Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2011

Max and his partners had interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. In May they released the first Startup Genome Report — an in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. It’s Not How Big It Is – It’s How Well It Performs. Happy birthday Max.

Software Review 293

Software Review Early Stage Technical Review Startup 293

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? This is the minimum feature set for founders. Other Roles in a Startup Generic advice given to entrepreneurs assumes that everyone is going to be the founder/co-founder. Founders know they want to start something.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 223

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

The email continued, &# The problem I’m working on is that many founders are either making uninformed decisions or inefficiently learning the new skills they need. The solution I’m exploring is a just in time learning methodology that accelerates founders’ learning curve by aggregating relevant content, peers and mentors.&#.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

As seed rounds have atomized, it’s not uncommon for founders to raise 3 or even 4 rounds prior to a series A. The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. Founders with limited experience. should be avoided.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development , Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it. Founders fit the definition of a creator: they see something no one else does.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

In the early stages of a startup your hypotheses about all the parts of your business model are your profound beliefs. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. Who are the payers?

Business Model 315

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 315

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.” Many founders mentioned this as a reason not to incorporate or grow their companies in Finland. You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity.

Finland 327

Finland Naming Russia Government 327

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.”

Vertical 147

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 147

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 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

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. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? How many are there?

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Dan Kozikowski, Partner and Head of Platform, First Mark Capital , said to me, “Firms should match services to the stage-specific needs of companies. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. But things like vendor introductions are only needle-movers at the earliest stages. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. The problem stems from selling each customer a custom one-time product.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. And that’s where the problem was.

Founder 317

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 317

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Following is his advice to early stage entrepreneurs for creating structure in their company. So, I’ll explain my reasoning through the story of ASC, a fictitious company that has a combination of characteristics I’ve seen across a number of early stage companies. It’s too early for that s**t.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

View from Seed

DECEMBER 8, 2015

We have a bias towards very early stage investing for a bunch of reasons, but it’s not easy. It’s often a good idea for founders to find a way to build something and get some early market validation before raising outside capital. I think this stage, more than others, is very dependent on the individual investor.

Product 120

Product Startup Early Stage Seed Capital 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

Cofounder 143

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 143

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 31, 2011

Max and his partners had interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. In May they released the first Startup Genome Report -- an in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. If you have a few world-class VC's on your board you're probably getting this advice in person.

Software Review 134

Software Review Early Stage Startup Technical Review 134

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first time a few brave corporate innovators tried to overlay the Lean tools and techniques that work in early-stage startups in an existing corporation, the result was chaos, confusion, frustration and ultimately, failure. Fast forward to today. We can adapt these startup tools for use inside the corporation. Do it Again!?

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? How many of their founders are still with their company? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 10, 2012

It’s as big of a deal as getting your viral loop working — it’s how you’re going to acquire customers at scale. As a tech founder doing sales, you’ll find yourself constantly fantasising about hiring in a sales guy to take all your pain away. The founders have to do the early sales.

Hiring 51

Hiring Founder Viral Early Stage 51

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. On average, the founders who keep the most control over their company make the least amount of money. Lessons Learned.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, September 14, 2008 How to listen to customers, and not just the loud people Frequency is more important than talking to the "right" customers, especially early on. Youll know when the person youre talking to is not a potential customer - they just wont understand what youre saying.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. We’re in Customer Validation but we can’t seem to close a deal.” Let me say it again: Getting customer feedback can not be delegated. Here’s why.

Founder 206

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 206

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. Salaries Startup Founders Pay Themselves | Business Insider – crowdspring.co/1nHU2OK. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend? 1jrrWok.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

Here are the details of both of those customer development experiences. Recently at WP Engine I did some brand new customer development for a new project that we think will revolutionize WordPress blog management. Way #2: Get ten paying customers. But there’s no one “number.”

Customer 252

Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

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. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. Signal is a fundraising tool for founders run by NFX Guild, which identifies the most relevant VCs for you. . Pitchbot.vc

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

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. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds.

Silicon Valley 314

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 314

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

While it doesn’t eliminate great investor judgment, pattern recognition skills and mentoring, we’ve developed an Investment Readiness Level tool that fills in these missing pieces. Is Prescriptive – offers founders a “what-you-need-to-do-next” framework to reach a higher level of readiness. Here’s John’s story.

Sacramento 308

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 308

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Oh, and since it was not code compatible with anything, we were going to have to port all the key scientific applications our customers needed (as soon as we figured out who they were.) Personal supercomputer s meant yet again learning something completely new; new computer architectures, new applications and customers, new markets.

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. Some startups in this field are actually beginning with Customer Development while others struggle with the classic execution versus search problem. Filed under: Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Science and Industrial Policy , Teaching.

Startup 296

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 296

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. Victor Hugo. 1) Structure.

Silicon Valley 284

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 284

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

You’re obviously not showing charts of user growth, number of customers, or revenue. But even as a concept stage company there are ways to show progress with your business. This might involve an alpha/beta phase were the product is built and refined with “live” but unpaid customers. B) Post-Product Companies.

Seed Stage 149

Seed Stage B2B Seed Capital Revenue 149

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, November 17, 2008 The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part one Ive written before about some of the advantages startups have when they are very small, like the benefits of having a pathetically small number of customers. Talking to potential customers and competitors customers.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

That said, there are three types of advisors that I don’t see as commonly utilized by early stage startups — at least the ones we’re not advising. Great founders are always recruiting. The “Customer Council” Advisor. The “I’m Going To Recruit You Down the Road” Advisor.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Equity Vesting Startup 151