Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. Teaching In the Big Apple.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 270

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. Executing both of them would put us out of business. Then march through the rest of the business model. This post previously appeared in EIX. These strategies are mutually exclusive.

Business Model 305

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

Founders assumed they understood customer problems/needs, wrote engineering requirements documents, designed the product, implemented /built the hardware/software, verified that it worked by testing it, and then introduced the product to customers in a formal coming out called first customer ship. Generating Hypotheses. Testing Hypotheses.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It was designed to bring together many of the new approaches to building a successful startup – customer development, agile development, business model generation and pivots. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

Over the last 50 years engineers have moved from building computers out of individual transistors to building with prepackaged logic gates. It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Business Model Design. It instantly creates a shared visual language while defining a business.

Customer Development 329

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 329

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

APRIL 16, 2013

For decades this revered business magazine described management techniques that were developed in and were for large corporations – offering more efficient and creative ways to execute existing business models. The Four Steps drew the distinction that “startups are not smaller versions of large companies.” Then go do it.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

My good friend Alexander Osterwalder , the inventor of the business model canvas (one of foundations of the Lean Methodology) has written a playbook (along with his associate partner Tendayi Viki ,) From Innovation Theater to Growth Engine to explain how to build and implement repeatable innovation processes inside a company. .

Portfolio 367

Portfolio Business Model Metrics Programming 367

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Part 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster. Few entrepreneurs find this scalable and repeatable business model because it’s not easy. I visited Bend last year and caught up with his progress.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

Sloan transformed corporate management into a real profession, and its stellar example was the continuous and relentless execution of the GM business model (until its collapse 50 years later). Tesla now has a pipeline of newly announced products, a new Roadster (a sports car), a Semi Truck, and a hinted crossover called the Model Y.

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

By now the nine teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad Class were formed, In the four days between team formation and this class session we tasked them to: Write down their initial hypotheses for the 9 components of their company’s business model (who are the customers? Their business was a robot lawn mower. Personal Libraries.

Business Model 236

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Finland itself has significant engineering talent, and is also attracting entrepreneurs from Russia and the former USSR. Startup incubators, business angels and VCs are starting to emerge. Lessons Learned.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

JANUARY 30, 2013

Entrenched Innovation Model Issues : Qualcomm’s existing innovation model – wireless products were created in the R&D lab and then handed over to existing business units for commercialization – was wildly successful in the existing wireless and mobile space. Venture Fest was not integral to their success.

Programming 265

Programming Technical Review Incubator Intellectual Property 265

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The problem was that Ballmer organized the company around execution of its current strengths – Windows and Office businesses. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The problem was that Ballmer organized the company around execution of its current strengths – Windows and Office businesses. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. From the point of view of scientists and engineers in a university lab, too often entrepreneurship in all its VC-driven glory – income statements, balance sheets, business plans, revenue models, 5-year forecasts, etc.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. It might be its most important. ———-. Cold War Spin Outs.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission? In other words, how can we adapt the Business Model Canvas when the metrics of success for an organization is not revenue?

Business Model 120

Business Model Revenue Channel Community 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. The core team — a cross-functional team who could make all the business and technical decisions within a set envelop ? We’ve asked for off-line setup for years.

San Jose 256

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. 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. Where We Are Going From Here.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. And our course advisor, Tom Byers , Professor of Engineering and Faculty Director, STVP.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

—— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Steve Blank

AUGUST 23, 2010

Followers of the Customer Development process know that you can’t start selling until you have transformed product, customer and other hypotheses into a validated business model and sales roadmap. Short-circuiting that process is a major “foul” that often leads to premature business models and suboptimal sales results.).

Customer Development 235

Customer Development Developer Customer South America 235

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first, the notion of the “ ambidextrous organization ” from O’Reilly and Tushman , posits that companies that want to do continuous innovation need to execute their core business model while innovating in parallel. 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

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. 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.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

Before students are admitted, they formed teams, applied as a team with a business model canvas , had homework and were expected to be presenting their business model canvas hypotheses on day one of the class. Our first class session is definitely not a “meet and greet”.

Lean 278

Lean Customer Development Business Model Email 278

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) The Business Model Canvas is a great way to diagram it out. And as engineers they believed weed versus crop recognition, while hard, was doable.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Or jet engine maintenance. In addition, they’ve created an entirely new $85+ billion subscription business model; the App Store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV. Every company that has complex machinery have been experimenting with AR for years. Here’s hoping they find it.

Search 256

Search Marketing Forecast Burn Rate 256

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

I worked with engineering to try to find product/market fit ( big endian or little endian ?) and get the chip designed into companies building engineering workstations – powerful personal computers, all while trying to refine how to find the right markets, customers, and sales process.

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2020

The pandemic has upended the business models of most startups and existing companies. Suppliers are going out of business or requiring cash-up-front terms. Revenue models and forecasts are no longer valid. In sum, whatever business model you had at the beginning of the year may be obsolete. Here’s how.

Customer 436

Customer Marketing Customer Development Lean 436

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

NYU Engineering Commencement Speech. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on your graduation from this esteemed engineering school. Established businesses execute business models while startups search for them. But as engineers trained here at NYU you have a distinct advantage.

Lean 221

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 221

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Alexander Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas , co-founded strategyzer.com and was the lead author of Business Model Generation which sold a million copies in 30 languages. Big companies have great execution habits to manage and improve successful business models and value propositions.

Non-Compete 329

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 329

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2024

It makes me wonder – are startups still founded by people with a passion for creating something new?

Vietnam 179

Vietnam Venture Capital Business Model Engineer 179

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2021

He was trying to sell the “story” of Customer Discovery as part of the Lean Methodology to his CEO by explaining how discovery worked with the business model canvas, agile engineering, pivots and MVPs. That’s when I realized that Suresh was overlooking a few things.

Lean 435

Lean Agile Conversion Business Model 435

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. It is a very different skill than science, engineering, or management. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332