Steve Blank

article thumbnail

No One Wins In Business Plan Competitions

Steve Blank

Last week one of the schools I teach at invited me to judge a business plan contest. I suggested that they first might want to read my post on why business plans are a poor planning and execution tool for startups. At best I think business plan competitions are a waste of time.

article thumbnail

Blowing up the Business Plan at U.C. Berkeley Haas Business School

Steve Blank

Berkeley Haas Business School is a leader in entrepreneurship education. It has replaced how to write a business plan with hands-on Lean Startup methods. The final deliverable for that class was a 30-page business plan. We had multiple business plan competitions. The Business Plan is Dead.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

No Business Plan Survives First Contact With Customers. 2 Minutes to See Why

Steve Blank

If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development. Business Model versus Business Plan Customer Development'

article thumbnail

No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers – Business Plans versus Business Models

Steve Blank

He said, “After we graduated we took our great idea, holed up in my apartment and spent months researching and writing a business plan. We even entered it in the business plan competition. Why a business plan is different than a business model. A plan is static, a model is dynamic.

article thumbnail

When Hell Froze Over – in the Harvard Business Review

Steve Blank

.” It defined a startup as a “temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” Today its concepts of “minimum viable product,” “iterate and pivot”, “get out of the building,” and “no business plan survives first contact with customers,” have become part of the entrepreneurial lexicon.

article thumbnail

The 47th (-46) International Business Model Competition

Steve Blank

When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn’t a crisis , it’s a learning event called a pivot — and an opportunity to update the business model. Business Model Versus Business Plan. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Teaching , Venture Capital.

article thumbnail

Why Big Companies Can’t Innovate

Steve Blank

Finding a viable business model is not a linear, analytical process that can be guided by a business plan. As such, discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed.