Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. 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. Lessons Learned.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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. Founders fit the definition of a creator: they see something no one else does.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Every Flexible VC structure allows founders to access immediate risk capital while preserving exit, growth trajectory, and ownership optionality. . Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2018

It’s the engine that has powered companies including Amazon, Alibaba, and Google. As Hoffman has put it, if starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down, scaling is like “assembling that plane faster then strapping on and igniting a set of jet engines, while still building the wings.”

Lean 103

Lean Las Vegas Cofounder Startup 103

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. Some of the engineers figuring if the founder was declaring they were toast in 90 days were updating their resumes. A Pivot a Week.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

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

MAY 19, 2015

Organizational debt is all the people/culture compromises made to “just get it done” in the early stages of a startup. I got answers that sounded like the Tom’s – new stock grants for the executive staff, great new building, and oh, by the way, Tom and his co-founder got to sell some stock in the new round.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

But to do it, you need to actually have a sustainable business model. Starting a business is too risky. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Wanting to create impact is great.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

Jack Tankersley, a long time mentor of mine, co-founder of Centennial Funds, and co-founder of Meritage Funds, wrote me a very long response. So contrary to the piece, it wasn’t VC were good at early stage technology, it was that they had newfound capital and a big exit window. Taking all five at once is crazy.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 9, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

My first job out of school was at one of the early bioinformatics companies in Silicon Valley, working as the head of technical services. It was also beneficial because I got some good experience with both B2B and B2C business models. Tell me a bit about the Founder's Institute. It sounds interesting. How did it help you?

Management 150

Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 13, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles Internet 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 1, 2007

The articles I cited there around finding co-founders suggests that Ben is on the money. Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. No small task Ben. Im still trying to figure it out.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Networking Southern California Los Angeles 150

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2013

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Christian Reber, CEO and co-founder of Berlin-based 6Wunderkinder. So far I have shared with you 9 simple steps to start your own tech business ((don’t miss part 1 , part 2 , and part 3 ). Most first-time entrepreneurs write huge business plans, instead of creating a short pitch-deck.

Management 120

Management Cofounder Startup Bootstrapping 120

ReadWriteStart

MAY 5, 2011

The smart home business is still in the very early stages in India, and it will take some time before Evolutech ramps up. We can derive GeoInvenio's business model and pricing model based on that. You can select the business you like best through a poll on the 1M/1M Facebook page. Discuss.

Costa Rica 115

Costa Rica Incubator Silicon Valley India 115

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

What everyone can agree on, though, is that there are definitely more seed and early stage funds now than ever before, and more people willing to give money to young companies looking to make it big. Manu Kumar is Founder and Chief Firestarter at K9 Ventures. But just who are these funds and venture capitalists that run them?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Early Stage Portfolio Software Engineering 48

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Part 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster. This “small business” mindset is a holdover of how capital starved early stage startups are/were in Oregon.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. At early stages you probably don’t have an assembly line and can’t clearly define any particular job. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

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. for a business model.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Gust

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

As a native of Silicon Valley , I’ve witnessed the creative destruction of wave after wave of innovation as nearby corporate campuses repopulated themselves : From defense contractors to data centers , computer mainframe manufacturers to Internet search engines. Granted most startups will never become another Apple or Google.

Silicon Valley 187

Silicon Valley San Francisco Intellectual Property Accredited Investor 187

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Austin Startup

MARCH 1, 2018

Engineering Serendipity Making real connections starts with having the right people in the room. Intro to the Austin EdTech Startup Scene Come meet Sean Duffy , founder of EdTech Austin and let him tell about everything going on in EdTech in Austin! You never know who you might bump into and how that might change your life!

Technical Review 89

Technical Review Austin Texas Cofounder 89

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. 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. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

As a globally focused LP in early stage VC funds, we at Blue Future Partners have observed a growing trend of firms investing substantially in software tools, whether developing proprietary solutions or adopting off the shelf tools. But what tools are they using themselves to automate their own processes?

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. 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. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

Open Source Business Models, speakers for Web 2.0 Dr. Karrer was valedictorian at Loyola Marymount University, attended the University of Southern California as a Tau Beta Pi fellow, one of the top 30 engineers in the nation, and received a M.S. ► February (2) CTO Founders / Cofounders Part-Time Startup CTO?

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

The presentation was on outsourcing generally, not just software engineering and the audience was very early stage companies (some yet to be founded). But did you know that founder Markus Frind has just 3 employees for his $10MM+ revenue business? Engineering/QA. He basically outsources everything.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Their engineers hated us. Engineers as Salesmen I thought (and still do) that this sales guy walked on water.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 14, 2011

a group of entrepreneurs from TiE Chennai gathered at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) Research Park campus, and we spent the next four hours discussing strategy and tactics of early-stage entrepreneurship. At 11 a.m., Recordings of previous online roundtables are all available here. Discuss.

India 126

India Technical Review Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 126

OnlyOnce

MARCH 22, 2016

The day after I put up that last post about v2 of the program, a human resources leader at PayPal gave me a call and asked if we could help them structure a program for their engineering organization, too. Joanne Wilson, often better known as Gotham Gal and the founder of the Women’s Entrepreneur Festival, is joining me as Board Co-chair.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Cofounder Programming Equity 48

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Business Model Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. Business Model Issues. Life Sciences II – Medical Devices.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress. a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance. Here’s John’s story. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&#

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Hearpreneur

MAY 4, 2019

Corporate innovation is failing at a DNA level because the Big to Bigger machine has been engineered to be incompatible with New to Big. We work with partners to install the Growth Operating System (it’s a metaphorical OS, not software, by the way) as a permanent way of discovering and building new businesses and igniting growth.

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Entrepreneur Venture Capital 66