Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

With your permission, I’d like to tell this tale and direct other aspiring entrepreneurs to follow your lead! My company is in the contract automation business so we have made our NDA available for free on our demo page so people can use it for free if they think it works for them. Certainly not fun, but great insight.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

But Apple had planned to announce and demo QuickTime without a way to get video into the Mac. Something Profound Engineering gave us a demo of the prototype board and software and asked, “Do you guys think we can sell a few of these boards?” We must have made them play the demo twenty times. My first IPO at Convergent.

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Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#. Mobile app?

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Early Stage Venture Capital B2B Sales 299

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

Jon Feiber of Mohr Davidow Ventures and Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate are co-teaching the class with me (and Alexander Osterwalder is a guest lecturer.) We have two great teaching assistants , plus we’ve rounded up a team of 25 mentors (VC’s and entrepreneurs) to help coach the teams. Set up a booth, put up posters, run demos, etc.

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Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

For simplicity I’ll assume you’ve raised some money from angels or seed investors and you’re either raising an A round or a B round of venture capital. If you have a mediocre meeting with a high-quality prospect and you don’t think they’re likely to lean in they drop to a B or C. these are simply guidelines. To be clear?—?your

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

It might be possible to create Virtual Valley Ventures. At Stanford our Lean Launchpad class ran an experiment that showed when “the boardroom is bits” can make a radical difference in the outcome of an early stage startup. Kathryn Gould of Foundation Capital and Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate also want to try it.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

The combination of venture capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs. And Stanford's Lean LaunchPad class could do just that. Until today. This is a big deal. Join the I-Corps?.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Professor VC

JUNE 7, 2018

I taught a class yesterday afternoon to a group of 25 Italian executives, managers, and entrepreneurs participating in the TVLP Institute of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation. I am a strong believer in the new school of entrepreneurship education (lean startup, customer discovery, etc.).

Silicon Valley 31

Silicon Valley Hockey Stick Venture Capital Lean 31

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. Key Influencers Does the company have press/industry analysts scheduled for demos? Does the company have demos or dinners/lunch scheduled for key industry influencers? Is the company hosting/co-sponsoring some event?

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. I was interested in learning more.

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Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

10 Ways To Be Your Own Boss - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , June 18, 2010 The folks at Behance and Cool Hunting asked me to talk at their 99% Conference a couple months ago. You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur - Steve Blank , June 10, 2010 Who is an entrepreneur really? Yes, even bootstrappers. Let's see why.

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Cofounder Technical Cofounder Term Sheet Startup 175

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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. Knowing this venture firms have come up with a canonical checklist of what they would like to see.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

BeyondVC

APRIL 15, 2011

OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply awesome. And with that, it was clear to see how much these startups could accomplish with so little capital and just sweat equity.

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New York Sweat Equity Marketing Startup 129

BeyondVC

APRIL 15, 2011

OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply awesome. And with that, it was clear to see how much these startups could accomplish with so little capital and just sweat equity.

New York 129

New York Sweat Equity Marketing Startup 129

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. Marketing starts to build a sales demo, writes sales materials (presentations, data sheets), and hires a PR agency. Building the sales channel and supporting the marketing can burn a lot of cash.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 25, 2011

The guy leans in and says, "Hey Charlie, sorry to interrupt, my name is Alan, I'm with bre.ad, I'm going to follow up with an e-mail to you about our startup. We're going to be demoing all afternoon in this location. This is where entrepreneurs need to fail fast on a pitch. No, not bread. hopefully you can come by.".

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Elevator Pitch Lean Mobile Naming 113

Up and Running

MARCH 1, 2016

Boris Wertz, founding partner of Version One Ventures, believes that if you’ve worked in an industry you’re passionate about for a long time, you may know something about the market that nobody else knows. If You Want Venture Capital, You Need It. See Also: Market Research Resources for Entrepreneurs. A benefit statement.

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Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Non-Compete Naming 60

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2013

Dan is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. In fact, their first venture capital investment was actually beamed from PalmPilot to PalmPilot live in a restaurant in the Bay Area. And these forces are what complicate decisions like this, as you said, for entrepreneurs.

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Lean Silicon Valley Framework Cofounder 167

The Next Web

JANUARY 16, 2014

He is co-founder of international start-up community event organisation 3beards and founder and director of Albion Drive , a fully integrated communicaitons agency for entrepreneurs and challenger brands. Australia Entrepreneur Analysis and Opinion Investigations Lists Roundups' Australia is not short on those.

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Australia San Francisco IPO Cofounder 146

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 5, 2020

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast , I interview Steve Blank, considered one of the fathers of modern entrepreneurship – is a seral entrepreneur-turned best selling author and educator. I wonder if you have a view on where venture capital will end up going? Head to Klaviyo.com/ducttape to schedule a demo.

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K9 Ventures

JUNE 22, 2011

On March 21st, 2006, the Stanford Computer Science department celebrated its 40th anniversary with an awesome event , with an absolutely stunning line-up of speakers — Professors, Entrepreneurs and Professors-turned-Entrepreneurs. It was the defining moment when I started thinking about doing my own venture fund.

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Technical Review IP New York Portfolio 134

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

And thanks to Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate (my first Lean LaunchPad co-instructor) for her suggestions. It might be a wire-frame, PowerPoint demo or prototype. serial entrepreneur. I.e. your product fits the needs of your target customers.). The criteria for a “hot” startup include: The background of the founders. A “hot” market.

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Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

It is the first in a series of posts he’s writing about the decisions a young entrepreneur needs to make when she/he is first starting a business. The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. Johnny Good post.

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Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Austin Startup

MAY 3, 2017

The University of Texas at Austin’s Longhorn Startup Demo Day AND Texas Venture Labs are underway and given the incredible and increasing impact Texas is having on entrepreneurship and innovation, I thought we should talk about cattle. was not as attractive. The single horn doesn’t exist. Innovation and marketing. too obvious?)

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Texas Startup Silicon Valley Bootstrapping 48

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2012

Given the proliferation of accelerators and incubators that pre-vet entrepreneurs, roll up their sleeves to help companies, and dress them up for demo days, the best and brightest are being showcased to look better than ever. One of my potential investors called me the "lean VC". It's happening on their side, too.

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PR Incubator Early Stage Lean 109

Venture Chronicles

OCTOBER 11, 2011

You see this a lot with Silicon Valley super-entrepreneurs, they simply can’t stomach the notion that customers don’t agree with their plans. Un-blur: Adobe demo’ed a new Photoshop capability that really deserves to be called out for the accomplishment that it is… image de-blurring.

Silicon Valley 36

Silicon Valley IPO Algorithm Venture Capital 36

blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

Do you “entrepreneurs” really think a guy or gal that can compile Linux on a bicycle wants to write a secure payment processor on an iPhone, or a Flash app that runs on every browser? In March 2009, they launched a Beta version and demoed it at FinovateStartup 2009.” And it was slow going to master that.

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Java PHP Software Review Coder 107

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). A group of Seedcamp entrepreneurs started a startup tools wiki for that purpose, and we thought it would be well suited here. Lean Methodology Sources. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Part 3- Lean Cust. Lean Startup Circle â??

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Software Review Technical Review Startup 53