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Eureka! A New Era for Scientists and Engineers

Steve Blank

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. The cultural tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a financial structure which balanced risk, return and obscene returns, allowed this system flourish in technology clusters in United States, particularly in Silicon Valley.

Engineer 278
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Corporate Venture Capital: Obligatory or Oxymoron?

David Teten

Teten: For a large corporate, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a dedicated fund (possibly with external investors) vs. a 100% on-balance sheet investor? A lot of venture investing is done on the balance sheet, meaning there is no dedicated fund and investing is done more opportunistically.

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Intel Disrupted: Why large companies find it difficult to innovate, and what they can do about it

Steve Blank

It’s a lot easier to get these numbers to look great by outsourcing everything, getting assets off the balance sheet and only investing in things that pay off fast. For the first 75 years of the 20 th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs.

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9 Deadliest Start-up Sins

Steve Blank

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. These founders specify, design, and build a fully featured product using classic product development methods without ever leaving their building. Focusing on the launch date.

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Death By Revenue Plan

Steve Blank

The Appendix of your business plan has one of the leading cause of death of startups: the financial spreadsheets you attached as your Income Statement, Balance Sheets and Cash Flow Statements. Spread out in front of everyone around the conference table were the latest Income Statement, Balance Sheets and Cash Flow Statements.

Revenue 230
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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 41: Chris Schroeder and Andy Cunningham

Steve Blank

The bad news is that as a startup founder you have no brand, you have no balance sheet, you have investors behind you, you have employees that you’re responsible for, you have an impact you’re trying to make on people’s lives while building a business. Filed under: Customer Development.

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Reinventing the Board Meeting – Part 1 of 2

Steve Blank

Traditional startup board meetings spend an insane amount of wasted time using Fortune 100 company metrics like income statements, cash flow, balance sheet, waterfall charts. The only numbers in those documents that are important in the first year of a startup’s life are burn rate and cash balance. The Wrong Metrics.