Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

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. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 223

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 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. But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. All the usual caveats apply.

Silicon Valley 161

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 161

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

But then, because there might be entrenched competitors and your concept is radically new, you still need to invest in the customer development process to learn how to get design wins from companies who may be happy with their existing vendors. We’ll talk about how to reduce risk in each type of market in the next post.

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Perhaps if you have a union job based on seniority, but not in any startup I’ve ever seen. Entrepreneurs are fearless, persistent and uninhibited about asking – whether it’s asking to assemble a team, get financing, sell customers, etc. For entrepreneurs good things come to those who ask.

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Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 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. Summary: I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years, I’ve taught in entrepreneurial clusters in New York, Boston, Helsinki, Santiago Chile, St. My post about Japan will follow. Beijing is already there.

China 317

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 317

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2010

Everyone knows what a startup is for – don’t they? In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. In your startup’s business model, the boxes will have specific details of your company’s strategy.

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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. Of the ten startups in the inaugural 2012 class, four have raised follow-on funding to date, and one even reached the break-even point and expanded to Silicon Valley.

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Silicon Valley Europe Venture Capital Incubator 231

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.

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Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 272

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. It might be its most important.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 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. Summary: I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years, I’ve taught in entrepreneurial clusters in New York, Boston, Helsinki, Santiago Chile, St. My post about Japan will follow. Beijing is already there.

China 209

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 209

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Where did Silicon Valley come from? Those of us who have had the privilege of working in the premier startup hub in the world often take its advantages for granted. You might be wondering: who were those brilliant people who made the key decisions to mold Silicon Valley?

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Silicon Valley, New York). What’s Wrong With Today’s Board Meetings. Here’s how.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Silicon Valley, New York). What’s Wrong With Today’s Board Meetings. Here’s how.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

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.

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Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 164

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture means that others will help when you’re starting up. Yet this same network of connected people affects who gets funded, how startup teams form, and who gets hired. . The features didn’t match what ultimately the customers would buy or wanted.

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Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

So without further delay: Large Tech Meetups: Web Innovators Group : Quarterly Demo-Style meetup in Cambridge draws over 1000 members of the startup community each time. Online Resources and Newsletters: Bostinno : Great coverage of local startup happenings with a growing network of local writers. HBS Startup Tribe.

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Boston Technical Review Community Cofounder 71

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 123

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.

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San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

By getting out of the building on a team project, the class helped students viscerally understand that a startup is a search for a profitable business model. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model. Guest Speakers.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Customer Development Engineer 127

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. The guy who replaced him invented the idea of the modern corporation. Understanding the future of entrepreneurship may depend on understanding the contribution each of them made in the past.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” So I gave my “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley ” talk as the keynote to the CIA’s venture capital conference. Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America?

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Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 253

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the startup, it's time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven't changed since the early 1900's. Silicon Valley, New York). Here's how. Why Have a Board Meeting?

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Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. Most startups fail. The most common mistake startups make is assuming they can operate the same way big companies do, and expect success with little to no feedback from potential customers. This is a customer development problem.

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Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 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. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

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Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 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. Of all the Chinese government programs, the Torch Program is the one program that kick-started Chinese high-tech innovation and startups. It has become China’s Silicon Valley.

Programming 280

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 280

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

It’s why all of you operated so well in the unpredictable environment that all startups face.” What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. I couldn’t figure out if I was more perturbed about how casual the comment was or how insightful it was.

Founder 302

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 302

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 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. the FEC deals with campaign finance information, regulating and disclosing all that information. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Small Business Administration 120

Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

It follows the journeys of innovators sharing what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. Want to be a guest on the show?

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

It follows the journeys of innovators sharing what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Switching from venture capital to startup founder required a different mindset, Ajay said: All day in a VC firm, you’re saying ‘no’. Want to be a guest on the show?

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea.

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Well, it turns out that to port long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. The long tail apps can easily be ported to or developed on Google App Engine in a third of the time and cost using OrangeScape as an application platform. Enter OrangeScape.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 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. Of all the Chinese government programs, the Torch Program is the one program that kick-started Chinese high-tech innovation and startups. It has become China’s Silicon Valley.

Programming 172

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 172

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

This week, the startup tribe from Harvard Business School is making their annual trek to Silicon Valley. They’ll hear from a variety of experts and get to see many startups firsthand. It’s a common refrain around Silicon Valley to disparage the role of MBA’s in entrepreneurship.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167