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 Hiring 333

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 ? Search Versus Execution.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. Technology in search of a market.

Lean 315

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

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). If you’re following Tesla, you might be interested to know that Sloan wasn’t the founder of GM. What happened to him?

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

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. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Executing both of them would put us out of business. Then march through the rest of the business model.

Business Model 305

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

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 6, 2015

While it sounds simple , the Build Measure Learn approach to product development is a radical improvement over the traditional Waterfall model used throughout the 20 th century to build and ship products. Luckily Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas presents a visual overview of the nine components of a business on one page.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

These misses weren’t in some tangential markets – missing search, mobile and the cloud were directly where Microsoft users were heading. Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

These misses weren’t in some tangential markets – missing search, mobile and the cloud were directly where Microsoft users were heading. Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

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

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2010

Show me how much each unique visitor is going to cost you in search engine optimization and pay-per-click search engine expense. And it’s surprising how few startup founders think in those terms. And you definitely should have ideas around important proof points for the business. Great stuff!

Metrics 159

Metrics Startup Retention Software Developers 159

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

JUNE 26, 2015

In the last five years “ Lean Startup ” methodologies have enabled entrepreneurs to efficiently build a startup by searching for product/market fit rather than blindly trying to execute. However in practice most companies treated the Three Horizons like they are simply incremental execution of the same business model.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

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.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

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

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." Often you can't tell if something like a search engine or matching algorithm is really going to have better results until you use it.

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

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

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 can be a big bet!

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

blog.captainrecruiter.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Technical Co-Founders Are A Myth. Two years ago I got the bug to do an online recruiting startup and I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder - a software engineer who works for no cash - to help me build my dream website. I learned something: technical co-founders are a myth. Captain Recruiter. Real Advice.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Software Engineering 40

Women Entrepreneurs Can

JUNE 3, 2021

Business success requires a range of skills and talents and it often makes sense to have a business partner rather than going solo. Iconic companies that have achieved phenomenal success include Microsoft, Apple, Google and Intel — every one of these companies had a couple of founders. ” (Source: Harvard Business Review ).

Partner 52

Partner Technical Review Cofounder Georgia 52

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

GrowthHackers founder and former Head of Growth at Dropbox, Sean Ellis , coined the term: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. In his course on Growth Mindset (part of CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree ), WeTheFuture.org founder John McBride describes three key components of a successful growth marketer: 1.

Retention 113

Retention Marketing Acquisition Channel 113

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.

Advisory Board 260

Advisory Board Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Stock 260

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

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. business models. business models. Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

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

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

I headed to Google to search for “best transcription software” and read some blog posts that reviewed the best options. According to Demand Gen Report, 56% of B2B buyers say that a web search is their first resource, and 79% say the winning vendor’s content significantly impacts their buying decision. most commonly popped up.

Lead Generation 94

Lead Generation Marketing Sales Cycle Campaign 94

Austin Startup

MARCH 3, 2020

The LexSet Co-Founders (left to right) CEO Francis Bitonti , President Leslie Oliver Karpas , and COO Azam Khan won $250,000 in Verizon’s Built on 5G Challenge The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2020 LexSet serves AI engineers, especially those with limited resources, with a better way to annotate photos.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Los Angeles Cofounder Silicon Valley 63

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

Startups focus on speed since they are burning cash every day as they search for product/market fit. 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. the company had.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

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? in Computer Science.

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? in Computer Science.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Southern California Los Angeles CTO Hire 150

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

The company already has paying customers and a validated business model. Bizosys Technologies, a Bangalore, India based software engineering company was founded in 2009. Abhijit foresees primarily a technology licensing business model whereby device vendors would be paying royalty per handset or tablet. Discuss.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

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

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? in Computer Science.

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

For the last 10 years China essentially closed its search, media and social network software market to foreign companies with the result that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dropbox, and 30,000 other websites were not accessible from China. business models. business models. Entrepreneurial Culture.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Reid Hoffman

JULY 23, 2020

Those traditional investors ask, “What’s your business model?” Google began by building a better search engine, which mystified financial investors who had already concluded that search was low value. Google tried to make money by selling search appliances to enterprises.

IPO 36

IPO Exit Strategy Acquisition Technical Review 36