Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Here’s how. Build-Measure-Learn.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Diversity is generally only an issue in large organizations, and if your startup is that large, investors will definitely be nervous. c-level entrepreneur funding startup titles'

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Steve Blank

MAY 23, 2016

It said, “teach us to number our days that we gain a heart of wisdom “ Since then I’ve had a series of interesting careers: technician in the Air Force, tech writer, marketer, entrepreneur, CEO and now educator and mentor. By the way, the engineering definition of serendipity is, that life is too unpredictable to pre-compute.

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Lean Technical Review Vietnam Engineer 223

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, July 3, 2009 Lean Startup fbFund wrap-up Last week I had a real blast meeting with the companies at the fbFund incubator at Palo Alto. The Lean Startup fbFund Edition View more documents from Eric Ries. Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. Without further ado.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

The Lean Startup is a process for turning ideas into commercial ventures. They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. As an entrepreneur my problem was that I had too many ideas.

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Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

Below, you will find a list of books recommended by serial entrepreneur David S. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. ” Lean Business Planning: Get What You Want From Your Business. Not so much. B y Eric Ries. B y Tim Berry.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

Today, however there are two important updates for entrepreneurs everywhere. Two years in the making and literally ten years in development, I’m proud to announce that my new book, The Startup Owners Manual , goes onto the printing press next Tuesday. The Lean LaunchPad Online Class. Let me be brief…. Briefly, the new book.

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Entrepreneur Lean Business Model Customer Development 294

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. You can click here to learn more.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs? What do entrepreneurs look like?

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Gust

APRIL 20, 2014

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Diversity is generally only an issue in large organizations, and if your startup is that large, investors will definitely be nervous. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 171

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Angel Investor Public Relations 171

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Diversity is generally only an issue in large organizations, and if your startup is that large, investors will definitely be nervous. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales).

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2014

Kauffman just launched Founders School - a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups are different from big companies. 0:45: The definition of a startup. Module 3, The Lean Method. 1:49: Use Customer Development to Test Your Hypotheses.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 266

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. That died with waterfall software development. Short answer: absofuckinglutely. Do so at your peril.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees. I dont think so.

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CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types. I chose to hire engineers from within each of our target markets and set up “Steve’s one month MBA course for engineers.” At the time this was a pretty controversial decision. We hired a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Duke who had worked on helicopter design.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth. Expo SF (May.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. But at times it’s why entrepreneurs can sink their own companies. More on this in later posts.)

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. We were excited by the response at last year’s Lean Startup Conference to Diane Tavenner’s eye-opening talk on her experience implementing Lean Startup methods at Summit Public Schools, the California charter for which she is CEO and co-founder.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

But theres no denying the level of support for entrepreneurs that we enjoy. They take common stock, not preferred, a fact that the entrepreneurs mentioned to me many times. And every year, it looks as if one or two entrepreneurs from the program decide to stay. And do your customer development.

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San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. What’s the ROI on acquiring new customers?

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

For the past year, they invested in the team and technology to prioritize speed of iteration with disregard to traditional methods of customer development and company building. In many cases, these are good advice but sometimes it’s a waste of time or worse, directs entrepreneurs away from something truly great.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Lean vs. debt In the world of physical goods, the leaner a supply chain is, the less debt is required to operate it. A similar relationship applies to technical debt.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. First, continuous deployment separates out two different definitions of the terms “release.&#

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Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 18, 2010 Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases non-events The following is a case study of one entrepreneurs transition from a traditional development cycle to continuous deployment. Eric Of all the Lean Startup techniques, Continuous Deployment is by far the most controversial.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Your comment about the Innovation/R&D phase that it's hard to predict has definitely proven true in my experience. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Ann who had been my Teaching Assistant while she had finished her PhD at Stanford felt the same frustration about teaching entrepreneurs to assemble a business plan that we knew in the real world wouldn’t survive first contact with customers. Ann and I recruited VC’s and entrepreneurs to be mentors for each team.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 234

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Out of the airport the first stop was in Denver – an impromptu meetup at Galvanize and a fireside chat with a roomful of 200 great entrepreneurs. Military Academies.

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Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 261

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Ill exclude those non- lean startups who basically exist for the purpose of raising bigger and bigger sums of money. Most of the times I have seen pitches fail, it is not because they are poorly written, or that the entrepreneur lacks passion. How does a lean start-up find the all-star team worthy of pitching? Expo SF (May. .

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Business Model Design meets Customer Development. Lean Launchpad. the Lean Launchpad, the first hands-on class utilizing the entire business model/customer development / agile development stack.

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Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 254

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Gathering feature requests from customers is not what marketing should be doing in a startup. And it’s certainly not Customer Development.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 21, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 21, 2008 Lean startups vs lean companies Venture Hacks has a great article today on lean startups. But I do think it is a misconception of what lean startups are all about. By the standard of "customer value," most innovation-seeking experiments are waste.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 4, 2012

In the past decade, we’ve shifted from a “tell me about it” approach (the business plan) to a “show me” approach (the Lean Startup). Rather than write long exhaustive documents, entrepreneurs can rapidly prototype their product and get immediate user and market feedback. Related articles. Looking for Help?

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Business Plan Lean Cofounder Venture Capital 193