Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Sea Turtles and VPN – the connections to the rest of the world. Almost every entrepreneur I met was using VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

A key lesson is that as an entrepreneur, you get to choose your segment. I like to talk about the fact that choosing your segment determines how you will reach your customer, what you will to say to them, and what the sales process will look like (since it depends on the buyer’s process). Glad to see you blogging!

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

If that’s you, by all means hire a VP of Sales with a great rolodex and call on established mainstream companies – and ignore the rest of this post. Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

While finding product-market fit is important, getting the rest of the business model right is the difference between and a great demo and a great business. We did a lot of talking to customers, trying to understand who really had the need. That helped us develop a product. . Do we hire 50 sales people? Grant Warner.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder DC Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. 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.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 145

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 2, 2010

Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Five Whys for Start-Ups. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much?

Technical Review 132

Technical Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 132

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

It was an educational mission to tell the story of who our customers were (and by inference who all the graphics board customers were) and why the current reviews of these graphics boards weren’t adequately measuring what was important to this large market. Theoretically, that’s why I hired them.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 25, 2010

Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? Read the rest of The Startups Rules of Speed - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

Software Review 141

Software Review San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 141

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. 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.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 31, 2010

You can read the rest of his posts on his blog : Introduction , Part 1 , Part 2.) When I first encountered customer development , it was considered pure lunacy by mainstream entrepreneurs and VCs. Most of all, I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you: readers, entrepreneurs, agents of change.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 133

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 7, 2010

My explicit goal in working with HBR is to foster a dialog between entrepreneurs and more traditional general managers. As an entrepreneur, I often saw the best practices of general management fail startups. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review. Read the rest at The Conversation - Harvard Business Review.

San Francisco 119

San Francisco Management Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

If you cant find any , maybe that means you havent figured out who your customer is yet. And if you dont know who your customer is, perhaps some customer development is in order? Labels: customer development , search engine marketing 13comments: Jim Lindstrom said. What is customer development?

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

but rest assured they would be. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. Lean Startup Circle - a mailing list of dedicated and helpful entrepreneurs. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 125

San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

So if youre new, consider not paying any attention to the rest of this post, and just diving into the archives, if you havent already. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. hey eric, love the blog.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

A discounted price is available for early stage entrepreneurs and students. In 2002 I became exposed to the idea of “agile software development&# and subsequently was a first round investor in Rally Software which is now the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management software. Read the rest.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. So I met the entrepreneur and asked him how his search for a business model was going. We’re in Customer Validation but we can’t seem to close a deal.” Hmm, I asked, “Can you go back to the beginning and tell me about your Customer Discovery process?

Founder 199

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2009

For the rest of us, there is an alternative: to create credibility by building a lean startup. Here in Tampa, our biggest challenge is convincing the regions technology "leadership" that grassroots economic development is a good thing. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Tampa Continuous Deployment Lean 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Previous experience of investing in software companies that hire direct sales organizations and take years to build the product using waterfall development doesn’t translate to expertise in Consumer Internet startups. The test is, ask them how they differ in their investing philosophy from the rest of their firm.). Lean Angels.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha. What is customer development? Lean Startup Circle - a mailing list of dedicated and helpful entrepreneurs. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2008

I met one recently that is working on a really innovative product, and the stories I heard from their development team made me want to cringe. The product manager was clearly struggling to get results from the rest of the team. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 158

San Francisco Management Software Review Product 158

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. Managing weekly releases got a lot harder once I started doing customer development.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Heres what I do know: The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs. (If If you are somehow not convinced of this point, Ill let Fareed Zakaria explain ) We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. Nerds are not entrepreneurs. They are nerds.

Programming 143

Programming San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 143

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Ernest Hemingway One of an entrepreneur’s greatest strengths is their relentless pursuit of a goal. Watching others try to solve problems reminded me why entrepreneurs are different. Oh, and we had no installed customer base. The rest of the progress report sounded just like this. Me: How are we doing on the Nastran port?

Silicon Valley 324

Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 324

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

Heres my favorite part: If youve got a team, part of the team should obsess about the backlist, honing it, editing it and promoting it, while the rest work to generate (as opposed to promote) the frontlist. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Bring your questions.

San Francisco 76

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

At IMVU, we would occasionally hire someone from a more traditional organization who had a hard time letting go of their “best practices&# and habits. This cycle repeats for a while, until the team either catches up to all the conflicts or just asks the rest of the team for a general check-in freeze. So new conflicts appear.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Seed-stage investors are learning the metrics of traction, and are getting better at identifying those companies that are really achieving validated learning about customers. Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

Our president picked up on the momentum and asked me what I needed from the rest of the exec team to fix this debacle. I replied: “This is really important for our success as company and I’m really at a loss why customers didn’t respond the way we expected. It was so out of character, people were shocked.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. Look for locations near entrances, food concessions, rest rooms, seminar rooms, or close to major exhibitors. Offer a free bestselling book in your industry (can you have the author there to autograph it?);

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 11, 2010

Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable Beware of Vanity Metrics Im a little late on the cross-post, but hope youll enjoy it nonetheless. Read the rest: For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? - Read the rest: For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much? - Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Ha.

San Francisco 120

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 120

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Any entrepreneur with a decent reality distortion field can find metrics that make it look like theyre being successful. Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review : The idea is simple. Read the rest of Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics at The Conversation on Harvard Business Review.

Metrics 121

Metrics San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 121

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

In a previous post , I asked readers for suggested topics that the US government needs to know about startups and entrepreneurs, and got some really interesting responses. In fact theyd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more employees as they grew. The Geeks are doing their part.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Founder DC Washington 150

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

The signals displayed by the ALR-20 were used to control the jammers of the rest of electronic countermeasures systems – putting out enormous number of kilowatts using brute force noise jamming and later on some much more sophisticated jamming techniques. And because of his training, an EWO could identify and prioritize the threats.

Silicon Valley 195

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Michigan 195

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

If you are willing, please take a moment to fill it out before proceeding with the rest of the post; itll mean less biased results, and youll have a better idea what Im talking about later. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? April 23, 2010 in San Francisco.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. They are: Fred Wilson: Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur. Often board members give entrepreneurs two bits of advice regarding scale: Get a mentor. twenty in your wallet?

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 12, 2010

All entrepreneurs face the same fundamental challenges: How do we know if we’re making progress? How do we know if customers will want the product we’re building? And, of course, for present or future entrepreneurs who are hoping to do more than punch a lottery ticket. Read the rest here. Read the rest here.

Lean 129

Lean San Francisco Web Continuous Deployment 129

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Unfortunately, after months or even years of development, many companies discover that customers arent willing to buy their new wares. Thats why some entrepreneurs are trying another approach to product launches: marketing a product online before spending much on research and development or inventory. Read the rest.

San Francisco 137

San Francisco Product Lean Continuous Deployment 137