ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Taariq Lewis, the founder of Voluble, is a 1M/1M premium entrepreneur. And, as we brainstormed with today's audience, they suggested other excellent use cases, including one for product managers to discuss feature-function priorities with customers and prospects. We thought it was very cool! I thought that was brilliant. MapWide.com.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Help them?!!

Technology 138

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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? What’s the Worst that Can Happen? All I had to do was ask.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Communism being a bad science experiment) ESL’s founder Bill Perry was moving the chess pieces. When Terman said no, Sylvania, a tube company which built proximity fuse tubes in WWII, won the contract and set up its Electronic Defense Lab (EDL) in Mountain View California in the middle of an orchard. There were no venture investors.

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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

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Reply Eran Shir , on November 21, 2009 at 9:35 pm Said: Steve, a great post is judged by the level of discussion it manages to spur, so in that metric, this is a fantastic one. I don’t think you need operational experience to be a good VC but Mark Suster’s great new post illustrates the difference. [.]

Customer Development 219

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But the rest of the management team really skeptical. A company called Aapps, founded by Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari), make a product called the MicroTV, Digivideo, and Digivideo Color in the 1990 – 1991 timeframe that displayed live video in a window on the Mac. Little did we know. steve MIchael W. ,

Video 164

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. One day, I was at the Ford Wixom auto assembly plant training my replacement and I was at met at the door by an irate plant manager.

Founder 297

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

As a founder you need to prepare yourself to think creatively and independently, because more often than not, conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty.

Silicon Valley 170

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan Foundation , the Sloan School of Management at MIT , the Sloan program at Stanford , and the Sloan/Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York. Sloan realized that the traditional centralized management structures (like General Motors had in 1920) were poor fits for the management of GM’s already diverse product lines.

Silicon Valley 156

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.] Where as most start-up founders start with the conviction that they know success looks like and [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be. It’s very different than the traditional product development model.

Product Development 143

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ReadWriteStart

MAY 12, 2011

Today, he has over a thousand, and he has chosen to focus on the realtor vertical. Then Taariq Lewis from San Francisco, California, presented Stanzr, a lightweight online events platform specifically focused on moving qualified leads generated through webinars towards a close. He is seeing excellent results. Following a guerrilla p.r.

San Francisco 125

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Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

He had just filmed the second of a series of videos called, Speaking to the Big Dogs: How mid-level managers can communicate effectively with C-level executives (CEO, VP’s, General Managers, etc.) As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phrase “Speaking to the Big Dogs” might end up as his corporate brand.

Silicon Valley 176

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation. Cultural Revolution at Large Corporations – the Founders Return Of the companies that do reinvent themselves it’s interesting that often its the founder or an outsider that has the insight and makes the radical changes.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

weeks ago, positioning it as a tool designed to help small businesses effectively manage their social media efforts. I would be very curious to hear the (hypothetical) suggestions you would have given to twitter’s founders, for example. Sometimes customers don’t realize they need a product until you give it to them.

Silicon Valley 181

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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. Reply founders, beware « Adisababa’s Weblog , on January 20, 2010 at 10:05 am Said: [.]

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan. I still think it is, but orthodox managers don’t see it that way. The irony is that few startups fit these criteria. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

My co-founder, head of business development and I were in Japan raising money. —– The next time one of my ideas was “borrowed,” it was a little less benign and more like the nightmare founders fear. I really don’t know how you managed to keep your cool in that situation. Are those my initials on the slide?

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Since the Customer Development model assumes that most startups cycle through these first two steps at least twice, it allows a well-managed company to carefully estimate and frugally husband its cash. Having raised lots of money tempts you to give products away, steeply discount to buy early business, etc., It rarely happens that way.)

Customer Development 242

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

If you are a founder of a startup ethics begin with you. Reply Business Ethics Training , on December 28, 2009 at 5:39 pm Said: For all of you who are supervisors and managers who may be reading this: It is not only important to do things right, but it is important to make sure that the right thing is done right. A final note.

