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.

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Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Steve Jobs once challenged Obama to find him 30,000 engineers so he could build a plant in California. Some five years into an early stage technology company, I found myself, an experienced technology manager, as a CEO in search of competent manufacturing. Thanks Pamela. Where is the innovation workforce? – Dr. Pamela A.

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techcrunch.com

AUGUST 12, 2012

She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Media industry. The top layer of applications and services that use the innovations of the first two layers to transform vertical markets (e.g, San Francisco, California.

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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. The response from across the country? Glad you two called, we were trying to get a hold of you guys. We’re building a supercomputer.”

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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?!!

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ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

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. Said from Orange County, California, pitched MapWide.com , which is supposed to be a collection of sites like MapDentist.com, MapDoctors.com, etc.

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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.

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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.)

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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. What did I learn so far?

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service.

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Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Get The Answers I am very excited to share with you the opportunity to meet the Managing Director of Growthink's new media and entertainment practice, Mr. Lee Muhl. He is a current member of the California State Bar, and the Hollywood Writers Guild. What is the future for good-old fashioned DVD rentals and sales? in History from UCLA.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

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. In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.)

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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.

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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. [.]

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

And that most of the post on trade shows was describing how to prepare and manage a physical presence in a trade show booth. These two posts were amazing. Anyways, here’s one question I have. You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads.

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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.

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But the rest of the management team really skeptical. When we saw our salespeople actually trying to steal the early boards to take home and show their kids, we knew we had a winner. All we had to do was tell customers they could get video into their computer – and not promise anything else. Little did we know.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

They built airplanes out of palm trees thinking if they did manna would come in airplanes again.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

If you can’t manage chaos and uncertainty, if you can’t bias yourself for action and if you wait around for someone else to tell you what to do, then your investors and competitors will make your decisions for you and you will run out of money and your company will die.

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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: [.] That’s in stark contrast to the traditional Product Development Model where it’s expected a customer is already there and waiting and it’s simply a matter of [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

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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.

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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.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

– Cornell University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon University; and the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California at San Diego. As one could imagine this was the last thing the supercomputer center management wanted to hear.

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ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 16, 2010

The trends include Cloud computing, outsourcing, social Web, vertical and local Web, smartphones and tablets, online advertising, online video, online gaming, e-books, and bootstrapped entrepreneurship. Today, the company produces low carbon footprint fruits and vegetables and sells to distributors in California, Nevada and Arizona.

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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. The problem is that our messaging on the home page shouts “Write Once, Publish Everywhere&#.

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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.

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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. Joseph Campbell’s insight of the repeatable patterns in mythology is equally applicable to building a successful startup.

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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.) Ortho kills.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I believe it’s just like a family trait, which starts from the characteristics of the top C-level executives and cascades all the way down, from the type of mid-management they hire, to who the mid-management hires, and then the way everyone is supposed to walk and talk.

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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.)

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

I really don’t know how you managed to keep your cool in that situation. Looking forward to the reading the sequel and other “excruciatingly uncomfortable situations&# blogs! Reply Luke Jones , on December 30, 2009 at 9:47 am Said: Thank you for the story. I would have gone a little bit ballistic.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation. You cannot say it is the people (owners, manager or workers). Steven Blank: Managers need to be more entrepreneurial. CEO’s and the executive staff are watching the corporate bottom line and earnings per share.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

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. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

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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.

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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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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

The Experience is the Product | Better product management and products , on September 23, 2010 at 12:17 pm Said: [.] Steve Blank so eloquently says, when you are creating a new market, you have no idea how long the flat part of the hockey [.] Reply » Should you be in an Existing Market? make-or-break.

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