Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. With a few more questions I learned that the code base, which had now grown large, still had vestiges of the original exploratory code written back in the early days when the company was in the discovery phase of Customer Development.

Part-Time VPE 319

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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. And some of their best and brightest have ended up in the organizations like the 2nd Bureau, Unit 61398 tasked euphemistically for “Computer Network Operations.”.

China 324

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David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

Best Practices in Venture Capital Portfolio Company Value Creation. Lowering that failure rate would be highly impactful on venture capitalist returns, if we could figure out how to do it. Venture capitalists are financiers of a special nature. I’ve also posted this at Betabeat.).

Portfolio 144

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ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

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." 9-to-5 Venture Capital. Yet Tekes does that and is trying to act like a government-run Venture Capital firm.

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Oh, and we had no installed customer base. I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. In reality we hadn’t gotten any closer to our goal than the day we hired him. We had accomplished nothing – zero, zilch, nada.

Silicon Valley 327

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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. And some of their best and brightest have ended up in the organizations like the 2nd Bureau, Unit 61398 tasked euphemistically for “Computer Network Operations.”.

China 216

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 216

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

While the last post was titled “ You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job “, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.&# These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types.

Engineer 205

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 139

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. The manager of the training department who hired you wasn’t authorized to do so – and he’s been fired. Could I work here if he wanted to hire me?&#

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Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. Companies specializing in components and systems that operated in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum sprouted faster than fruit trees in the valley orchards. Why was it occurring here?

Silicon Valley 279

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David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve seen a range of options for supporting entrepreneurs, which I can rank from least to most involvement in companies by investors: financier VCs, e.g., Correlation Ventures. portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Electron-based Venture Capital. Here’s why.

Lean 260

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

In our case, we’re local in over 200 countries with operations in basically every city on the planet. in developing these new models. We believe that using the customer development process to monetize these assets through new business models can create huge competitive advantage and more speed to market for us and other big companies.

Lean 327

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Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

It wasn’t until I found the extremely obscure Lanchester Strategy for market share that I realized that these ratios had their basis in operations research and the Lanchester’s Laws.) Our company’s graphics boards were designed to speed up a key part of the Macintosh graphics operating system called QuickDraw.

Silicon Valley 144

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

But what I wanted was an agile marketing team capable of operating independently without day-to-day direction. We hired union laborers to do that. I hired a Director of Product Marketing who in his last company had ran its marketing and then went out into the field and became its national sales director.

Silicon Valley 263

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Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. Reply Jerry Ji , on May 15, 2009 at 4:56 pm Said: When my startup starts hiring, I’ll make “The Four Steps to the Epiphany&# a prerequisite reading for every interviewer. Lessons Learned N ew buildings are a distraction.

Silicon Valley 212

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Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. If you don’t yet have a team yet, list the roles you need to hire for. venture capital. Seek out venture capital funding. Funding Guide.

Software Review 74

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Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. There was no repeatable methodology, startups and their VC’s still operated like startups were simply a smaller version of a large company. Carpe Diem.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. find/hire freelancers. hire low-cost international engineering talent. VWorker -Â find/hire freelancers. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â??

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Prior, he was a senior manager at Genentech in operations and project management. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Prior, he was a senior manager at Genentech in operations and project management. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

But a series of Zen-like moments helped me move to a different level that changed how I operated. Reply Customer Development Gut Checks « Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on April 28, 2009 at 11:38 am Said: [.] Ownership and Teamwork not turf. Or simply wishful thinking? .&#

Silicon Valley 120

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. In my last post, I mentioned that you should strive to hire people with the right kind of ambition. The Dry Run.

Startup 191

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Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

Having started and sold 3 successful bootstrapped businesses, and am now running 1 venture capital backed business ( Coach ), this is a topic I know a thing or two about. I would have continued to scrape by with a product that was conceptually on point, but didn’t have the bells and whistles that customers expect nowadays.

Bootstrapping 63

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Every marketing communication hire couldn’t wait to produce the next great ad or PR program. In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. In my experience, every marketer with an MBA wants to “do strategy.”

Silicon Valley 127

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Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2009

Now the Soviets had first hand knowledge of how their air defense systems would work against the nuclear armed B-52G and H models in an operational environment. All as an integral part of the Strategic Integrated Operating Plan – our war-fighting plan to destroy the Soviet Union. 23 to Ann Arbor when the leaves turned in the fall.

Silicon Valley 202

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. We’ll update this post with links to his further installments. No phone system.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84