Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

Reading lists are dime a dozen, but reading lists that focus on rapid-growth startup businesses? It’s the ultimate startup guide if you’re looking for systematic business growth and guidance on what not to do. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

I suggested that they first might want to read my post on why business plans are a poor planning and execution tool for startups. Where did the idea that startups write business plans come from? A startup is not executing a series of knowns. Instead of business plans I have suggested that startups use business models.

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

The Times Square Strategy discussion I had with Eric Ries , was still top of mind, so instead of my standard Customer Development lecture , I offered my thoughts on: the origin of Customer Development, where we are today, and where does Customer Development go, and how you can help get it there.

Customer Development 212

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 212

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. I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. 9-to-5 Venture Capital.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Venture Capital Issues. In the U.S.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

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.”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, and Tokyo, but the visit to the heart of the Beijing startup world Zhongguancun has truly blown me away. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

China 315

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 315

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.”

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. What’s been missing for everyone is: a common language for investors to communicate objectives to startups. Here’s John’s story.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. How can you tell if your startup has the potential to be the next Google, Intel or Facebook? A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

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. The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

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. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, and Tokyo, but the visit to the heart of the Beijing startup world Zhongguancun has truly blown me away. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

China 207

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 207

Steve Blank

JUNE 23, 2016

Disruptive innovations are coming from startups – Telsa for automobiles, Uber for taxis, Airbnb for hotel rentals, Netflix for video rentals and Facebook for media. Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. Startups are unencumbered by the status quo.

Architecture 227

Architecture IRR Balance Sheet Liquidity Event 227

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

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.

Silicon Valley 231

Silicon Valley Europe Venture Capital Incubator 231

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.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. The motivation in the mid 1950’s for these new startups was a crisis – we were in the midst of the cold war , and the United States military and intelligence agencies were rearming as fast as they could.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

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. The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

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. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

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.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

The role of a founding CEO in a startup searching for a business model is radically different than a CEO building and growing a company. So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

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. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 6, 2014

Yesterday I wrote about how building a startup is increasingly an exercise in disciplined application of process. I’m thinking now that the venture capital could be similarly broken down into checklists and good process. Apple Startup general interest Venture Capital'

Product 84

Product Venture Capital Lean Finance 84

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

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

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. 1% is just not a lot.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

The upshot of all of this is that today’s startups can concentrate maximum time and resources addressing the problems they set out to solve. Just last week, start-up supremo Naval Ravikant of AngelList wrote how the “oversupply” of founders starting companies is making it harder to hire for the average startup. Rob Carter on finance.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. Jon Feiber of Mohr Davidow Ventures and Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate are co-teaching the class with me (and Alexander Osterwalder is a guest lecturer.) In contrast, startups search for a business model. (Or

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

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 ?

Technical Review 175

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. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

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.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

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.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” We witness similar behavior in corporate finance.

Silicon Valley 247

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 247

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. In these series of 5 posts, I thought I’d share what I learned in China.

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

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. Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120