Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.” Many founders mentioned this as a reason not to incorporate or grow their companies in Finland. While the government says they love startups, the first thing they did this year is raise the capital gains tax.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Try innovating inside a large company where 99% of the company is executing the current business model, while you’re trying to figure out and build what comes next. And they also recognize that simply exploiting their existing assets, capabilities, and business models is insufficient for long-term survival.

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

At best I think business plan competitions are a waste of time. Business Plan Versus Business Models. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A simple way to think about it is that in a startup no business plan survives first contact with customers. What did you build/do?

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way.

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Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). Clay Hebert , founder of Crowdfunding Hacks. Clay Hebert.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers.

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Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

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. So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? Do they “get&# Customer Development ?

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Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. data that investors, accelerators and incubators can use to inform selection. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2015

On our first show, Monday March 9 th 4-6pm Pacific Time join me, as I chat with Alexander Osterwalder – inventor of the Business Model Canvas , and Oren Jacob, ex-CTO of Pixar and now CEO of ToyTalk on Sirius XM Radio Channel 111. Alex Osterwalder – Business Models. Oren Jacob – CEO ToyTalk.

Channel 120

Channel Venture Capital Lean Business Model 120

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.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model. Learn how to put together a business model , not a business plan. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Reinventing the board meeting may allow venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Founders operate in a chaotic regime.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Business Model Issues. Venture Capital Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. The amount of capital being invested in new device companies is at an 11 year low. Business Model Issues. Venture Capital. Regulatory Issues.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. The goal was commercial products, but as scientists and engineers the company’s founders realized that at times the cost of experimentation was failure. Scientists and Engineers as Founders.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. In fact, Google’s offer for $15 Million was equal to the highest valuation from the venture firms. Go For Broke.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. VC’s sit on 6 – 12 boards at a time.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. Mainstream Entrepreneurship recognizes that with the Lean LaunchPad class we now have a methodology of making small businesses fail less.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. VC’s sit on 6 – 12 boards at a time.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

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Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

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Intellectual Property Aggregator Startup IP 175

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade. Marcos Polanco, founder of Clearshore and himself a serial entrepreneur, “never found time to read the blog, no matter how much I loved it.

Silicon Valley 195

Silicon Valley California Vertical Customer Development 195

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2013

Jim Hornthal splits his time between venture capital, entrepreneurship and education. Today he is the co-founder and Chairman of Triporati, LaunchPad Central. My prior journeys were spearheaded by the founder of this school of teaching, Steve Blank. This approach helped in several ways. Let the games begin ….

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Lean Cofounder Dividend Business Model 282

Steve Blank

MAY 12, 2015

The SBIR/STTR program made ~6,200 seed stage investments in 2014, dwarfing the seed investments made by venture capital. startups that don’t fit whatever’s hot in venture capital. To address this problem, the NSF collaborated with Steve Blank to adapt his Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford for NSF-funded founders.

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SBIR Maryland Lean Seed Stage 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. That requires building a company using Agile and Customer Development.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

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

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

I went on to create a company, with my partner Dave Jilk, that bore very little resemblance to that business plan. When I reread the plan several years ago for amusement, it motivated me to go dig up plans for other successful companies that I was a co-founder of or early investor in, including NetGenesis and Harmonix.

Business Plan 193

Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. 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.

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Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Our LivePlan customers are entrepreneurs, our founder and staff have run and sold companies, the Bplans readers are aspiring entrepreneurs (or actual entrepreneurs), and as I sell my own handmade jewelry, I like to think I have a very small claim to the title. Your customer. Your business model (or how you will make money).

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Curation Lean Software Review Finder 60