Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

(Almost) everything you need to know (but are afraid to ask) before you wistfully ask a product manager to coffee so they will help you find a job. TL;DR Product management is a unique and poorly understood discipline, especially as it applies to software and other tech-related companies.

Management 85

Management Product Technical Review Software Review 85

Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

And there are more to come: your first job, getting married, buying a house, having a child, becoming a manager, starting a company, retirement – and eventually commencement speaker. When I retired after 21 years working in 8 startups, I was invited to be a guest lecturer at the business school at the University of California Berkeley.

Lean 221

Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 221

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. How dare you,” the fab manager said. “We The supplier’s CEO directed his business unit general managers to take a SyncDev workshop. That night we flew to Boise.

San Jose 256

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Guest Post by Misti Yang, Writer for Lean Startup Co. This is the mantra of Lean teams described by Eric Ries in his upcoming book, The Startup Way. Drawing on the advice of experts and recent research, here are seven insights on how to best build a Lean team. A hallmark of Lean teams is cross-functionality. Start small.

Lean 140

Lean San Francisco Employee California 140

Mike Michalowicz

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

His practice, Complete Family Vision Care Optometry, is in San Diego, California. Dr. Aaron Neufeld, OD is an Owner/Optometrist at Los Altos Optometric Group in Los Altos, California. Optometrists should work towards a CEO model where they spend more time working on business development and management. Learn more here: [link].

San Diego 111

San Diego Technical Review California Retention 111

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. Let’s start off with how and why you helped found All Raise and what its mission is. I've been in venture now twice.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. In this post I’m going to describe the flaws of the product development model. It’s a big idea.)

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

The first step was to recruit a new management team. Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. Why they were looking to me to run marketing wasn’t clear. They sold to a set of customers I knew nothing about.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

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. Should they look at the Document Management market? Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Channel 215

Channel Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Business Model 215

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. I hope we managed to teach our children compassion and charity for others.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 137

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Reply Fred H Schlegel , on October 20, 2009 at 1:20 pm Said: I believe the MBA was originally developed with the idea of helping functional experts move more smoothly into upper management ranks. Unfortunately it became a gatekeeper degree of a sorts allowing all sorts of folks to sidestep real business experience.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e. Reply Karma in the Lean Startup Era , on January 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm Said: [.] The response from across the country?

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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

APRIL 10, 2009

Too often, CEOs and small business managers suffer from analysis paralysis. It looks as though you and I have the same taste in layout, no? I’ve written about this subject many times and could not agree more. This happens for any number of reasons. Some are afraid of making the wrong decision.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

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.) TA’s make managing 60 students working on cases and team projects manageable. Finally our TA’s managed the mentors we had supporting the students.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. We also talk about cash flow management rather than fund-raising though – watch and justifying expenses by cash coming in that matches or exceeds. They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

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. So, that's how I came to Silicon Valley in the first place. ER : I remember Speed Date.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Turkey Los Angeles California 60

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 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

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

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Just as I was getting settled into Zilog, the manager of the training department got fired. (I I was beginning to think that my hiring managers were related to red-shirted guys on Star Trek.) At the end of two days I realized, This was the first full weekend I had taken off since I had moved to California 3 years ago.

Silicon Valley 175

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

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

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 324

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. I was met by a very apologetic manager who said, “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the last week. The manager of the training department who hired you wasn’t authorized to do so – and he’s been fired.

Agile 245

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

By the late 1930′s when HP started, a small group (measured in hundreds) of engineers who made radio tubes were building the valleys’ ecosystem for electronics manufacturing, product engineering and technology management. Who would have known? Armstrong was a god!

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

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. Stay hungry, stay lean. I don’t want to be hungry and lean (nor do I want to be full and fat).

Silicon Valley 205

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 205

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Sale Guys, Account Reps, Project Manager – they all need to be able to deal with this without even blinking. for knowing his audience and managing to it effectively. Reply My take on Customer Development and the Lean Startup | Recess Mobile Blog , on January 9, 2010 at 5:39 am Said: [.] Getting out of the building.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Let’s Fire Our Customers « Steve Blank (tags: product-management startup business) [.] 3) Managing the relationship is more consumptive than the rewards. I’ll add I’m particularly curious about how founders recognize that point at which they need to exit / fire the old customers.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 16, 2017

Nearly two years since CA governor Jerry Brown signed the California Fair Pay Act which was designed to close the wage gap, women in Silicon Valley still report that their multi-billion dollar tech giant employers are still paying them less than their male counterparts for equal work (Larson).

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Engineer Viral California 48

Hearpreneur

JUNE 4, 2021

I figured after so many people were asking to me help them out with marketing projects on the side, I could do this gig part-time while also managing the kids and household. As the agency work poured in, I also tried to manage everything on the home front. But I also leaned that is actually ok. From this, Urtasker was born.

Entrepreneur 133

Entrepreneur B2B Database Technical Review 133

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.

Lean 399

Lean Community San Jose Africa 399

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. What did I learn so far?

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank (tags: customer-development product-management startup) [.] Reply links for 2009-10-13 « Blarney Fellow , on October 13, 2009 at 6:10 pm Said: [.] Reply Siddharth Chawla , on October 13, 2009 at 9:34 pm Said: Wow, this is really validating of how I go about finding things.

Silicon Valley 147

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 147

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

We have structural employment issues : The official unemployment rate in the US is hovering just below 10% but “true” unemployment is much higher when you account for those that have stopped looking or taken part-time employment and in key states like California and Michigan we’re downright hurting.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Technical Review Balance Sheet Government 298

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Or investing in 10 companies and having 8 fail - but the remaining two companies returning 20x their money for $40 million. His point was that it was in the VC’s interest in having entrepreneurs swing for the fences.

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g. and product management worked with me to decide what to build & when. The first application they ever launched was in the property management space. Back then it seemed foreign. But they went one step further.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. So he had adopted Steve’s Lean LaunchPad class and was using The Startup Owner’s Manual as his core text. . ———– The 99%.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305