Silicon Valley 124

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Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Get yourself into the booth selection meetings and get to know the manager. Location, location, location A small booth is no excuse for being stuck in the corner. Don’t tell me “that’s where they put all the small booths.” I know that, so why do I need you? Call often and early and try to upgrade your location.

Silicon Valley 178

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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.) Lean Startups aren’t Cheap Startups « Steve Blank (tags: startup product-management strategy) [.]

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

The venture capital industry is so heavily skewed to Northern California, which the remains spilled over Boston, New York & Southern California. A big thank you to my friend Josh Webb who provided the transcription for This Week in Venture Capital with Tige Savage , Managing Director and co-founder of Revolution.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Also, if you’re an entrepreneur, make sure you hire and manage people so that they’re focusing on end goals and not motion or, once again, you’re screwed. What I thought would be a simple port is actually a major project I don’t have time to manage. They all have to be redrawn and reformatted.

Silicon Valley 324

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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. He prefers to interact directly with the founders of a startup.

Silicon Valley 184

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

The first step in Customer Development was Customer Discovery ; extracting hypotheses from the business plan and getting the founders out of the building to test the hypotheses in front of customers. Just as a refresher. Hopefully this will get more bootstrapping entrepreneurs focusing on making money instead of raising money.

Customer Development 262

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Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

The founders coming out of the DEC ( Digital Equipment Corporation ) and Intel culture of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. I learned a lot at Convergent, going from product marketing manager in a small startup to VP of Marketing of the Unix Division as it became a public company. Two of my role models for my career were in this company. (And

Entrepreneur 276

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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. Let this article serve us reminders to founders and boards alike Reply Michael F.

Silicon Valley 205

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

The Customer Discovery lessons of “get outside the building and test your hypothesis with customers,&# and “the founders need to hear the results,&# came from this debacle. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Out of the Ashes A few of the key tenets of Customer Development , came from the ashes.

Silicon Valley 122

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Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We Don’t Need Domain Experts When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Founders need to validate their vision in front of customers early and often.

Silicon Valley 207

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Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

But what I remind them is that great grades and successful founders/technology entrepreneurs have at best a zero correlation (and anecdotal evidence suggests that the correlation may actually be negative.) And founders don’t apply for jobs. Google is looking to hire workers. They found companies.

Silicon Valley 327

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Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

For example, if you’re an early-stage SaaS provider that is shifting from a horizontal solution to a vertical focus, your mission, culture, and competencies can stay the same and the pivot transition will probably go smoothly. The Palm Pilot was a personal information manager. Not all pivots are created equal.

Startup 36

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets , and with my team of vertical marketers , I thought I had achieved absolution and redemption. But there was one fatal flaw.

Silicon Valley 172

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

These IPOs meant that technology companies didn’t have to get acquired to raise money or get their founders and investors liquid. Ampex business took off when Terman introduced Ampex founder Alex Poniatoff to Joseph and Henry McMicking. Interestingly enough, Fred Terman, Dean of Stanford Engineering was tied to all three companies.

Silicon Valley 125

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Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2009

Biological Clocks After Convergent and now single again, I was a co-founder of my next two startups; MIPS and Ardent. Lencioni’s books are famous fables for executives to reflect on team-building, culture and operational effectiveness, but this one is about family management and very inspiring.

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Start Up Blog

APRIL 29, 2013

Sir Martin Sorrel , the founder of WPP (the worlds largest media organization), recently said he went to Tech Punta in Montevideo instead of the CES in Las Vegas. A local example was the Greenhouse pop up restaurant in Melbourne by Joost Baker – Which included vertical gardens and large amounts of material re-purposing.

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techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Similarly, the bulk of the companies getting funding are still California-based. After Northern California and Southern California the biggest area of investment geographically was in international companies. Been there Done that This is very depressing for all future founders, or even currently early stage founders.

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