Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

NYU has adopted the Lean LaunchPad ® class as a standard entrepreneurship course across twelve different schools/colleges within the University. Over 1,000 students a year are learning lean startup concepts. I figured any academic who was as persistent as an entrepreneur had earned my time. So we met, and I learned a lot.

Lean 271

Lean New York City New York Customer Development 271

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

It said, “teach us to number our days that we gain a heart of wisdom “ Since then I’ve had a series of interesting careers: technician in the Air Force, tech writer, marketer, entrepreneur, CEO and now educator and mentor. Over the last decade I’ve watched the Lean Startup approach to entrepreneurship take off.

Lean 222

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 222

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. So I agreed to offer my current thinking on the economy and what it portends for the VC industry & fund raising for entrepreneurs. In California the primary school education system has cut 10 days from the school year to save jobs.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves Part of my problem was that my reality distortion field encompassed my relationships. While she stuck it out for seven years, she had no connection to the passion and excitement that was driving me; all she saw was a tired and stressed entrepreneur when I got home. The Adventure of a Lifetime.

Entrepreneur 282

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 282

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. As an entrepreneur, and later as an investor, I came to see sometimes, by associations, and sometimes very directly, what a good team can do.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. I am a young entrepreneur here, absolutely dying to hear the talk. And many of the best entrepreneurs experience failure a number of times before building a legendary business (thanks Steve Blank, you’re an info sharing rockstar).

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail.

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since we taught the first 10 teams in the Stanford Lean LaunchPad class. We’ll teach over 175 NSF Innovation Corps teams in the Lean LaunchPad course in 2012. Only in California!

Lean 258

Lean Business Model Agile United States 258

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. Interestingly this response almost always comes from first time entrepreneurs. I was an idiot.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 185

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann will be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference in October about all of this and more. I was in California at that point, where there were a handful of women, which to me was already really inspirational. We want to treat the entrepreneur's project or company not as a deal but as if it is our own life's work as well.

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Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. We were excited by the response at last year’s Lean Startup Conference to Diane Tavenner’s eye-opening talk on her experience implementing Lean Startup methods at Summit Public Schools, the California charter for which she is CEO and co-founder.

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Lean New York City Startup San Francisco 164

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 150

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. As entrepreneurs we must never settle for allowing our hypothesis to go unchecked. Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 241

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 241

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building.

Customer Development 125

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Ernest Hemingway One of an entrepreneur’s greatest strengths is their relentless pursuit of a goal. Watching others try to solve problems reminded me why entrepreneurs are different. Entrepreneurs are Relentless Jim’s goal was to get other companies to put their software on an unfinished, buggy computer with no customers.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 327

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!

Silicon Valley 140

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 140

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Technology | Tagged: Customer Development , Early Stage Startup , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Steve Blank « SuperMac War Story 6: Building The Killer Team – Mission, Intent and Values Story Behind “The Secret History” Part IV: Library Hours at an Undisclosed Location » 17 Responses Michael F.

Silicon Valley 302

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Sunset BoulevardBOOTY SHAKE CONTEST GONE [.]

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 228

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

At best it is a way to inform an entrepreneurs instinct and reduce risk. Entrepreneurs with vision essentially make a hypothesis, as Steve says, to fill a need state… and new products and services are born. Reply Lean Startup Customer Discovery & the Value of First Impressions , on January 25, 2010 at 6:12 am Said: [.]

Customer Development 280

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 280

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

And throughout my career as an entrepreneur I kept asking questions of my VC investors and friends; Where did entrepreneurship come from? They were all fun reads about plucky entrepreneurs who start from nothing and against all odds, build a successful company. Was it because entrepreneurs keep moving forward and rarely look back?

Silicon Valley 279

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 279

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. He and his wife Gwen would found the Computer Museum, first in the lobby of DEC headquarters, then in Boston (and now as the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.) Reply Karma in the Lean Startup Era , on January 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm Said: [.]

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

With your permission, I’d like to tell this tale and direct other aspiring entrepreneurs to follow your lead! As a young entrepreneur in his first startup, this post hits our current situation spot on. EE Reply My take on Customer Development and the Lean Startup | Recess Mobile Blog , on January 9, 2010 at 5:30 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 232

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web. The first question to ask is: “Does your startup have market risk or is it dominated by technical risk?” Lean Startup /Customer Development is used to find answers to the unknowns about customers and markets.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Engineer 205

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 205

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2020

They created a program called Onward California in partnership with the State of California and with the support of governor Newsom. Their model in California was so successful they eventually created a new organization, Onward US, dedicated to putting American workers displaced by COVID-19 back to work.

Fresno 60

Fresno Community Technology California 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. But over the years I realized his comment was actually an astute observation about the mental mindset of an entrepreneur, and therein lies the purpose of this post. In fact using uncertainty as your path is an advantage entrepreneurs share.

Agile 251

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 251

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

A partner allows me the flexibility to miss a session or two (my job as a California Coastal Commissioner meets three days every month up and down the coast of California.) One part of Silicon Valley culture that doesn’t get enough credit is the generosity of entrepreneurs and VC’s who are willing to share their time with students.

Business Model 230

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

Steve Blank

APRIL 21, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment with a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. Their goal is to deploy CarrotBot this week in the farm fields in Avenal, California, on the way to the World Ag Expo. Yet like passionate entrepreneurs, the team ignored our advice and pressed on. (To Two weeks to go.

Channel 221

Channel Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Business Model 221

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But at times it’s why entrepreneurs can sink their own companies. More on this in later posts.)

Customer 201

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. There’s lots of lore, emotion, and misconceptions of what VC’s do or don’t do for entrepreneurs. What this meant for entrepreneurs and VC’s was simple– the gold rush to liquidity was on. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Other Roles in a Startup Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. Reply steveblank , on June 14, 2009 at 2:22 pm Said: Actually this is the mistake most startup entrepreneurs make – particularly in tough economic times. This is the minimum feature set for founders.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 223

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

crowdSPRING Blog

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

7 Habits of Highly Effective and Successful Entrepreneurs – [link]. 12 Must Watch TED Talks for Entrepreneurs – [link]. Small Business and Startups: The True “Lean” Movement – [link]. 7 Habits of Highly Effective and Successful Entrepreneurs – [link]. Convertible Debt - [link]. – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 28, 2020

With the theme “Build Back Better” Jerry Engel , Pete Newell , Steve Weinstein and I co-hosted nearly 500 Lean Educators from 63 countries and 235 universities online for a three-hour session to share what we’ve learned about educators on how we can help our communities rebound, adjust, and recover. — Background.

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Lean Community San Jose Africa 407

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

His point was that it was in the VC’s interest in having entrepreneurs swing for the fences. However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. The entrepreneur might be very happy with a modest outcome where the VC is more incented to swing for the fences or fail.

Silicon Valley 212

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2021

Carbon Health is now running some of the largest vaccination sites in California, most famously at Dodger Stadium, in partnership with the City of Los Angeles. That's one of the very, very early companies that I was talking to Lean Startup about. But yes, I migrated from Turkey to Silicon Valley in 2010 and started Udemy. EB : Yeah.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Turkey Los Angeles California 60

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. I offered to introduce him to the firm whose Entrepreneur-in-Residence offer I had just accepted.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120