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.

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Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

We’re now in the second Internet bubble. Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. Carpe Diem.

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Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

It took me 8 startups and 21 years to get it right, (and one can argue success was due to the Internet bubble rather then any brilliance.) No internet, no blogs, no books on startups, no entrepreneurship departments in universities, etc. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot.

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Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. China Venture Capital. venture capitalists invested $26.5

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Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

It ultimately failed because she was focused on engineering the product, but didn’t validate the rest of her business model (product/market fit, distribution channel, customer acquisition, etc.). Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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. His enthusiastic response was, “This will revolutionize marketing departments!”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. China Venture Capital. venture capitalists invested $26.5

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”. They envisioned that their tiny startup was to going to be a $100 million/year company by creating an entirely new market – selling virtual goods. A scalable startup typically requires external “risk&# capital to create market demand and scale.

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Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.) I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.” It would be the company where I actually earned the title.

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. Metrics – Mine is Bigger Than Yours The first thing SuperMac needed to do was to change how our potential color desktop publishing customers viewed our products versus our competitors’ products.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Little Indians and Big Indians At MIPS Computers , my second semiconductor company, I was the VP of Marketing and defacto head of Sales. I was just in marketing.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime , the first multimedia framework for a computer. At the time no one (including Apple) knew exactly what consumers were going to do with multimedia, it was still pre-Internet. We sold 50,000 Video Spigots in six months. (As

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Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. In the age of the Internet why do we need to get together in one room on a fixed schedule?

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. In the age of the Internet why do we need to get together in one room on a fixed schedule?

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. I got my start programming on an old IBM XT; it was thanks to MUDs that I first discovered the internet. So much for timing. Take a look and let me know what you think.

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San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

VC Cafe

JULY 26, 2020

“After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. Ditch the business plan and when assumptions are proven wrong, pivot Customer Development: Build a product your customers want (vs. Agile Development: launch an MVP early and iterate quickly. Capital resources alone don’t do the trick.

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Lean Seed Capital Startup Burn Rate 214

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Is there a junior or senior developer from a previous gig who will respect you for a previous role and be ready to build their own baby with you? So, while you’re slaving away on your customer development while keeping an eye out for your technical match, you could do worse than read Paul Graham’s 2007 essay, How not to die.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development. internet/consumer software companies. Truth: The Lean Startup methodology applies to all companies that face uncertainty about what customers will want.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

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. None of mine did.)

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Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Now, helping potential customers discover new things they might like is the job of the discipline of marketing. But that job is changing dramatically, and this brings us to the next major problem facing traditional media organizations: Media companies are failing at marketing. There are too many products clamoring for attention.

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San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phrase “Speaking to the Big Dogs” might end up as his corporate brand. And that he might want to think about aligning all his video and Internet products under that name. How big are your Mexican and Spanish markets,” I asked? Customer Development.)

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 176

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology that helps startups optimize their chances for success while reducing risk. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Silicon Valley, New York).

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Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Build your own Startup Death Clock - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , November 1, 2010 A few months ago I created a fun device at WPEngine to focus everyone's attention the most important thing. Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

This is of course, pre-Internet. It wasn’t like chess taught me how to think multiple layers deep, it was actually that it was a closed system of knowledge, kind of like investment banking or venture capital or startups that once you got in the club someone would actually teach you. The whole market could change. …

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Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

These posts cover two distinct periods – the first, the rise of “ Microwave Valley ” chronicles the decade of 1946-1956 as Stanford University became the hub of military/industry contracting in the Bay Area. If you want to refer to PVO by name, call it just PVO (acronym for “Air Defense&# in Russian). Reply Nelson A.

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Silicon Valley RSS Europe Germany 153

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

Home About Contact My thoughts & lessons learned on startups, entrepreneurship, marketing and other stuff. Venture capital firms like to see CEOs with strong support (beyond the Board of Directors) and that’s what the Advisory Board is there to do. I can’t picture what kind of advisory board they would select.

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Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross , one of the Internet’s true pioneers. He took out an ad in the Yellow Pages (it was the early 80′s, pre Internet), which cost him $1,000 / month for a half-page ad. If it worked in the Yellow Pages, why not on the Internet? Cars Direct / Internet Brands.

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Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Rob Go

JULY 16, 2012

What many of the insights around Customer Development have been really impactful to my thinking, there is something that has always bothered me as the “Lean Startup Movement” has gotten more and more formulaic. Getting “traction” proves product market fit. The table of contents are right here.

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Lean Framework Venture Capital Valuation 47

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

While I was waiting in the lobby to pick up my offer letter, the head of marketing communications (who was to be one of my direct reports) came up to me as I held my just signed employment agreement. OK, let’s start with the basics, who does marketing think our customers are?”

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Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy. The Digital Dream Team Way before the Internet phenomenon, we had created “Rocket Science the brand ” that was much bigger in size and importance than Rocket Science the company.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

Sigh… What I should have been hearing is the search for the business model, specifically the progress on product/market fit, but I hear the fund raising story first at least 90% of the time. Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers?

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Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 333

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

So bowing to popular demand the 2009 blog posts are now available on Amazon on a portable device which provides instant and random access to any post and does not require power or an internet connection. After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

The company was founded to build games with embedded video to bring Hollywood stories, characters, and narratives to a market where “shoot and die” twitch games were in vogue. But underlying the company’s existence was a fundamental hypothesis we refused to see or test - customers would care if we did. They think we’re brilliant.

Silicon Valley 207

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Anybody with a sense of how the Internet works should have known that they couldn’t commit such open fraud on this scale and expect to get away with it. Too often people abandon their ethics because “hey the other guys is doing it, I have to to do it to compete.&# I’m not buying it… literally.

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Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184