Customer Development, Employee, Programming and Venture Capital

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe more specifically how this model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The Outsourcing of Founders Responsibility The Product Development model separates founders from deeply understanding their customers and market.

Customer Development

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley

Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Their idea is that consumers will want a subscription service for short form entertainment (10-minute programs) for mobile rather than full length movies. With fewer than 10 employees but almost $2-billion dollars in the bank, they plan on jumping right in. After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent.

Lean

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO

The Helsinki Spring

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

—— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Startup Accelerators: Startup Sauna and Vigo which includes Lifeline Ventures , KoppiCatch , and Veturi. 9-to-5 Venture Capital. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia

Nokia as “He Who Must Not Be Named” and the Helsinki Spring

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!)

Finland

Finland Naming Russia Government

The Helsinki Spring

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology detailed in his book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany."

Finland

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 20: Nayeem Hussain and Will Zell

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 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. whether that’s partners or employees that you bring on. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 17: Tiffani Bell and Clay Hebert

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 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. Like a lot of founders, she has no interest in a traditional job: I don’t have the personality to be an employee.

Detroit

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder

Amsterdam’s Rockstart Accelerator Sees Good First Year, Announces 2nd Edition

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 14, 2013

Amsterdam-based startup accelerator Rockstart last year launched a program to find and support ten teams of startup founders in Europe. It recently announced the results of its incubator program – and the results look promising.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Europe Venture Capital Incubator

Teaching Entrepreneurship – Logistics

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. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner.

Business Model

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer

Zhongguancun in Beijing – China’s Silicon Valley (Part 4 of 5)

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. If there ever was any question about the value of China’s Torch Program walk around Zhongguancun. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger

The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part X: Stanford Crosses the.

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

All branches of the military (the Air Force and Army would fund the program as well) wanted Stanford to build prototypes of electronic intelligence and electronic warfare systems that could be put into production by partners in industry. Stanford had a Customer Development loop going on inside their own lab.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS California Government

China’s Torch Program – the glow that can light the world (Part 2 of 5)

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. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters.

Programming

Programming Technical Review SBIR China

How Scientists and Engineers Got It Right, and VC’s Got It Wrong

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Fifteen months later eight of Shockley’s employees (three physicists, an electrical engineer, an industrial engineer, a mechanical engineer, a metallurgist and a physical chemist) founded Fairchild Semiconductor. government backed venture firms and limited partnerships. A wave of innovation was about to meet a pile of risk capital.

Engineer

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital

Zhongguancun in Beijing – China’s Silicon Valley (Part 4 of 5)

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. If there ever was any question about the value of China’s Torch Program walk around Zhongguancun. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger

Intel Disrupted: Why large companies find it difficult to innovate, and what they can do about it

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

For the first 75 years of the 20 th century, when capital for new ventures was scarce, the smartest engineering talent went to corporate R&D labs. But starting in the last quarter of that century and accelerating in this one, a new form of financing – risk capital (angel and venture capital) — emerged.

Architecture

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event

Lessons Learned: About the author

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). Learning is better than optimization (the local ma.

San Francisco

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO

SuperMac War Story 5: Strategy versus Relentless Tactical.

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Now we needed to put the tactical programs in place to make this repositioning strategy happen. I’m curious, how many employees did SuperMac have at that time and what was your approach to educating the company? Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review

China’s Torch Program – the glow that can light the world (Part 2 of 5)

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. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters.

Programming

Programming Technical Review SBIR China

The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II.

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

—————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. Thanks for connecting the historical dots!

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany

Preparing for Chaos – the Life of a Startup « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

Therefore the best way to keep your company alive is to instill in every employee a decisive mindset that can quickly separate the crucial from the irrelevant, synthesize the output, and use this intelligence to create islands of order in the all-out chaos of a startup. It may not be for you.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere show No. 4: David Lerner and Gary Marcus

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. . … I’ve seen so many of my colleagues are hiring entrepreneurship directors, creating new programs. Dave : Exactly.

Artificial Inteligence

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York

Founder First Principles?—?Creating Expa Labs

Eric Friedman

JUNE 16, 2016

I have spent the last few months helping to create and launch the Expa Labs program. To understand how we got to this point its worth taking a step back and looking at the foundation this program was built upon, as well as understand why we build Labs in the first place. I started building the program thinking about first principles.

