Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

A Progress Graph on the right visually shows how far you’ve come (in whatever units of goodness you’re tracking – revenue, units, users, etc.) Hopefully this will get more bootstrapping entrepreneurs focusing on making money instead of raising money. Get back up and running.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

What CEOs, management teams and shareholders care about is growth —revenue growth, greater user adoption, increased market share, bigger margins, etc. We found we needed to hire expert starters—people who knew how to bootstrap, build MVPs, find a free or very low-cost way of testing a hypothesis, pitch, pivot, etc.

Lean 326

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 326

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2016

I thought all of these are raising $5 million, $10 million, $15 million pre-revenue. As soon as I would say, “We’re bootstrapped,” I would see their eyes go over my shoulder and look for someone more valuable to talk to. . I was really scared that we were going to be the Friendster to their Facebook.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Cofounder San Francisco Campaign 260

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

All teams raised their hands and screamed: we hundreds of angels and dozens of VCs, all of them say they will only fund deals with prototypes, beta customers, first revenue and executive teams all in place, and they say it will be 2 years from now because their coffers are out of cash and LPs in default. Bootstrap for years!

Vertical 149

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 149

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2016

I thought all of these are raising $5 million, $10 million, $15 million pre-revenue. As soon as I would say, “We’re bootstrapped,” I would see their eyes go over my shoulder and look for someone more valuable to talk to. . I was really scared that we were going to be the Friendster to their Facebook.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder San Francisco Campaign 120