Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

Vertical 154

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was in New York last week with my class at Columbia University and several events made me realize that the Customer Development model needs to better describe its fit with web-based businesses. However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Part 4 of the Customer Development Manifesto to follow.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 243

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Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. Now In Print!

Customer Development 127

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

Customer Development is all about gathering a list of what features customers want by talking to them, surveying them, or running “focus groups.” Customer Development is about Testing the Founder’s Hypothesis Any idiot can get outside the building and ask customers what they want, compile a feature list and hand it to engineering.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 283

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). Back in the 1960’s and 70’s no sane MBA’s would work for a Silicon Valley startup.)

Engineer 218

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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.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. During the last three years he’s worked with over 100 companies, many of which established Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. and to develop professional managers and management hierarchies to run them.

Silicon Valley 120

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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 assets were a series of products already developed and on the market or in the development pipeline. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 161

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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?

Silicon Valley 233

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 233

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech. It’s not Silicon Valley.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 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. I began to gain an appreciation of how world-class venture capitalists develop pattern recognition for these common types of problems. “Oh Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 129

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. I was stunned.

Agile 263

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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. Berkeley and at Stanford.

Silicon Valley 200

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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.&# Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. In a startup it doesn’t matter if you’re 100% right 100% of the time. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 305

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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. This time it was serious. As a reminder, this post is not legal advice, it’s not even advice.

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Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

We worked closely together on this exciting new investment. ** While still very much in its infancy when it comes to development and adoption, a decentralized financial system has the ability to be massively disruptive and important for decades to come. This post was written with my colleague Amit Kumar.

Web 48

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States.

Silicon Valley 174

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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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Our friends who run the state park surrounding our ranch will join all of us for Thanksgiving dinner. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 149

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Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

However, you will be dealing with almost daily change, (new customer feedback/insights from a Customer Development process and technical roadblocks ,) as the company searches for a repeatable and scalable business model. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. You’re not joining a big company. Order Here.

Cofounder 229

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

PS1- I run a small software startup in Brazil and just found out about Customer Development and your blog (I’ve been reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on online, like Venturehacks and Ries’ blog). Oh , yes, many potential prospects are glad to request developer credentials for a free account, but never log in.

Silicon Valley 331

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. Fred Terman Sent Us In 1953 the U.S.

Silicon Valley 190

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/10/12/ardent-3-supercomputer-porn – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40? Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank (tags: customer-development product-management startup) [.]

Silicon Valley 163

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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. At a university business plan competition, for the first time they can swim in the sea of expertise that we/I take for granted in the middle of Silicon Valley.

Business Plan 152

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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: [.]

Customer 214

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Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Was my response to stop development of the games? Only in Silicon Valley could we have got funded with this idea, and not surprisingly, it was our technology that had the VC’s confused. Customer Development There was nothing wrong about Rocket Science having a vision radically different than the conventional wisdom.

Silicon Valley 221

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in Silicon Valley. Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. Recovery That weekend I left the Valley and drove along the coast from San Francisco to Monterey. The bill had come due.

Silicon Valley 195

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. And so was his reputation for being verbally abusive to his direct reports. Working with my old boss sounded like a great idea. Order Here. Now In Print!

North Carolina 129

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on? Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery.

Technology 142

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 142

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

———————– In the 1950′s Stanford University’s Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) continued to develop innovative microwave tubes for the U.S. See the Secret History bibliography for sources and supplemental reading. Why Electronics Intelligence?

Silicon Valley 169

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

If you don’t have facts or domain expertise to add, and your business card has the word(s) “marketing&# or “business development,&# realize you have brought no value to the table steve Michael Langford , on October 8, 2009 at 1:54 pm Said: The correct response is: Yes, I’m 24, but I learned manners by the time I was 9.

Silicon Valley 282

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 282

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

There couldn’t have been a worse choice for CEO in Silicon Valley. Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley was an Oxymoron A key premise of our new company was that our video compression and authoring technology would revolutionize how games were made and played. This wasn’t just some random Silicon Valley fantasy.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

If you read only one previous post, read this one (or this one.) ————- The Birth of Entrepreneurship in The Hot Cold War Silicon Valley entrepreneurship was born in the middle of a secret war with the Soviet Union. military had to develop new ways to collect intelligence.

Silicon Valley 169

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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. In that case, the verticals of choice could be manufacturing, wholesale and retail.

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