Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools. To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built.

Technical Review 327

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 327

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

When Netscape went public, it unleashed a frenzy from the public markets for anything related to the internet and signaled to venture investors that there were massive returns to be made investing in anything internet related. After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. Then one day it was over. IPOs dried up.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

This post is about the rise of Chinese venture capital and how it helped build the countries entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Rise of Chinese Venture Capital. This helped the startups qualify for funding from banks and venture capital firms. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools. To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built.

Technical Review 219

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 219

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Startup Accelerators: Startup Sauna and Vigo which includes Lifeline Ventures , KoppiCatch , and Veturi. Venture Capital: FVCA , NextIt Ventures , Primus Ventures , Open Ocean Capital , Connor VC , and Inventure. 9-to-5 Venture Capital. Startup Blog: Arctic Startup.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

This post is about the rise of Chinese venture capital and how it helped build the countries entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Rise of Chinese Venture Capital. This helped the startups qualify for funding from banks and venture capital firms. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

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

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. Finnish culture makes risk-taking and sharing hard.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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

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

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. And they are ready to share!

Business Model 275

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 275

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' They are the signs of a leadership frightened not by external enemies but by their own people. It usually doesn’t end well.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

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. Filed under: Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2013

Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Lean 330

Lean Venture Capital Customer Development Startup 330

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

These tools—Customer Development, Agile Engineering, and Business Model design—became the lean start-up methodology , a rigorous approach to testing hypotheses and building prototypes, and, on the basis of data and evidence, adjusting or pivoting to a variant of the original hypothesis.

Incubator 402

Incubator Lean Agile Business Model 402

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

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. And since the rest of the slides were about Customer Development, I taught those.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

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.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Congratulations. Download the full Startup Genome report here. ——-. I can’t wait to see what Max does by the time he’s 21.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

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. Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto , Durant versus Sloan: Startups Verus Companies , Teaching. Without much thought it has been used ever since.

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

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.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

The Customer Development talk can be seen here. That said I will be giving a Customer Development talk at TIECON , Saturday May 16th, 1:30 thanks for asking. steve Customer Development is Hard. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak. It starts at ~40:30 in the video.

Customer Development 139

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 139

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital' They are the signs of a leadership frightened not by external enemies but by their own people. It usually doesn’t end well.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology. Taking My Class.

Lean 120

Lean Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Channel 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

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. Is there some defining factor that easily distinguishes the difference? Sounds like handspring.

Customer Development 196

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 196

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2013

Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Lean 222

Lean Venture Capital Customer Development Startup 222

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 17, 2012

Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital. I often get asked, “how do I get a meeting with a VC?” ” Here is my slightly tongue-in-cheek view.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Customer Development Developer Customer 328

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. Yet two smart VC firms, Sigma and Matrix Partners, realized that somewhere in this mess there was value. Their guess was that they would find value in the high margin graphics business.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

The competitive diagram is how develop your first hypotheses about who your customers are. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Customer Development Teaching Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 335

Venture Capital Customer Development Business Model Lean 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

Clay stressed that crowdfunding should not replace Customer Discovery: … Customer Development and Customer Discovery need to be moved earlier – before you launch. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. It’s what my textbook on Customer Development describes. I was an idiot.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

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

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?”. This post is a continuation of the series.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2013

China has embraced state capitalism in a way Wall Street can only dream about. Startups, Venture Capital and the Communist Party: how did this happen in China? Filed under: China , Customer Development , Technology , Venture Capital. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

China 315

China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 315

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Bend needed its own venture firm.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left his office or before a meeting ended.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300