Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

The Customer Development process is the way startups quickly iterate and test each element of their business model , reducing customer and market risk. The first step of Customer Development is called Customer Discovery. outside the building and test them in front of customers.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. The country needs to figure out a long term privatization strategy for Venture investing. Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. A business model competition would emulate the “out of the building” experience of real entrepreneurs executing the customer development / business model / agile stack. Utah: Entrepreneurial Surprises.

Business Model 275

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 275

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. That died with waterfall software development. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Understanding the left-side of the mission model canvas ( activities, resources , partners , and costs) forces all teams to ask, “Are we building a product for a DOD/IC customer only or do we have a “dual-use” product that could be sold commercially and get funded by venture capital?”. Team Presentations: Weeks 8 and 9.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2010

Thirty plus years ago when I came to Silicon Valley Asian’s and Indian’s in high technology were a small minority and almost none were running companies or in venture capital. I’ve written and presented a bit on this subject.). Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 219

Silicon Valley Venture Capital China New York 219

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. After 7 weeks they returned to Silicon Valley for their final presentations.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

The cycle of creative destruction of the old being replaced by the new continues, fueled by angel and venture capital. How has the market/technology/customers evolved? Once you have a grasp of the past you can realize it’s just a preamble to the present. What’s your unique insight? What do all these changes mean?

Bandwidth 281

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 281

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

A business plan is the execution document that large companies write when planning product-line extensions where customer, market and product features are known. Each team would be judged by their business model presentation on these five steps. There are now examples of business model presentations on the web.

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

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

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.)

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

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

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. A FB ad targeted at one person (my wife) - Gabriel Weinberg , May 14, 2010 The other day I gave a presentation with Steve Welch on the use of social media in politics. Tesla is not.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. If you’ve never seen Eric’s Lean Startup presentation, take a few minutes to at least watch his part. alancommike , on May 2, 2009 at 11:59 am Said: I’m glad the the presentation was recorded. steve Customer Development is Hard.

Customer Development 139

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 139

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

Best Practices in Venture Capital Portfolio Company Value Creation. View more presentations from David Teten. Lowering that failure rate would be highly impactful on venture capitalist returns, if we could figure out how to do it. I’ve also posted this at Betabeat.).

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

I use the Investment Readiness Level as part of my sessions to help the students understand that being ready for investment means that besides having a pretty PowerPoint, they need to do real work and show Customer Development progress. Since I began incorporating the Investment Readiness Level framework I’ve made three observations.

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

Berkeley Haas Business School was courageous enough to give me a forum teach the Customer Development Methodology. And since there was no Venture Capital in the 1950′s/’60′s where was the money coming from? After I retired, Jerry Engel , director of the Lester Center on Entrepreneurship , at U.C.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

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. He continued: “I’d like to convince my boss so our company can be your first customer.”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

This being presented to another company’s proud engineering team who was being forced to buy product from us because they couldn’t build their own in time.) After I sat down I was convinced the only logical conclusion was for the customer to tell us how many they wanted to buy. The result wasn’t what I expected. Help them?!!

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Ann who had been my Teaching Assistant while she had finished her PhD at Stanford felt the same frustration about teaching entrepreneurs to assemble a business plan that we knew in the real world wouldn’t survive first contact with customers. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Thinking he was impressed with my mastery of the subject as well as my brilliant observation, I repeated myself and embellished my initial observation with all the additional reasons why I thought our customers would want this feature. Picture the scene: the entire company (all 15 of us) are present. Getting out of the building.

Silicon Valley 271

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 271

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

Silicon Valley 137

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 137

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

I finally understood how valuable these contests can be for students in cities or countries without a venture capital or entrepreneurial infrastructure. And even if they did – customers don’t ask to see your business plan. to compete.

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2011

Students ; presented to entrepreneurship classes teaching technology-driven Scalable startups as well as students interested in Social Entrepreneurship. Venture Capital ; met with the local hardware/software venture capital firm. You Can’t Start a Fire Without A Spark – A Lack of Venture Capital.

Michigan 307

Michigan Silicon Valley Venture Capital Incubator 307

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

When venture capital teamed up with technology entrepreneurs in the 1960’s they brought with them the canonical MBA planning tool – the business plan. Business Plan vs. Business Model + Customer Development. But you can’t fake a business model/customer development presentation. The Business Plan ?-

Business Model 263

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 14, 2013

“The results of programs like 500 Startups, Techstars, and Y-Combinator are well known, but due to the culture here in Europe there’s still a lot of unknowns in terms of the track record for follow on funding and results of accelerator programs based in Europe,” says Don Ritzen, co-founder and CEO of Rockstart Accelerator.

Silicon Valley 231

Silicon Valley Europe Venture Capital Incubator 231

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Now with customers and early revenue, it was out raising its first round of venture money. Not only did their sales curve look like a textbook case of a VC-friendly hockey stick, but their Lessons Learned funding presentation was an eye-opener.). Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

JULY 6, 2010

My summer has circled around serendipity and three presentations I’ve given. Instead of ghost stories they were the first to hear the ideas of what would become Customer Development. One of those students, Shawn Carolan , is now a partner at Menlo Ventures. Full Circle from Yosemite. Fast forward to today.

Venture Capital 175

Venture Capital Agile Customer Development 175

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect. 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. It was fun watching it happen.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

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. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Silicon Valley 305

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Videos/presentations. Customer service. Presentation tools. simple way to make timelines for presentations. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. About VC Cafe. Seed Startups.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He presented the idea at the TED conference in the mid 90′s and was literally boo’d while he was on stage. Funny story, after Bill presented at TED (back when Amazon was still a small company) Jeff Bezos was in the audience. All of that are in this week’s episode of This Week in VC. Overture (Goto.com).

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350