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

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

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

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. Declare them cultural co-founders.

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Community 333

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. Focus on capital efficient, scalable startups and founders.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. Tossing their agile development process and at times their entire business model in the air, the company would go into fire-drill mode and engineering would start working on whatever his latest insight was. A Pivot a Week. he’d declare. “We

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

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. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

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

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. Tom Bedecarré , the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. He runs H4X Labs. Jeff served in the U.S.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

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 25, 2023

Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs , Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

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 Customer Development 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

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

I’ve spent more than four decades founding, coaching, teaching and investing in startups, and nothing breaks my heart more than meeting a starry-eyed founder who says “we’re almost ready to show it to people.” The “it” is a physical or web product they’ve often been locked-down, pounding away at, for many weeks. What’s the point?

Startup 332

Startup Cofounder Customer Development Viral 332

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. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience. Cases and plans are useful for teaching managers of process, not founders. Founders of startups (and new ventures inside existing companies) are searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model. experiential.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) release of the product.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

MAY 20, 2010

It was the Internet bubble and after almost three years our startup had found a business model and we were scaling revenue and headcount fast. The legendary VC was too busy to sit on our board, so we got another younger partner in his firm with seemingly the right pedigree – engineering degree, MBA, lots of boards, etc.

Founder 275

Founder Cofounder Salary Internet 275

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Your Business Model and the World Have Changed.

Customer 413

Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Tom Bedecarré the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. He runs H4X Labs. Jeff Decker a Stanford social science researcher.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

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. Our revenue model was wrong.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of this century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. This new framework can act as the front-end of Customer Development.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

They operated this way because their existing business models didn’t allow them to initially profit from those opportunities – so they ignored them – and continued to chase higher profitability in more-demanding segments. Therefore, for founders, entrepreneurship wasn’t a job, but a calling.

Lean 428

Lean Business Model Government Agile 428

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.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. — all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

For lots of reasons that never worked out, but I liked him so much that the following year I tried to hire him as the VP of Engineering of Ardent. (He Founding CEO’s are supposed to search for a repeatable business model, not just blindly execute their original plan. He was having too much fun at Sun and turned me down.).

Advisory Board 260

Advisory Board Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Stock 260

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

business models. Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. ” A good number of startups in Beijing seem driven by the VCs – and not the founders. business models. Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Non-Compete 215

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 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster. These people are important and useful in the engineering of a tech cluster; as startup coaches, angel investors and advocates for the community.

Oregon 312

Oregon Silicon Valley Lean Venture Capital 312

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. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Our keynote speaker was Palmer Luckey , founder of Oculus and the designer of the Oculus Rift. He’s now the CEO/founder of the AI-focussed defense contractor Anduril Industries. Tom Bedecarré was the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. If you can’t see the video of Palmer Luckey click here.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

Alice and Bettina had taken an idea they had tested in the class – building toys for young girls to have fun with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, and started a company. Thinking that founders hire domain experts to get them into places and do things they don’t have any clue about is a mistake most founding CEOs make.

PR 314

PR China Lean Channel 314

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335