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.”

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

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. This extends to sharing among startups.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. What I found in Finland was: a whole lot of smart, passionate entrepreneurs who want to build a startup hub in Helsinki. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Most of my research is also relevant to private equity. Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . See How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood. . 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Most of my research is also relevant to private equity. Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . See How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood. . 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

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. the better the startup will be.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

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. Startup general interest'

Early Stage 119

Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

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

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

MARCH 4, 2014

In the last few years we’ve recognized that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. We’re now learning that companies are not larger versions of startups. But paradoxically, in spite of all their seemingly endless resources, innovation inside of an existing company is much harder than inside a startup.

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

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.

Customer Development 94

Customer Development Developer Customer Hosting 94

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

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

3) invest in and take equity stakes in exchange for capital. Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability.

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

In addition, in light of increasing competition in the startup funding space, a methodology for helping portfolio companies consistently is a strong competitive advantage. So how can VCs help their startups? Lowering that failure rate would be highly impactful on venture capitalist returns, if we could figure out how to do it.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

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.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. 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 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

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

David Teten

APRIL 8, 2013

My coauthors and I just published in the Journal of Private Equity the first-ever research study on best practices of venture capitalists in creating portfolio company value through operational support, exploring exactly these questions. Some $246b of private equity was invested globally in 2011, vs. VC at around $20b a year.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Hungary IRR Venture Capital 114

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

APRIL 12, 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. The first wave of startups began when R&D centers and universities began to provide the technology and seed capital for new startups that were spin-outs or spin-offs. All the usual caveats apply.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

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

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.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

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

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. This is typically done with a small piece of equity. Expectations.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

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. It’s time for a change. Here’s how.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2013

The program pays scientists $50,000 to attend the program and takes no equity. The NSF I-Corps uses everything we know about building Lean Startups and Evidence-based Entrepreneurship to connect innovation to entrepreneurship. Currently there are 11 U.S.

Lean 262

Lean Washington Incubator Agile 262

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

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

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 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. The first wave of startups began when R&D centers and universities began to provide the technology and seed capital for new startups that were spin-outs or spin-offs. All the usual caveats apply.

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

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. In the end, the CEO couldn’t get his board to give us the cash in exchange for the Japanese distribution rights and some equity. Once it almost mattered. This is about the time it didn’t. We ended up raising money from Sega.

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

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

JULY 2, 2015

. — — — — In this second segment, Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino talk about how they brought the Lean Startup to Japan. Takashi Tsutsumi has been a venture capitalist 15 years incubating and investing in startups in Japan. Today they are helping large companies in Japan relearn how to innovate at speed.

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

The Equity Kicker

MAY 12, 2015

I just read two articles which beautifully illustrate the brilliance and challenges with the Lean Startup methodology. In conversations with customers they discovered that was a bad idea, but also learned that farmers have a problem with weeding fields of carrots. Their first idea was an autonomous lawn mower. I agree with this.

Lean 60

Lean Startup Flash Customer Development 60