Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. I was hired as a training instructor to teach microprocessor system design for the existing Z-80 family and to write a new course for Zilog’s soon to be launched 16-bit processor, the Z-8000. How did I miss that?

Silicon Valley 175

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Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. In ten years, from the early 1950′s to the early 1960′s, the valley went through a hiring frenzy as jobs in microwave companies went from 700 to 7,000. Who would have known? Armstrong was a god!

Silicon Valley 270

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. Supercomputers get Personal Back in Sunnyvale my friend had not only been hired but had convinced the team that we should be building hardware – making a new class of computers not a software application. Glad you two called, we were trying to get a hold of you guys.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? make-or-break.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I lived through the time when working in my first job in Ann Arbor Michigan we had to get out a map to find out that San Jose was not only in Puerto Rico but there was a city with that same name in California. Startups traditionally required millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product to customers.

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Finally, since no one would believe a set of benchmarks named after our company, we needed a façade of independence, so we named them after the street the company was headquartered on in Sunnyvale California – they became known as the Potrero Benchmarks. Theoretically, that’s why I hired them. You don’t delegate life and death.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. Then it hit me – no one else wanted to be manager – what was the worst that could happen? I’ve built my company using the Customer Development Model from Day One.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

The quintessential California couple, they stood out in our crowd as the engineer (in his late 20′s, respected by his peers and the customer) had hair down to his shoulders, sharply contrasting with the military crewcuts of the customers and most of the other contractors. I think it is because in the end, customers count.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. If the management team is thinking they’ve made it, the new building is just symptomatic of a company heading for a crash. We need our own cafeteria so employees don’t have to leave the building. A VERY nice office.

Silicon Valley 205

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets. I cover this in the Four Steps to the Epiphany.)

Silicon Valley 131

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

If your don’t have enough employees on the payroll, hire relatives, friends, or part-timers and train them. And that most of the post on trade shows was describing how to prepare and manage a physical presence in a trade show booth. You’ll never have to do it again.) Trade Show Post Mortem Evaluate the experience.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

And it hires very smart people from the best schools. BTW, by the standards mentioned in the Times article, the following people would never have been interviewed or hired at Google. College Dropouts - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison These guys realized that customers don’t ask for your transcript. I love Google.

Silicon Valley 327

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Assessing fit with the Wisdom of Crowds When I wrote earlier about how to conduct a good technical interview , I had only a few things to say about how to assess if the candidate fits in with the team, including this: This responsibility falls squarely to the hiring manager.

San Francisco 83

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 83

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , SuperMac | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup « Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II Movie was Wrong » 7 Responses David , on April 23, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Excellent!

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development.

Silicon Valley 127

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Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. Get yourself into the booth selection meetings and get to know the manager. Offer a free bestselling book in your industry (can you have the author there to autograph it?); Don’t tell me “that’s where they put all the small booths.”

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

It got bigger by inventing new test and measurement equipment and it hired people who knew how to execute that strategy. General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation. You cannot say it is the people (owners, manager or workers). Steven Blank: Managers need to be more entrepreneurial.

Silicon Valley 164

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Whitney Company by writing a personal check for $5M and hiring Benno Schmidt as the first partner (Schmidt turned Whitney’s description of “private adventure capital&# into the term “venture capital”). Several wealthy families in the U.S. set up companies to do just that – find and formalize investments in new and emerging industries.

Silicon Valley 159

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www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Task Management. Project Management Tools. Subscription Payments / Management. Managing APIs. Customer Relationship Management. Contractor Management. Private beta invitations & management: Prefinery. Scanning / Document Management.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. Very useful way to think about “Management By Objectives.&#

Silicon Valley 126

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Policy makers need to know: regulations designed to manage big-companies actually protect those companies by stifling innovation (and competition) from startups. Truth be told, we've got defense contractors here just like California does too. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. But we managed to grow a few customers, so that’s good, in spite of the name. Noel: So we been looking on enterprise power management tool.

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Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204

usersknow.blogspot.com

APRIL 30, 2010

I have contacted my customer service/community management team and prepped them with information about the new feature and asked them to get back to me if we start to see any significant new support requests. Hire me to help you learn how to get better information from your customers.

Software Review 40

Software Review Agile San Francisco Advisory Board 40

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

So let’s be very specific: let’s assume your dream job is product manager at Google, working on the Analytics product. The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. Where is it?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Silicon Valley’s development is intimately entwined with the long history of industrialization and innovation in the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

September, 2012 – Andrew Chen, who currently does growth at Uber , writes You don’t need a growth hacker , which encourages companies to really consider whether they have product-market fit before hiring a growth hacker. Conducted Customer Development. Established a Customer Success philosophy.

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Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48