transcript. For anyone interested, the full study can be found at [link] steve Heneryville , on April 7, 2009 at 10:06 am Said: I would argue that all three of those guys would be crummy google.com employees.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 327

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2009

A week later as our employees came up the elevator there was a Lucite case on a pedestal with a single grey rock, lit with a single spotlight, on a velvet pillow. steve Michael F. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. And it was much, much better than a space suit. But the short answer: hubris. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley San Francisco RSS Vertical 128

www.peterdrew.net

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Trust SEO - Part 7 Seo Bank Automation By Peter Drew 17/10/2010 6:39 pm Hi Steve, We have a very high success rate of great user experiences with the software, even though its such a complex piece of kit. Recent Posts Trust SEO – Part 7 Seo Bank Automation Trust SEO – Part 6 “Case Study&# Trust SEO – Part 5.

Web Development 40

Web Development Coder Web Developer 40

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Chad and Steve from YouTube met while working at PayPal. In my case, I grew up in Connecticut and spent a fair amount of time in New York – all the while trying to start companies, relatively unsuccessfully. Certainly there are cases of poor execution sinking a company. Sean and Shawn from Napster met in an IRC channel.

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

There was zero proof in the marketplace that was the case. steve David Needham , on July 9, 2009 at 4:26 pm Said: It may be a little late at this point, but I think it’s important to consider that gamers don’t really want to change. And at the time it was a plausible scenario.) There’s no right answer.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 139

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

I wonder if it is the psychology of not asking for directions while driving; if that’s the case, I wonder if women are better at customer development. steve TS , on June 4, 2009 at 8:13 am Said: I would be interested in how a 2 sided market fits into your approach. Is there any particular reason for this?

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , SuperMac | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup « Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II Movie was Wrong » 7 Responses David , on April 23, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Excellent!

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Elephant Graveyard Reinvention of large companies, while making for great case studies are rare. At Apple the company reinvented itself on Steve Jobs return. Reply Sujoy Neogi , on August 14, 2010 at 10:12 pm Said: Good one, but i feel you need to listen to Steve Blank more if you are a startup. ?domiausias Hewlett-Packard

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

alexpoole.info

AUGUST 14, 2012

Case study: Icon design. Was it the case that sans serif fonts were more legible, or was it just a matter of taste? X-height refers to the height of the lower case “x” in a typeface. Particularly interesting is the case of Sir Cyril Burt, well known in psychology circles for being accused of fabricating his results.

Technical Review 85

Technical Review Software Review Design Web 85

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Steve, this hasn’t been a good week. And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. steve Bill Allred , on April 16, 2009 at 7:26 pm Said: Hi Steve, Really enjoying this series, thanks for sharing. I replied, “No joke.

Silicon Valley 134

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 134

Altgate

AUGUST 20, 2010

King&# Approach to Term Sheet Negotiations Posted on August 20, 2010 by fnazeeri I feel like I’m in that scene from The Jerk where Steve Martin sees his name in the phone book and exclaims, “I’m somebody!&# Migrating…lots of broken stuff → A “Rich-vs.-King&# I’m published (sorta)!

Term Sheet 39

Term Sheet Venture Capital Angel Financing Framework 39

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

Within each section you should cover, with precision, what all of the possible actions are and what the system should do in each case. I can see that there is a case to be made for both scenarios, but I do not see you making any. Documents and mockups created by the customer are awful in all cases!

Web 40

Web AJAX Software Review Development Team Review 40

blog.stackoverflow.com

APRIL 20, 2010

You can always switch OpenID providers, of course, but we regretfully must make the email demand mandatory in the case of Google. So I can set up my own domain name, and then put a tiny bit of XML on that page that tells the site (like stackoverflow) to go to some other openid Provider (in my case MyOpenID). United States License.

Technical Review 43

Technical Review XML Matching Email 43

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

Request for Quotation - Write and run an RFQ process to determine approach, costs, timescales and conditions under which each vendor would deliver, select a preferred vendor and a spare in case of any problems during contract negotiations. c:php4pear) in Unknown on line 0 Posted by: Steve | October 4, 2007 11:01 AM Great post, Matt!

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

Software By Rob

AUGUST 11, 2009

Market hard – In most cases this means exaggerate and lie. How to Compete Against Open Source Competition | Software by Rob (tags: software business) [.] #35 37 Flow » Blog Archive » Daily Digest for August 12th - The zeitgeist daily on 08.12.09 40 Steve Hanov on 08.12.09 at 9:05 pm [.] at 9:18 pm [.]

Open Source 62

Open Source Software Review Non-Compete Software 62

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

APRIL 10, 2009

Plus un tag était utilisé, plus il était écrit en gros, les tags plutôt négatifs étaient en rouge, les tags positifs en vert. Voici le mien pour aujourd’hui : steve-pavlina benjamin plage facebook blog manque-d-exercice graisse stress camping eduardo Que penses-tu des cogitoramas ? Flickr Search Copyright © 2011.

Ruby 28

Ruby France Australia RSS 28

www.readwriteweb.com

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Read their latest case study: A Canadian Printer Leaves its Servers in Illinois. Posted by: Steve | February 24, 2010 12:54 PM Could have been a lot worse. Posted by: Steve | February 24, 2010 2:31 PM hmm. The channel is sponsored by Intel and VMware. The Wordpress.com network went down last week. link didnt work, try this?

Cloud 50

Cloud Founder Azure San Antonio 50