Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Berkeley were heavily funded to develop Cold War weapon systems. Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. Even those who asked for them never read them. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. There isn’t much of a killer instinct among the masses.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. They’ve tested their hypotheses with literally hundreds of customer interviews on every continent in the world. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first time a few brave corporate innovators tried to overlay the Lean tools and techniques that work in early-stage startups in an existing corporation, the result was chaos, confusion, frustration and ultimately, failure. Horizon 1 activities support existing business models. Horizon 1 is the company’s core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. Before founding 2U, Jeremy developed Zinch, intended to be a virtual guidance counselor to help low-income students navigate the college application process. The problem was had the wrong business model at the time.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. While it doesn’t eliminate great investor judgment, pattern recognition skills and mentoring, we’ve developed an Investment Readiness Level tool that fills in these missing pieces.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Business Model Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. Business Model Issues. Yet healthcare has its own unique regulatory and reimbursement issues and business model issues that must be understood. Venture Capital Issues. Regulatory Issues.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. Filed under: Customer Development.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

The Equity Kicker

MAY 7, 2015

Steve Blank gave us this now famous definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. We think the best next step is to find a point of emotional connection with customers. We have gone a step further. we re-join Blank).

Business Model 60

Business Model Search Due Diligence Early Stage 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Even when we went out to dinner before we hired him he said, he said he read the Four Steps and couldn’t wait to try this Customer Development stuff.”. “So When a customer throws us out he wants to get on to the next sales call and I want to talk about why we failed. Companies Have Titles to Execute a Known Business Model.

Startup 312

Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. They might have some seed money and are thinking or raising a Series A based on success of an early release (MVP). Think about how you can prove your business model with an MVP. is a requirement.

Valuation 198

Valuation Revenue Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 198

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2010

One of the toughest problems for entrepreneurs is to keep score as they search for their business model. One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building.

Customer Development 211

Customer Development Business Model Early Stage Channel 211

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

The class is intensely and deliberately experiential to develop the mindset, reflexes, agility and resilience an entrepreneur needs to search for certainty in a chaotic world. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model. And do it in 8 weeks.

Lean 256

Lean Business Model Agile United States 256

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

The role of a founding CEO in a startup searching for a business model is radically different than a CEO building and growing a company. What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In? Your potential business model?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

They use the Business Model (or Mission Model ) Canvas to keep track of their key hypotheses and then rapidly test them by talking to customers and iterating their Minimal Viable Products. Diagram Your Business Model. The best way to start is by drawing a business model canvas. In the U.S.

Marketing 321

Marketing Startup Government SEC 321

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

. ———– The National Institutes of Health recognizes that Life Science/Health Care commercialization has two components: the science/technology, and the business model. The Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH ) uses the Lean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model.

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Vitruvian is a good example of a great early stage therapeutics idea with animal data missing and many key components of the business model still needed to verify. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Life Sciences , Teaching. Customer Development Lean LaunchPad Life Sciences Teaching'

Lean 237

Lean Customer Development Video Early Stage 237

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? But all things are never equal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

Pre-launch customer development data is another way, sometimes in the form of user surveys for consumer companies or interviews with potential beta customers for B2B businesses. So these startups should look to raise seed capital either before launch or once they can show early revenue for proof points.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. So I met the entrepreneur and asked him how his search for a business model was going. Here’s what I told him: A startup exists to search for a scalable and repeatable business model. No consultants as you search for your business model.

Founder 199

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2011

I attempt to offer them both theory, as well as a methodology, about building early stage ventures. And finally, I have them experience all of this first hand by teaching them theory side-by-side with immersive hands-on using Customer Development to find a business model.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Audience Hiring Business Model 295

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. As operators of an accelerator—and founders in our own right—Ben and I had constantly struggled with what the “right” numbers are for a business. Many companies like certainty.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

AppFog creating "high-hurdle" experiments to surface authentic early adopters with real pain. The Embrace infant warmer was developed - by getting out of the country -- and how Rob Emrich learned and scaled his non-profit, Road of Life. BetaBrand building apparel MVPs and testing them quickly with targeted customer communities.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102