Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

The Energy Storage division is acting like a startup, and Prescott Logan its General Manager, has lived up to the charter. And they’ve being doing this while driving product cost down and performance up. This is a new division of a large, old company where one would think innovation had long been beaten out of them.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week, our first team up was PersonalLibraries (the team that had software to help researchers manage, share and reference the thousands of papers in their personal libraries.) Veritas , was the team building a low cost, residential wind turbine that average homeowners could afford. The news from customers was not good.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

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

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

For our students, that can mean anyone from a Syrian refugee trying to make contact with his family back home, to a supply chain manager for a major apparel brand who wants to make sure his contract factory in Bangladesh doesn’t use forced labor. each while Sharpie markers run $0.375 apiece. Looking ahead. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

For our students, that can mean anyone from a Syrian refugee trying to make contact with his family back home, to a supply chain manager for a major apparel brand who wants to make sure his contract factory in Bangladesh doesn’t use forced labor. each while Sharpie markers run $0.375 apiece. Looking ahead. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

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. customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) It’s a big idea.)

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Big companies have great execution habits to manage and improve successful business models and value propositions. This happens because managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future. Large companies have a habit of hiring outside agencies to do market research and customer discovery.

Non-Compete 329

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 329

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Any place with a fixed cost that relies on foot traffic will come under pressure. Cut costs to stay alive for 24 months. Payroll costs/other variable costs. B2B – cloud services, online meetings, virtual workforce management, collaboration tools. Your CFO now becomes the head of cash management.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

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.” It will cost you your job.”

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

You’ll realize you’re ready to exit the Search step when you have customer validation: You’ve found a sales channel that matches how the customer wants to buy and the costs of using that channel are understood. Now the organization needs to put in place culture, training, product management, processes and procedures, (i.e.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Investors bet that by offering prospective hires a stake in the company’s future growth- with a visible time horizon of a payoff – employees would act more like owners and work harder– and that would align employee interests with the investor interests. That made sense. Today that’s less true.

Stock Options 333

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 333

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Big companies have great execution habits to manage and improve successful business models and value propositions. This happens because managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future. Large companies have a habit of hiring outside agencies to do market research and customer discovery.

Non-Compete 120

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Hire a CEO to Go Public. A founder’s lack of credibility/experience in growing and managing a large company hindered a company that wanted to go public. The VCs would hire a CEO with a track record who looked and acted like the type of CEO Wall Street bankers expected to see in large companies. The founders.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

— I just watched a very smart company try to manage innovation by hiring a global consulting firm to offload engineering from “distractions.” They accomplished their goal, but at a huge, unanticipated cost: the processes and committees they designed ended up strangling innovation. There’s a much better way.

Incubator 312

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 312

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. Engineering focuses on building the product; it designs the product, specifies the first release and hires a staff to build the product. None of mine did.)

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

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. Market Type But most startups aren’t in existing markets.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

With audit costs approaching a billion dollars a year the Pentagon had an opportunity to lead in modernizing auditing. To complicate the audit, the department has 326 different and separate financial management systems, 4,700 data warehouses and over 10,000 different and disconnected data management systems. The Road Not Taken.

Advisory Board 328

Advisory Board Artificial Inteligence SBIR Government 328

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Yet this same network of connected people affects who gets funded, how startup teams form, and who gets hired. . Silicon Valley) is a network-based system — about who you know … who gets funded, how teams are forms, who gets hired in certain companies, how promotions (are determined) — that is all relationship-based.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Steven Cohn , founder and CEO of Validately , which helps user researchers, product managers and others validate demand or usability for prototypes and live sites. Prior, he was a senior manager at Genentech in operations and project management. Steven Cohn. That’s how your brain’s oriented. I’ll sign up.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Steven Cohn , founder and CEO of Validately , which helps user researchers, product managers and others validate demand or usability for prototypes and live sites. Prior, he was a senior manager at Genentech in operations and project management. Steven Cohn. That’s how your brain’s oriented. I’ll sign up.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

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.) Sales people cost money, and when they’re not bringing in revenue, their wandering in the woods is time consuming, cash-draining and demoralizing. Who recommends a sale?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

They hire local employees or family. They hire the best and the brightest. In addition, the Israeli government originally funded 23 early stage incubators but turned them over to the VC’s to own and manage. They are anyone who runs his/her own business. They work as hard as any Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Government 335

Government Silicon Valley Startup Venture Capital 335

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Without a budget, costs can quickly spiral out of control (last minute impulse purchases to jazz up your booth, for example) and defeat your best laid plans. A rule of thumb is that your space costs represent about a quarter of your total show budget. Get yourself into the booth selection meetings and get to know the manager.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

She’s currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors , and former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a bipartisan national security think tank. I think the name of the game is managing this competition, fostering cooperation where we can. And you have to incent that.

Technology 300

Technology China United States Government 300

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

In the last decade Torch managed to break free of China’s state central planning bureaucracies. They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. It did so by building a national network of a 1,000+ Productivity Promotion Centers. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

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. Are his costs in control? We need our own cafeteria so employees don’t have to leave the building.

Silicon Valley 205

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 205

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

What CEOs, management teams and shareholders care about is growth —revenue growth, greater user adoption, increased market share, bigger margins, etc. T o develop this new portfolio, companies need to provide a stable innovation funding mechanism for new business creation, one that is simply thought of as a cost of doing business.

Lean 326

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 326

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

APRIL 11, 2013

In the last decade Torch managed to break free of China’s state central planning bureaucracies. They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. It did so by building a national network of a 1,000+ Productivity Promotion Centers. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

With that implicit assumption, startups hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies while marketing creates a brand and buzz to create demand and drive it into the sales channel (web, direct salesforce, etc.) If you’re lucky, you can ride in their slipstream and let them do all the work.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Frustrated by the FDA’s 20 th century processes for 21 st century technology, companies hired lobbyists to force a change in the laws that guide the FDA regulations. Mastering the reimbursement path requires a company to have yet another group of specialists conduct expensive clinical cost outcomes studies.

China 67

China Technical Review Software Review Algorithm 67

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

These poor miserable people who insist in making money at the cost of others, deserve our compassion, not emulation The real success I believe is leading a happy life and to hopefully provide for your worldly needs and those of your dependents. Being miserable in a big house is never better than being happy in a small one!

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Steve Blank

AUGUST 19, 2016

I managed to find a job at the Miami International Airport loading racehorses onto cargo planes. Though I would pay the cost of having learned them for the rest of my life. Four-Phase Systems is hiring …”. In the middle of a Michigan winter, I stuck out my thumb and hitchhiked to Miami, the warmest place I could think of.

San Jose 173

San Jose Silicon Valley Michigan Miami 173

Steve Blank

AUGUST 19, 2016

I managed to find a job at the Miami International Airport loading racehorses onto cargo planes. Though I would pay the cost of having learned them for the rest of my life. Four-Phase Systems is hiring …”. In the middle of a Michigan winter, I stuck out my thumb and hitchhiked to Miami, the warmest place I could think of.

San Jose 120

San Jose Silicon Valley Michigan Miami 120

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. If a company behaves this way you avoid optimizing a single component at the cost of the entire system. Very useful way to think about “Management By Objectives.&# In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Whitney Company by writing a personal check for $5M and hiring Benno Schmidt as the first partner (Schmidt turned Whitney’s description of “private adventure capital&# into the term “venture capital”). Several wealthy families in the U.S. set up companies to do just that – find and formalize investments in new and emerging industries.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 159