Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. The previous post described how the Torch program built China’s innovation clusters. SBIR and STTR programs, the Torch Program’s funding for new ventures was limited to seed funding the front end.

Venture Capital 168

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 168

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. Companies must pay a medical device excise tax of 2.3%

Startup 300

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 300

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

– The Torch Program. In size, scale and commercial results China’s Torch Program from MOST (the Ministry of Science and Technology) is the most successful entrepreneurial program in the world. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 284

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 284

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

understand who their core and tertiary customers are, and the sales and marketing process required for initial clinical sales and downstream commercialization. assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build. identify financing vehicles before you need them.

San Diego 265

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 265

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 23, 2009

If you never have, you can create your own using Google Finance. The vanity charts appeared, showing the changes the company had made to its strategy and the subsequent changes in customer behavior broken down by segment. All very reasonable, well designed, well argued. All very reasonable, well designed, well argued.

Metrics 167

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

– The Torch Program. In size, scale and commercial results China’s Torch Program from MOST (the Ministry of Science and Technology) is the most successful entrepreneurial program in the world. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 176

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 176

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. (And Small Business Administration ’s Associate Administrator and chief of its investment and innovation programs.

Small Business Administration 120

Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule. For more on how this plays into the process of scaling up, see the Customer Creation stage of the customer development model.)

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

This is a quote from Leander Kahney’s recently published book on Apple design chief Jony Ive: “In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

When I was working my first programming jobs, I was introduced to the following maxim: "time, quality, money - pick two." As I evolved my thinking, I started to frame the problem this way: How can we devise a product development process that allows the business leaders to take responsibility for the outcome by making conscious trade-offs?

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, April 26, 2009 Product development leverage Leverage has once again become a dirty word in the world of finance, and rightly so. But I want to talk about a different kind of leverage, the kind that you can get in product development. Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

When we talk about seeds, we mean your first outside round of financing at the earliest stages of your business. In my prior post, I talked about the rise of the pre-seed and a more nuanced definition of a pre-seed based on milestones, not financing labels. At NextView, we pride ourselves as being a “one-product company.”

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

In 1960’s and ‘70’s few MBA’s would give up a lucrative career in management, finance or Wall Street to join a bunch of technical lunatics. In the real world a startup is about the search for a business model or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.

Engineer 311

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 311

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

The first time I taught the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship class, a quarter of the class were foreign students in a special engineering-entrepreneurship program where they took one entrepreneurship class each quarter at Stanford while working full time in technology startups in Silicon Valley. There is no “right path” to success.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 127

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

They accomplished their goal, but at a huge, unanticipated cost: the processes and committees they designed ended up strangling innovation. In reality for innovation to contribute to a company or government agency, it needs to be designed a process from start to deployment. There’s a much better way. I-Corps was adopted by all U.S.

Incubator 317

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 317

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

Their initial customer segment were upwardly mobile professionals with $2-10K discretionary purchases/year (excluding travel,) and their revenue model was affiliate program fees. Include people, hardware, software, prototypes, financing, etc. Where is the best place for your business? Where is your cash flow break-even point?

South Dakota 232

South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 232

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. We over-designed the product, overbuilt the product, and we built something really beautiful that no one wanted. … .

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. We over-designed the product, overbuilt the product, and we built something really beautiful that no one wanted. … .

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

And a company culture and values need to be design and engineered just like the product. . The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs, lows that pushed them forward. .

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

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 kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. automotive industry grew to become one of the drivers of the global economy.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. I prefer to take the most expansive possible definition of product, one that encompasses any source of value for a set of people who voluntarily choose to become customers.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

What we didn’t envision was that one creative corporate VP would take that post and build a world-class corporate innovation program around it. Almost every large organization has some kind of incubator or accelerator program. in developing these new models. And this has created a global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Lean 329

Lean Nepal Cofounder Customer Development 329

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Productive Programming - Gabriel Weinberg , August 31, 2010 BIG disclaimer: I'm not formally trained in computer science (aside from two classes at MIT in 2000) and I haven't worked closely with that many programmers or teams (maybe 10 or so). Paul Graham kicked it off by noting that all the financings in the recent YC batch were converts.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. So when he saw the browser it instantly dawned on him that this would be the greatest customer development tool ever. It’s still there 30 years later!

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

When we talk about seeds, we mean your first outside round of financing at the earliest stages of your business. In my prior post, I talked about the rise of the pre-seed and a more nuanced definition of a pre-seed based on milestones, not financing labels. At NextView, we pride ourselves as being a “one-product company.”

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Among those: plentiful financing and nerds , a culture that celebrates both failure and success, and an ethos of openness and sharing. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? What is customer development? Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2011

These diagrams are the visual representation of the how and the what a team learned in the class – how they tested their hypotheses by getting out of the building using the Customer Development process and what they learned about each part of their business model. The Lean LaunchPad was designed to fill that void.

Lean 285

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 285

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

Amazed at all the beautifully designed products that came out of only 76 hours. Especially because I could have used this time on marketing, sales and customer development, and actually helped our business move forward. I was not very happy with my life, but didn’t really know why. I found this a real waste of time and energy.

Netherlands 159

Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Users were not just an extension of the testing team - they were an extension of the product design team. In the case of an entrepreneur pitching for finance, its the same fear that has them putting on a facade and not comfortable in what they do and dont know that will see them a long way off getting funded.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review Lean 131

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

If you’re looking for a designer, engineer, or biz marketing guy – go to meetups / conferences that those people would go to. If you believe in it – then finance whatever you can yourself. I’m learning how to program. I’m studying design. Your existing customers are you best source of referals – just ask.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

news.ycombinator.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

His quote on the subject, "no amount of finance will cure mismanagement". He chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. Early in the age of the automobile, Ford decided to produce his now famous V-8 motor. Ford said, “Produce it anyway.”

Stealth 41

Stealth Technical Review Startup Software Review 41

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Of course, you’re also invited to our December 9 evening reception, an event sponsored by Pivotal Labs and designed to foster productive networking in a professional, alcohol-limited environment. During lunch, you can sample some of San Francisco’s famous food truck culture from trucks we’ve invited especially for the conference.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Conversion Startup 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2019

So in 2011, with support from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (the entrepreneurship center in the Stanford Engineering School), we created a new capstone entrepreneurship class – the Lean LaunchPad. When we started this class, the concept of Lean (business models, customer development, agile, pivots, mvp’s) was new to everyone.

Lean 254

Lean Business Model Balance Sheet Video 254

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development.

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 132

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Ampex’s first customer was Bing Crosby who wanted to record his radio programs for rebroadcast (and had exclusive distribution rights.) Like all government programs, the SBIC was fond of paperwork, but it began to formalize, professionalize and standardize the way investors evaluated risk. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 129

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

But lots of lawyers and finance kids in New York thought they had stable jobs that would make them rich. But lots of lawyers and finance kids in New York thought they had stable jobs that would make them rich. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 111

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 111

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

Learn more about Techstars , a startup accelerator program. Peter: RAIN is a program that is exactly like the traditional accelerator except there is no guaranteed funding. They never worked with the startup who had needed to raise multiple rounds of financing. You need to go out and do some customer development.

Incubator 60

Incubator Email Startup Oregon 60