Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Other advisors provided marketing with industry-specific advice in our initial vertical markets (computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, finite element analysis, and petroleum engineering). Some of these advisors from the academic community would work with our of VP of Engineering and help us solve specific technical problems.

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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?

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Hearpreneur

DECEMBER 8, 2019

2- Transformative development. 2019 was full of transformative development for Intellifluence. Throughout that development process the marketing team kept pressing, leading the company to 50,000 influencers over the Summer, which made us the largest warm contact influencer network in the market. Lancaster ! #2-

Entrepreneur 120

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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. I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems.

Silicon Valley 126

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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. The first step was to recruit a new management team. The assets were a series of products already developed and on the market or in the development pipeline.

Silicon Valley 150

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ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Finally, for those of you who need some additional infusion of courage, please study the story of Ryan Allis in North Carolina who bootstrapped his company iContact to $1 million in revenue and THEN raised venture capital to get to $40 million. Is it inventory risk that Statisco manages well? Statisco Economic Analytics.

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Austin Startup

JUNE 27, 2017

Austin-Based Venture Capital Firms There are a eleven venture capital firms based in Austin that are actively investing today, six of which are first funds. VC Firms Actively investing in Austin Companies Finally, there are a group of venture capital firms that are not based in Austin that are active investors here.

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Venture Capital Austin Texas Private Equity 54

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

I’ve been a traditional equity VC for 8 years, and I’m now researching new business models in venture capital. RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance.

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VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

For example, he sees great potential ‘for co-pilots are “branded” sales people, like wealth managers, insurance brokers, and mortgage brokers’ and re-defining the product surface area, for example: how would AI change customer service or productivity?

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thebarefootvc

AUGUST 13, 2013

These vertical solutions would focus on specific pain pain points in the enterprise, such as logistics or customer relationship management. Client-server has moved to the cloud (dramatically decreasing the cost of software development and deployment), and mobile apps are everywhere. Fast forward to 2013.

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Advisory Board Cloud Venture Capital Vertical 70

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. The Customer Development Process I teach and write about is designed to do just that.

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 130

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Each month, we pick an up-and-coming vertical or theme and do a deep dive (with the help of Mattermark – portfolio plug). In addition to developing our investment thesis, we recognize that VC is still an industry built on relationships. News investment thesis Mattermark values venture capital' Compassion.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2010

I guess it may be impractical for Twitter to acquire Seesmic given it has raised considerable amounts of venture capital (reportedly $12 million) but the broader point for me is that I always believed Twitter should control the client versions of its product. Think about the creative tension.

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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.&# Too often, CEOs and small business managers suffer from analysis paralysis. In a startup it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right 100% of the time.

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Ben's Blog

MARCH 1, 2011

In my career, I have never seen a position in any industry with more varying criteria than General Partner at a venture capital firm. When we started Andreessen Horowitz, our vision was to build the kind of venture capital firm that we would have wanted to take money from. One night on my knees, here it comes, the prayer.

Partner 78

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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. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development | Tagged: Entrepreneurs « Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) Unintended Lessons » 6 Responses Twitter Trackbacks for Let’s Fire Our Customers « Steve Blank [steveblank.com] on Topsy.com , on September 24, 2009 at 7:19 am Said: [.]

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View from Seed

MARCH 29, 2018

We wanted to learn more about the nuanced industry market forces before applying the same hands-on investing model we do with tech startups in other verticals. We don’t seed companies that are developing drugs or medical devices that will require FDA approval. They can be surprisingly capital efficient.

Vertical 120

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. I hope we managed to teach our children compassion and charity for others. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Silicon Valley 140

Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 140

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

This makes it laboriously difficult to identify rising stars and make comparisons within a specific vertical. At Version One, we have 6 investment themes (and more to come – stay tuned): Vertically integrated commerce. Vertical SaaS. are making it easier to develop hardware products. Manage your time wisely.

Vertical 153

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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. A few successful ones do all these things.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be.

Product Development 146

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 146

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e. Later he would leave for a few years to start the Computing Directorate at the National Science Foundation , help spec what became the Internet and then come back and run Ardent’s engineering.)

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 263

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

As the (very junior) product marketing manager I got a call from our local salesman that someone at Apple wanted more technical information than just the spec sheets about our new (not yet shipping) chip. I vividly remember the sales guy saying, “It’s only some kid in field service. I cover this in the Four Steps to the Epiphany.)

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 133

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

This post describes how companies using the Customer Development model can increase their credibility, valuation and probability of getting a first round of funding by presenting their results in a “Lesson Learned&# venture pitch. Is there a profitable business model? Can it scale?” Just as a refresher.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Since no benchmarks existed, we enlisted our engineering department in a serious software development effort and wrote our own. Then we were going to buy our competitors’ boards (think “secret shopper”) and compare them to ours. Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential?

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

The Next Web

OCTOBER 2, 2013

For mobile app developers, the impressive figures are enticing. In this aspect, China’s huge market seems ripe for the taking — and which firms are better-placed to do so than homegrown startups, especially app developers looking to conquer the mobile market? China is the world’s largest country with more than 1.3 billion people.

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China Developer Intellectual Property Mobile 122

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. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

Customer Development 203

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 203

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. Then it hit me – no one else wanted to be manager – what was the worst that could happen? It is a skill you need to either have or develop. All I had to do was ask.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

abovethecrowd.com

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

By aggregating thousands of licensed limousine drivers, and overlaying that with a new-age supply chain management solution, Uber gives it users an experience that is drastically improved compared to the previous alternative. At oDesk, the platform enables the planning, development, and transfer of code from the supplier to the purchaser.

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Aggregator Marketing Software Review North America 101

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.) And in the tradition of great startups, on the way out Perry took 6 of his best managers with him.

Silicon Valley 176

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 176

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

And that most of the post on trade shows was describing how to prepare and manage a physical presence in a trade show booth. Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow. Go to trade shows like it matters. You are correct all channels, web or otherwise, need to generate awareness and leads.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

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. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. But the rest of the management team really skeptical. The software was idiot proof.

Video 168

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 168

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Nick Davidov is the Investment Director at iTech Capital and Managing Director of The Pult Group. As is the case in other countries with a relatively new, rapidly growing tech sector, e-commerce is Russia’s fastest growing vertical. However, these fears are largely unfounded. Russian tech: Sectors to watch.

Russia 140

Russia Europe Government Vertical 140

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . 1) Manage the firm . Before you can actually invest, you have to manage your fund. In the private equity universe, most Partners have primary training as deal-makers, not as managers.

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Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78