Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

Organizational debt is all the people/culture compromises made to “just get it done” in the early stages of a startup. Surprisingly, given the tidal wave of new hires, formal training and job descriptions were still stuck in the early stage, “we’re too small to need that” mindset. the company had.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

How do you get your early customers to advocate on your behalf? Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. The books The Fixer and Regulatory Hacking give examples of regulatory pitfalls, problems and suggested solutions.) Get outside advice at each step.

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Urgency and risk-taking in a startup are integral parts of the culture, felt by 100 percent of early-stage employees. They can break the law and apologize later (as Uber, Airbnb , and Tesla did), but a government official taking the same type of risks can go to jail.

Government 308

Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 308

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

They can do so by first identifying technology trends with innovation outposts located in technology centers; second, by investing in early-stage disruptors; third – buying disruptors and keeping their innovation culture and people; while fourth, creating an innovation culture internally that disrupts their own business model before others do.

Startup 275

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 275

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

The class provides real world, hands-on learning on how to reduce commercialization risk in early stage therapeutics, diagnostics and device ventures. We do this by helping teams rapidly : define clinical utility now, before spending millions of dollars. assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build.

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. There’s a safety net in almost every part of one’s public and private life – health insurance, free college tuition, unions, collective bargaining, fixed work hours, etc.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw. Where Did We Go Wrong?

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

If you’ve been intrigued by the notion of customer development in an early stage startup —getting out of the building to talk to customers and working with an engineering team that’s capable of being agile and responsive – yet backed by a $150 billion corporation, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

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. This post previously appeared in EIX. Think of profound beliefs as “strong opinions loosely held.” You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any.

Business Model 305

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. And how much are variable expenses (salaries, consultants, commission, travel, AWS/Azure charges, supplies, etc.?). Next, take a look at your actual revenue each month – not forecast, but real revenue coming in each month.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment , Innovation Norway , and H4XLabs ( BMNT’s early stage tech accelerator) just ran the first Hacking for Allies cohort of Norwegian companies. Norway has experienced Russian simulated air attacks on Norwegian targets and jamming of GPS signals that threaten civilian aviation.

Norway 214

Norway Silicon Valley Russia United States 214

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee. This means you still need to have a resilient personality, and be agile.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

Over my career as a serial entrepreneur I observed that since the late 1990s, no early-stage Silicon Valley investor had used business plans to screen investments. Early-stage investors don’t read business plans. Even those who asked for them never read them. VentureWell Resources for I-Corps. Lessons Learned.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

billion in early funding. Dozens of outreach programs across the military now offer quick revenue to early-stage companies. To attract interest the Defense Department is handing out unprecedented numbers of small contracts and in 2020 seeded 1,635 firms with more than $1.5

Artificial Inteligence 326

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Have they heard about Customer Development ?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Filed under: SuperMac | Tagged: Early Stage Startup , Steve Blank « There’s a Pattern Here SuperMac War Story 2: Facts Exist Outside the Building, Opinions Reside Within – So Get the Hell Outside the Building » Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Nothing I couldn’t fix. I took the job.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The life sciences community is still warming-up to the value of customer development in the early stages of building new ventures”, says David Schonthal , MATTER Co-founder and Clinical Assistant Professor of entrepreneurship & innovation at the Kellogg School of Management.

San Diego 261

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

are much softer and much, much harder to measure (or believe) in a very early stage startup. We’ll talk about how to reduce risk in each type of market in the next post. It’s something VC’s can ask about, rationally analyze and feel comfortable if you can articulate a defensible technical and patent strategy.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

Yet even with all these tools, early stage startups still need to physically meet with advisors and investors. We propose that early stage startups communicate in a way that didn’t exist in the 20 th century – online – collaboratively through blogs. That’s great if you can get it.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

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. —-.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. We believe we can reduce the technological, regulatory and market risks for early-stage life science and healthcare ventures, and we can do it by teaching founding teams how to build new ventures with Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

. — An experienced team made all the difference to 2U finding success, Jeremy said: We had a phenomenal early group of people that were brought together to try to address the problem. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building.

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Steve Blank

MARCH 8, 2011

It will be an improvement over mammography by detecting abnormal cells in an early stage, is radiation-free, and is 2-5 times less expensive than mammographs. It uses optical spectroscopy to analyze the physiological content of cells and report back abnormalities. We will sell the product directly to hospitals and private doctors.

Lean 298

Lean Business Model Customer Development Guinea 298

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Why don’t we have standards for what metrics VC’s want to see from their early stage startup teams? Early stage board meetings are often clones of large company board meetings. In the age of the Internet why do we need to get together in one room on a fixed schedule? Angels In America. better user growth.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. This “small business” mindset is a holdover of how capital starved early stage startups are/were in Oregon. Part 1: Bend, Oregon Ecosystem and Entrepreneurs. Part 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2018

And why funding from families and friends is a dominant source of financing for early-stage ventures (because friends and family know an entrepreneur’s ability better than any resume can convey). tend to gravitate toward entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneur 336

Entrepreneur Business Model Capital Gains Aggregator 336

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

. — An experienced team made all the difference to 2U finding success, Jeremy said: We had a phenomenal early group of people that were brought together to try to address the problem. You might look at it and say, “In some ways, that team is overkill for an early-stage company.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Why don’t we have standards for what metrics VC’s want to see from their early stage startup teams? Early stage board meetings are often clones of large company board meetings. In the age of the Internet why do we need to get together in one room on a fixed schedule? Angels In America. better user growth.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

Some quick VC math : If a VC invests in ten early stage startups, on average, five will fail, three will return capital, and one or two will be “winners” and make most of the money for the VC fund.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

For a startup Speed and Tempo need to be an integral part of your corporate DNA. Great startups have a tempo of 10x a large company.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

This could be useful information for those that want to get involved with a early stage start-up and want to evaluate it but not necessarily for funding. These questions I know will be on top of the list that VC’s will ask.&# What are all the important questions that a VC will or should ask?

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

I think Customer Development (iterative model) helps by putting a strong thought in the mind (at a very early stage) that you could be wrong unless the customer agrees; this helps the mind to be more receptive.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Vitruvian is a good example of a great early stage therapeutics idea with animal data missing and many key components of the business model still needed to verify. Watch the video and find out how they pivoted and what happened. Don’t miss Karl Handelsman comments on their Investment Readiness Level at the end.

Lean 237

Lean Customer Development Video Early Stage 237

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

Entrepreneurship and early stage companies are about moving fast; if you’re caught in a disagreement for days at a time it means decisions are not being made and/or people are walking around feeling resentful. What matters in real life is what are the fights like? Do they escalate rapidly or become knock down, drag outs?

Cofounder 329

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 329

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2011

I attempt to offer them both theory, as well as a methodology, about building early stage ventures. I try to engage them to see the startup world as part of a larger pattern; the lifecycle of how companies are born, grow and die.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Audience Hiring Business Model 295

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. You and your board need to be in sync about the costs and risks of entering these markets. Strategic choices include: asking for permission versus forgiveness, public versus private battles. Go get outside advice at each step.

Marketing 321

Marketing Startup Government SEC 321