Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) The Customer Development Model is designed to minimize the risk of launching a product for a market that does not exist. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

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crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 8, 2018

Silicon Valley has dominated the U.S. Despite repeated efforts, only a few cities outside the Valley (New York and Boston) have historically had the critical mix of VC funding, network, and talent to fuel vibrant startup centers. cities (outside of Silicon Valley and the East Coast), to build your startup.

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online.wsj.com

JULY 11, 2012

Theres a power struggle underway in Silicon Valley. Over the past two years, one of the most influential venture-capital firms has turned the usual rules of start-up investing on its head. One of its champions includes Jason Goldberg, the co-founder and CEO of online design retailer Fab.com Inc., Stock Quotes.

Silicon Valley 42

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Their guess was that they would find value in the high margin graphics business.

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Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design. Years later he would become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital.) Back in the 1960’s and 70’s no sane MBA’s would work for a Silicon Valley startup.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.)

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David Teten

DECEMBER 2, 2019

Nearly every major Silicon Valley venture-capital firm has now invested in a B Corp ; maybe you will be one of them! Our program mixes the best of both Washington and Silicon Valley, bringing together stakeholders in policy and technology to train the next generation of policy entrepreneurs. Congratulations!

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 14, 2013

government’s role in setting investment policy, venture capital has set the direction for what new industries attract capital. universities (See the blog posts on the Secret History of Silicon Valley here , and for a story about one of the University weapons labs here.). In lieu of the U.S. Give the U.S.

Silicon Valley 243

Silicon Valley Government Germany Japan 243

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. (My Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 125

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Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Customer Development 124

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. The search for a profitable and scalable business model might require a startup [.] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.

Silicon Valley 300

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in Silicon Valley. Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. So our people in the field could correct any egregious design advice I gave to customers who mattered.

Silicon Valley 175

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I’m going to link this this and read it weekly Reply Mark Gibson , on April 22, 2010 at 8:27 am Said: Hi Steve, I’ve read Four Steps a couple of times now (loved the Secret History of Silicon Valley) and enjoy your blog-posts…this is on target. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. the “schedule fantasy factor,”) or his eleven rules of supercomputer design but also a real appreciation for how a technical visionary thinks. (I

North Carolina 125

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I was an idiot. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 179

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

This year, with the kids grown, their choice was to fly up from Southern California and spend the holidays at our ranch. So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. California, where even the rabbits are bigger than life! Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 137

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. But part of his life that that doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry is that Bill Perry used Silicon Valley to help end the cold war.

Silicon Valley 171

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. I think Pfizer was lulled into the “if we build it, they will come&# nature of drug [.] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. It’s just a story about what happened to me.

Silicon Valley 225

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly. billion in venture capital to LA’s technology startups and 2014 will shatter that figure. In the last full year where we have data LA attracted $1.5 What Has Given Birth to This New Movement in LA? .

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

One of the times I screwed this up it left a legacy of 25 years of questionable design in microprocessor architecture. It has to be little-endian or we won’t design your chip into our systems.” The reaction from the chip circuit design guys was, “OK, we could do that. What a great idea.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Market Types « “Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch Closure » 21 Responses Tweets that mention Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development « Steve Blank -- Topsy.com , on November 16, 2009 at 7:20 am Said: [.]

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Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. Stop annoying our game designers and start working on selling and marketing the games.” Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I know what’s great and what’s not. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 207

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States.

Silicon Valley 159

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Because of the vagaries of how floating point units in computers were designed, your average IBM mainframe of the day would take forever to run a simulation application. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. A supercomputer could be a 100x faster. What Markets?

Silicon Valley 147

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Martin , on November 9, 2009 at 6:41 am Said: Hmm… Not to get too meta here… But if the point of this post is to teach us how to distinguish motion from action (even partly), I didn’t get much help. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 324

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Education program must emphasize the need to start with customer needs and design your entire product development strategy around a customer development blueprint, as you put it so very well. Look at the early Silicon Valley companies – Homebrew Club =>PCs. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. At a university business plan competition, for the first time they can swim in the sea of expertise that we/I take for granted in the middle of Silicon Valley.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Reply Play Wack-a-Mole – gently, now – With Your ‘Bad’ Customers | CityOf.com – More Local… FASTER. , on July 9, 2010 at 12:50 pm Said: [.] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Excerpted from his post: “When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or [.] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.

Cofounder 219

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

Funded by military contracts, these 1950′s microwave tube startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Stanford’s Dean of Engineering, Fred Terman, encouraged scientists and engineers to set up companies to build these microwave tubes for the military.

Silicon Valley 155

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

We had an application designed to [.] Reply Are the best Seed deals moving out of the Valley? Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Blog at WordPress.com Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer. Victus Spiritus , on September 22, 2010 at 5:32 am Said: [.] Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 271

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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. Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry?

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