Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. Fear of Failure.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

For example: Mitch Kapor was a founder of Lotus. As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 8, 2008 What is customer development? But too often when its time to think about customers, marketing, positioning, or PR, we delegate it to "marketroids" or "suits." Many of us are not accustomed to thinking about markets or customers in a disciplined way.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10 weeks. While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. He runs H4X Labs.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs in Beijing were knowledgeable about Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship and the state of software and tools available for two reasons. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. Fear of Failure.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Funding challenges and other issues founders face in the early days of starting up were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). Will Zell , co-founder and CEO of Nikola Labs wireless power company.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

The email continued, &# The problem I’m working on is that many founders are either making uninformed decisions or inefficiently learning the new skills they need. The solution I’m exploring is a just in time learning methodology that accelerates founders’ learning curve by aggregating relevant content, peers and mentors.&#.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Computer hardware companies were faced with their customers asking for low-cost (relatively) desktop computers they had no experience in building. Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.)

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. We were going to be guessing.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. The “customers’” contracts funded the company.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Four decades ago my first job in Silicon Valley was with ESL, the first company to combine computers and signals intelligence. The founder of this 1964 Silicon Valley startup was Bill Perry. His work at ESL made him one of the 10 founders of National Reconnaissance. The Left side of the Canvas.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Would you mind sharing them?

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

This was followed by an 8-minute slide presentation describing their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. He runs H4X Labs.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. What’s Different.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs , Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

Even its founders couldn’t quite describe it, let alone foresee what it would become. Then Ben [one of the mobile engineers on the team] suggested a concept around sticking pieces of media to friends and people in the real world. The founders lacked the positive signals investors typically look for. Twitter is confusing.

Silicon Valley 151

Silicon Valley Cofounder Stock Options Mobile 151

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

A month or two before the QuickTime public announcement in May, the SuperMac hardware engineers (who had a great relationship with the QuickTime team at Apple) started a “ skunk works ” project. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. The software was idiot proof.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

If you’re a technical startup founder, one of the painful lessons is that it’s not enough just to build a great product. You must also understand the value the product provides customers (along with the rest of your business model.). Clay Hebert , founder of Crowdfunding Hacks. Clay Hebert.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. In these markets it’s all about customer/market risk.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

I teach potential founders a hands-on, experiential class called the Lean LaunchPad at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and Caltech. customer development. agile engineering. Some general customer development slides click here. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. Secret History of Silicon Valley.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. Engineers in the very small world of silicon and semiconductors would meet at the Wagon Wheel and swap technical problems and solutions with co-workers and competitors. It's the "Pay-It-Forward" culture.

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Finland IP Networking 141

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.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

And I understood engineering since I interacted with them almost daily. I also knew our customers. And finally, I had a great working relationship with our engineers who designed the chips. I’ve built my company using the Customer Development Model from Day One. In reality it would be another 20 years.)

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

A startup founder needs to never lose sight of the vision, but be extremely adaptable to pretty much everything else. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. And realizing your vision as a founder takes equal parts determination and flexibility. Lots of people have visions.

Cofounder 274

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 274

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. One part of Silicon Valley culture that doesn’t get enough credit is the generosity of entrepreneurs and VC’s who are willing to share their time with students.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. This is one of the Silicon Valley organizations that remind you why this is a company-town whose main industry is entrepreneurship, (and a great example of an industry cluster.). In a startup they will be part of the Customer Development team.

Silicon Valley 261

Silicon Valley Management San Francisco Product 261

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Continuous Deployment 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Silicon Valley, New York). The process they use to guide their search is customer development. They would: Blog their Customer Development progress as a narrative. Victor Hugo.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Andy Cunningham , founder and CEO of Cunningham Collective. Andy came to Silicon Valley in 1983 to work for Regis McKenna and help Steve Jobs launch the Macintosh.

Washington 285

Washington Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder 285

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Our keynote speaker was Palmer Luckey , founder of Oculus and the designer of the Oculus Rift. He’s now the CEO/founder of the AI-focussed defense contractor Anduril Industries. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. Presentation Format. Team: Panacea.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

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.” As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. Its to everyones advantage to let the world think the founders thought of everything.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Founder Dialogues : Eric Paley plays talk show host on this recurring fireside chat style event that has featured Boston’s BEST founders. OnStartups: One of the largest online startup communities founded by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah. Boston Hardware Startup Meetup – Meetup organized by the founders of BOLT.

Boston 71

Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71