Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. 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. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers.

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ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

I know that many, many entrepreneurs are feeling dejected because of investor rejections. I suggested going for larger companies and also to pick some verticals where the value proposition really shines through. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail. You can register here.

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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

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.

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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.

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. And so was his reputation for being verbally abusive to his direct reports. Order Here.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

However, as hard as I emphasize this point to aspiring entrepreneurs every year I usually get a call or email from a past student asking me to introduce them to my favorite VC’s. Interestingly this response almost always comes from first time entrepreneurs. I’m going to go do that Customer Development stuff after we raise money.”

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. 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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Taariq Lewis, the founder of Voluble, is a 1M/1M premium entrepreneur. We invited entrepreneurs considering joining the 1M/1M premium program to the Stanzr chat room and did a one-hour Q&A session. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant.

Entrepreneur 116

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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. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

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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.)

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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. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. In ten years Sylvania EDL grew to be one the largest companies in the valley ?

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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?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

That’s no longer the case in Silicon Valley. Slightly off-topic, there’s a good example of an entrepreneur going through the “Discovery/Validation&# process for a web business that charges for its product here. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Examples here. Keep teaching!

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

I’ve tried to read a lot of your History of Silicon Valley posts. Find out Memorex’s position in Silicon Valley. Some say we were the first PCM in the valley. Some say we were the first PCM in the valley. were the first computer entrepreneurs here. They are very interesting. Order Here.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The Focus on a Finished Product Rather than a Minimum Feature Set The passion of an entrepreneur coupled with the product development diagram drives you to believe that all you need to do is build the product (in all its full-featured glory) and customers will come. Look at the early Silicon Valley companies – Homebrew Club =>PCs.

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Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

There couldn’t have been a worse choice for CEO in Silicon Valley. Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley was an Oxymoron A key premise of our new company was that our video compression and authoring technology would revolutionize how games were made and played. This wasn’t just some random Silicon Valley fantasy.

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Thanks for sharing!

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I’ve learned so much! Thanks for sharing! 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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. on April 10, 2009 at 6:58 am Said: Amazing blog. I feel that I’ve derived as much value from this post as I would from reading 2 or 3 lengthy books on the topic. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 259

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

For entrepreneurs good things come to those who ask. Entreprenuers Know How to Ask Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to ask for things relentlessly. Entrepreneurs are fearless, persistent and uninhibited about asking – whether it’s asking to assemble a team, get financing, sell customers, etc.

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Thanks for adding the real facts to the story. steve Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

A key lesson is that as an entrepreneur, you get to choose your segment. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System » 20 Responses brantcooper , on March 26, 2009 at 3:52 pm Said: Great story, Steve. Glad to see you blogging! Order Here. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

If you read only one previous post, read this one (or this one.) ————- The Birth of Entrepreneurship in The Hot Cold War Silicon Valley entrepreneurship was born in the middle of a secret war with the Soviet Union. military, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Go to trade shows like it matters. You can learn more about them here: [link] 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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another? Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Simulation to Reduce Invention Risk If you’re in a vertical where “invention risk” is dominant, then you want to do everything you can to manage and reduce those risks. When I wrote the Four Steps to the Epiphany , the Customer Development text, I hadn’t yet thought about what vertical markets it might be appropriate for.)

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Third, to share both thinking and practice as I learned how to teach entrepreneurs (the way one teaches artists and musicians.). Fourth, as a public official in the State of California , to offer a window on how public policy on California Coastal protection gets made.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

The Churchill Club , Silicon Valley’s largest public affairs organization, invited Carl Schramm , president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation and I to talk about entrepreneurship. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Translation: They write checks for $100 Million dollars a year.) Order Here.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance I always had been curious about how Silicon Valley, a place I had lived and worked in, came to be. How did Silicon Valley start?

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Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

This is incisive and powerful and I hope many entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs “get&# this eloquently stated point. The last thing I want is for new entrepreneurs to read my comment and get dismayed about the importance of facts. You do different things as an entrepreneur when you are creating a new market.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Customer Development: Past, Present, Future [.] 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. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Customer Development 212

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 14, 2009

My only excuse is that this week I’m doing public service in my role as a California Coastal Commissioner. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Long days, lots of items on the calendar , dedicated staff, very bright fellow commissioners. Greatest hits here. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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