Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary. Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.”

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Finland Naming Russia Government 324

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

I wrote the post below for Crowdcube , one of the UK’s leading equity crowdfuding sites. Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. The second development is SEIS and EIS. It went up on their blog yesterday. _.

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. This left an open playing field for Chinese software startups as they “copy to China” existing U.S. If you’re a software startup competing in China, the words that come to mind are “ruthless and relentless.”

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China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. So why would you treat your debt investors (somewhat) like equity investors?

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Home About Contact My thoughts & lessons learned on startups, entrepreneurship, marketing and other stuff. Changing Equity Structures for Early Startup Employees Tweet Recently someone asked me for advice on how much equity they should give to their early employees. 1% is just not a lot. 1% is actually worth something!)

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

You don’t even need to do anything and we’ll give you equity. You see, the demand for “startup advisors” were going through a little bit of a boomlet. Anyhow, fast-forward to 2021 and it almost feels like startup advisor roles have fallen a bit out of fashion as everyone scrambles to be an angel investor, a scout or solo capitalist.

Advisory Board 150

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 150

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. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Startups in Bend.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

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. What’s Next for These Teams?

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 3, 2014

When I started with Forward Partners I went out to speak with a bunch of our target customers, entrepreneurs, and I learned a bunch of stuff which helped shape our strategy of empowering great entrepreneurs with minority stake investments and real-world useful help – but I’d have learned much more if I’d read this book first.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Hosting 94

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Home About Contact Me How To Make It as a First-Time Entrepreneur Vinicius Vacanti Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder September 7, 2010 | View Comments Steve Job's Technical Co-Founder “I’ve got this HUGE idea. I just need to find a technical co-founder.&# So, why should they pick you? Have Experience.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Free: Startup Tools. If you’re building a startup, the Startup Tools tab on the top of this page has curated links to hundreds of startup resources. Specific links are: A list of startup tools is here. Market research tools to help you figure out the size of the opportunity your startup is pursuing, are here.

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Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

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Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, May 14, 2009 The Lean Startup Workshop - now an OReilly Master Class My rate of posting has been much lower lately, and this is mostly due to preparations for the upcoming Lean Startup Workshop on May 29. I have a lot of good news to report on this front. You can click here to learn more.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. The reality is that the United States is still a nation of small businesses.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. It’s time to ask why startup board governance has failed to keep pace with innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Founders operate in a chaotic regime.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

Home About Contact My thoughts & lessons learned on startups, entrepreneurship, marketing and other stuff. The Importance of Advisory Boards for Startup CEOs Tweet When a startup receives financing it will need to setup a Board of Directors. The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

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

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The Lean Launchpad® for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH ) uses the Lean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model. understand who their core and tertiary customers are, and the sales and marketing process required for initial clinical sales and downstream commercialization.

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

At different times over the last year or so I’ve been writing about combining design thinking with the lean startup and the importance of doing great customer development , and it has just come home to me that the underlying point of it all is to add customer empathy to the lean start up process.

Lean 128

Lean Startup Customer Development Design 128

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 5, 2010 The Lean Startup Bundle People often ask me if they can buy "Lean Startup in a box" from me. Its a strange thing, to be asked by a potential customer if they can give you copious amounts of money, and then to have to refuse. And theres so much more.

Lean 153

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 153

rob.by

MARCH 8, 2012

He begins by explaining how he arrived at his conclusion: I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder – a software engineer who works for no cash – to help me build my dream website. Twelve months into my startup journey I had four half-built websites that had been built by my four ex-technical co-founders.

Technical Cofounder 42

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Engineering Fractional CTO 42

The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 17, 2012

Outsourcing your startup’s early technical development to a dev shop is like riding an elephant in a horseback polo match. With the surge in demand for technical co-founders, many startups have no choice but to contract with dev shops to build their idea. A dev shop is never a substitute for a technical co-founder.

Cofounder 92

Cofounder Vesting Equity Agile 92

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Posted on December 3, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups I’ve had my ideas “stolen” twice. Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working on. Once it almost mattered.

Silicon Valley 149

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 149

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. equity debate.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

Matt Weingart, program development manager in the Strategic Development Office at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino , founders of Learning Entrepreneur’s Lab in Japan. The focus of our first segment is how Silicon Valley and the U.S.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

Don’t listen to customers, develop your products in secret and make every decision yourself. But it won’t work for your startup because you’re not Steve Jobs. Erli Bird is a website where beta users can discover new startups, try their products and give feedback. This approach worked for Steve Jobs. He was rejected.

Startup 60

Startup Cofounder Social Media Social Network 60

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. but: Something is Still Missing.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. Gary Marcus , one of the country’s best-known cognitive psychologists, is a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU and founder of Geometric Intelligence. The stuff founders are made of. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Not surprisingly, the list above also is ranked from least to most equity stake in an investment for the investor, relative to the cash they invest. What are the terms of their relationship with the founder? How would one set up such a startup to eventually raise capital from outside VCs, who will be wary of ‘dead equity’ (i.e.,

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

As a startup in 2017, having limited resources can in and of itself sink your entire ship. When I first started building Coach, I invested $30k of my own money to get a prototype working and acquire our first half dozen customers, but I (and the contract developer who I was working with) were spread too thin.

Bootstrapping 63

Bootstrapping Cap Table Liquidation Preference Cofounder 63

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2018

Twenty years ago there were precious few resources available for founders and most either had to find an advisor who had done it before or rely on trial and error. That increased the power of the network effects at the heart of startup hubs where it was easier to find those conversations – especially Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley Framework Lean Founder 68

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 1, 2014

We have been interviewing lots of solo founders recently as we look to deepen our understanding of one of our key customer segments. Interestingly, everyone had read The Lean Startup and professed to follow it’s guidance, although many did things that we would not regard as lean. Startup general interest'

Lean 102

Lean Customer Development Networking Founder 102

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

These are with no doubt worthwhile goals, but I’d like to pose an important challenge for founders: Make learning and development your key resolution in 2013. I’ve gathered a comprehensive list of resources for startup learning. Startup Hiring : How to attract, hire and retain the best people. Let’s get started!

Artificial Inteligence 156

Artificial Inteligence Founder Private Equity Ruby 156

The Equity Kicker

JULY 29, 2013

I just read a great post on Quora which contends that every startup needs a great product picker – i.e. a person with a Steve Jobs like ability to know what customers want and what is going to make a product successful. Enough customers who will pay enough to make this a large market. Forward Startup general interest'

Product 108

Product Cofounder Lean Distribution 108

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, October 30, 2008 John Doerrs 10 lean startup tips I just saw video of John Doerrs talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn&# roundtable event. Offer equity instead of cash. Over-communicate with employees, investors, customers.

Lean 121

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 2, 2014

(Our other category of investment is ‘idea stage’, often with solo-founders.). We got to know David Gildeh, the CEO and one of three co-founders, around this time last year. At that time he was talking about infrastructure monitoring, doing customer development work but had yet to start the company.

Cofounder 95

Cofounder Continuous Deployment Seed Stage Cloud 95

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 13, 2014

On Tuesday night Michael Breidenbruecker , founder of Last.fm, RJDJ and all round nice guy gave a talk for around 50 of our friends and portfolio company staff (thanks again Michael). In his new startup Michael is rigorously applying lean principles. Forward Startup general interest Uncategorized'

Lean 122

Lean Portfolio Design Customer Development 122