Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

It also made me understand what kind of support sales people needed from marketing and what marketing programs were wasted motion. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

Accelerators take teams with fairly focused ideas and offer a formal 3-4 month program of tutoring/mentoring with seed funding in exchange for equity. Many of them aren’t yet clear on who their customer actually is – and as a result – what value they should be focused on creating. Incubators are designed for teams with an idea.

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

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. government’s SBIR and STTR programs. Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S.

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

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. government’s SBIR and STTR programs. Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S.

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 15, 2011

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The process they use to guide that search is "Customer Development" ; and to track their progress startups now have a scorecard to document their week-by-week changes – the business model canvas.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Startup Early Stage Business Model 118

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

I am also a pilot, and computer engineer, and love to read stories about sigint and black aircraft programs. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty. It may not be for you. Also, it would be nice to do something that helps this country (but not solely for that reason).

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 170

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explore the habits that make them successful, and the highs, lows and pivots that pushed them forward. David Lerner became the director of Entrepreneurship at Columbia University after seven years running Columbia’s Venture Lab.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

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. Reply Customer Development Gut Checks « Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on April 28, 2009 at 11:38 am Said: [.] Historically, these were two guys with high testosterone. True? .&#

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. Coming next Part 2: What’s Wrong with Product Development as a Model?

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I Love Business Plan Competitions I had a breakfast with a friend who has founded a few companies in Thailand and started the New Ventures Program at one of their universities. I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. The impact of accelerator programs like Y Combinator, Techstars, Seedcamp, and dozens more are one factor.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Given the hardware I had worked on at ESL, learning microprocessors wasn’t that hard but figuring out how to teach hardware design and assembly language programming was a bit more challenging. If you wanted your own applications, you had to write them yourself. You created it and own it.

Silicon Valley 175

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. This was actually a great piece of advice, because ideas change and evolve in the early stages of the startup, it’s about the other person not the idea as much.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Johnny Good post. Partner up?

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 126

Steve Blank

JANUARY 24, 2014

Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Local Early-Stage Risk Capital. Early stage venture funds are more important than your mother. Organize risk-capital in the form of angel funds or venture funds, particularly at the early stage where the largest capital gap exists.

Engineer 307

Engineer Silicon Valley Oregon San Francisco 307

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â?? Raising Venture Capital.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53