Founder

Founder Framework Limited Partner Programming

Burnout « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Burnout can turn productive employees into emotional zombies and destroy careers. 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. You created it and own it.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco

The Curse of a New Building « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We need our own cafeteria so employees don’t have to leave the building. The new building telegraphed to our employees, “We’ve arrived. It’s natural for a company (and an individual employee) to take less risks once they have assets to protect. Perhaps it is better to shed employees instead, virtualize and outsource?

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile

Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

As an early employee I worked all hours of the day, never hesitated to jump on a “ red-eye ” plane to see a customer at the drop of a hat, and did what was necessary to make the company a winner. Great art and great programming are fostered within a community that shares an ethic of care for its members.

Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS

Your Product Needs to be 10x Better than the Competition to Win. Here’s Why:

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. They are very hands on. It’s still there 30 years later!

Product

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator

Story Behind “The Secret History” Part IV: Library Hours at an.

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

Here I was, a very junior employee of ESL, a company with its hands in the heart of our Cold War strategy. Nine months into my year tour, and seven months into my reading program, I was learning something interesting every day. (We All You Can Read Without a Library Card It was 1978. We could do what!? From where??)

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley RSS California Washington

From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

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. I enjoy working on my idea, but trying to learn everything oneself is a bit daunting…especially programming. We’ll update this post with links to his further installments. Partner up?

Technical Review

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review

Rocks in the Rocket Science Lobby « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2009

This was about the time Christies and Sotheby’s were starting to auction Soviet space program artifacts , and I was thinking that perhaps a spacesuit in the lobby would be appropriate given our name. When you got off the elevator, you faced a non descript corporate-looking set of walls. And it was much, much better than a space suit.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley San Francisco RSS Vertical

The Sharp End of the Stick « Steve Blank

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

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California

The Secret History of Silicon Valley 12: The Rise of “Risk Capital.

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.) Meanwhile on the West Coast – “The Group” 1950’s When Ampex was raising its money, in 1952, an employee of Fireman’s Fund in San Francisco, Reid Dennis , managed to put $20,000 in the deal.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS

Startup Tools

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

automatic links to generated images Rietveld - asynchronous code reviews on changesets Tech*if*er0*urs – blog on roadmap for learning rails Best free programming books Project Management Basecamp - web-based project management and collaboration tool. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams.

Software Review

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics

Startup Resources

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. BambooHR -Â Employee Records, Benefit Information, Payroll Data, etc. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â?? Raising Venture Capital.

Software Review

Software Review Technical Review Startup

StartUpRoar

The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Trending Sources

The Helsinki Spring

Nokia as “He Who Must Not Be Named” and the Helsinki Spring

The Helsinki Spring

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 20: Nayeem Hussain and Will Zell

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere Show No. 17: Tiffani Bell and Clay Hebert

Amsterdam’s Rockstart Accelerator Sees Good First Year, Announces 2nd Edition

Teaching Entrepreneurship – Logistics

Zhongguancun in Beijing – China’s Silicon Valley (Part 4 of 5)

The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part X: Stanford Crosses the.

China’s Torch Program – the glow that can light the world (Part 2 of 5)

How Scientists and Engineers Got It Right, and VC’s Got It Wrong

Zhongguancun in Beijing – China’s Silicon Valley (Part 4 of 5)

Intel Disrupted: Why large companies find it difficult to innovate, and what they can do about it

Lessons Learned: About the author

SuperMac War Story 5: Strategy versus Relentless Tactical.

China’s Torch Program – the glow that can light the world (Part 2 of 5)

The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II.

Preparing for Chaos – the Life of a Startup « Steve Blank

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere show No. 4: David Lerner and Gary Marcus

Founder First Principles?—?Creating Expa Labs

Top 40 Startup Posts for August 2010

Burnout « Steve Blank

The Curse of a New Building « Steve Blank

Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves « Steve Blank

Your Product Needs to be 10x Better than the Competition to Win. Here’s Why:

Story Behind “The Secret History” Part IV: Library Hours at an.

From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.

Rocks in the Rocket Science Lobby « Steve Blank

The Sharp End of the Stick « Steve Blank

The Secret History of Silicon Valley 12: The Rise of “Risk Capital.

Startup Tools

Startup Resources

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