Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Your best bet is probably taking an existing market and serving a portion of it better than the competition, through lower cost or a different set of features. That’s no longer the case in Silicon Valley. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. End of theory.&# Keep teaching! Order Here.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

customers aren’t buying it, the cost of distribution is too high, etc.) Look at the early Silicon Valley companies – Homebrew Club =>PCs. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Not testing these hypotheses upfront is a fundamental and, in many cases, fatal error most startups make.

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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.

Silicon Valley 143

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Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Was the company attempting to be a low cost provider by introducing cheaper products to an existing market? Therefore, no, we weren’t really equipped to be the low cost provider. Was SuperMac attempting to introduce radically new products and create a new market ? No, not really. And we lost money when we did so.

Silicon Valley 157

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

It will cost you your job.” his next article on SuperMac, “Building the Killer Team – Mission, Intent, and Values&# , Steve further pounds the table on some principles of leadership that I think are [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. That kind of accountable. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 269

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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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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. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

In less than a month they designed a low-cost video-capture board that plugged into the Mac and allowed you to connect a video camera and VCR. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. But to get video to fit and playback on the computers of the era, they needed to compress it. Order Here. Now In Print!

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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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David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Repaid 12-36 months with ability to prepay at reduced cost. Feenix focuses on companies in the consumer space across a number of industry verticals including: multi-unit Food & Beverage operators, hospitality, managed workspace (office or food halls), location based entertainment venues, and various direct to consumer online companies.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

She said, “Dad, one of the great things you and Mom did was never tell us how much things cost.” Now that I’m older, I’m starting to know what things cost. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. For a minute it was a pretty depressing thought for a parent. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 206

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

corporation, and by extension Sloan laid the foundation for America’s economic leadership in the 20th century. This time in what would become Silicon Valley. The Modern Corporation Sloan is rightly credited with formalizing the idea of the modern U.S. One guy really did all of this.

Silicon Valley 179

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Combined with product costs, an engineering budget, and schedules, this results in a spreadsheet that faintly resembles the first financial plan in the company’s business plan. With that information in hand, Engineering estimates delivery dates and development costs. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 269

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Reply Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. , AKPC_IDS += "1115,"; (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Posted in Leadership | Tagged [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

So I gave my “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley ” talk as the keynote to the CIA’s venture capital conference. So this post is how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley&#. (I’ll And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.”

Silicon Valley 267

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 203

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

As a private company you can decide that winning at all costs is your culture. You can decide that coming in first at all costs is your culture. Think through if you want to win at any cost. (I It’s the decisions that you make that might cost you an order, a sale or a higher stock price. .&# And we decided not to.

Silicon Valley 127

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. They hit each other with baseball bats until one of them dropped.) This first Zen moment happened at a SuperMac exec staff meeting. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 120

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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.) 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?

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

steve Jay Levitt , on September 11, 2009 at 5:39 pm Said: There’s a fun corollary to this: If you’re creating a new market, you WANT competitors, because they’ll share the cost of educating your target market. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 3, 2017

I knew there was a Friday night poker game in Silicon Valley where all the software pioneers were getting to know each other and helping shape the industry. The leadership centers of the microcomputer world shifted from Albuquerque to the San Fernando Valley (LA), the Bay Area, and Seattle. Deals were getting done there.

Atlanta 48

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Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The primary goal of customer development is to reduce the cost of mistakes. This is basic enough that I don’t think anyone can argue with it – reduce the cost of mistakes. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. Now In Print!

Venture Capital 239

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Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs. Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 156

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Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Waiting for images to move around the screen were not only driving them crazy, but costing them money. The good news was that the Spif strategy was working; the bad news is that it was costing the company our entire profit. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 210

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

He welcomed us by screaming, “Do you know how much it costs every minute this line is down.&# of total entrepreneurs born in China and India is not even close to what entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley looks like. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. In the country of birth it says 0.6%

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

However, I’ve seen this story repeated time and again, and not just in Silicon Valley. Are his costs in control? Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. The Curse of a New Building If this was just a sad story about a single company, it would be interesting, but not instructive. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 230

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Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Convergent Technologies When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies , a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of Silicon Valley.” Not enough people understand the emotional cost of being a start-up founder. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Michael F.

Entrepreneur 291

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

We can put both little- and big-endian in the chip, and it won’t cost us more than 1,000 gates.” Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I ran back to the company and said customers had told us, “We have to do both little and big endian.” The reaction from the chip circuit design guys was, “OK, we could do that.

Customer Development 284

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 284

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 2, 2021

He also shared his perspective on M&A (including Uber’s recent acquisitions of Postmates and Drizly), autonomous vehicles, the complexities of working in highly regulated industries, and how his personal and professional background shaped the way he approaches leadership today. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT. RH: Yeah, totally agree. Culture evolves.”

Iran 41

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States.

Silicon Valley 178

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Mucker Lab

MAY 1, 2013

From the outside, they are vertically integrated challengers to decades if not hundred-years old incumbents. Some had once argued that software is not a competitive advantage – that all the old dogs will learn new tricks and there will be little left for valley entrepreneurs and VC’s to pick over.

Software 107

Software Silicon Valley Los Angeles Columbus 107

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Our calculations had us losing money on the two lowest cost boards, breaking even on the third and making great margins on the other six. As customers saw them, they were a new family of products aimed directly at the color desktop publishing market with astonishing performance and a low-cost entry price. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 145

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 145

Hearpreneur

AUGUST 19, 2015

We are unbelievably lucky to be here right now, with a team of über-talented people from the best and brightest Silicon Valley companies, at a moment when what a book should be is morphing before our very eyes. Do you know how much it cost 2 days of “holidays” for the company? 31) Opportunity Cost.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Australia Technical Review Community 48

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Having each department develop a mission statement depends on leadership and direction from the CEO. “Going Out of Business” Strategy I’m now convinced “all our departments are equal” is a “going out of business” strategy. If a company behaves this way you avoid optimizing a single component at the cost of the entire system.

Silicon Valley 132

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