Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Rather than focus the university inward on research, Terman took the radical step of encouraging Stanford professors and graduate students to start companies applying engineering to pressing military problems. Urgency and risk-taking in a startup are integral parts of the culture, felt by 100 percent of early-stage employees.

Government 308

Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 308

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

None of that can compare with being the CEO of a startup facing a rapidly diminishing bank account, your best engineer quitting, working until 10pm and rushing to the airport and catching a redeye for a “ Hail Mary ” close of a customer, with your board demanding you do it faster. we have a partner-track associates program.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 2, 2013

Then I got an email that asked: I'm leading the marketing efforts for an early-stage startup. The challenge is that LinkedIn is not that great with finding people who were at early-stage startups. An early-stage startup is a different animal. I'm a mentor at Start Engine and Founders Institute LA.

Startup 259

Startup Early Stage Incubator Los Angeles 259

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2020

Programming a piece of software, for example, is different from taking a sales meeting with the CEO of a credit union. Yet, especially in the early stages of your business, you will have to drive the whole of that process. To fulfill these promises, you have to have the idea, build the product, and take it to market.

Entrepreneur 205

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Silicon Valley Bandwidth 205

www.bothsidesofthetable.com

MAY 13, 2012

Want to Know Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? This time I thought I’d try and address engineering talent. Often I’m asked by startup CEO’s about how to best build an engineering team. The VP Engineering aspires to manage teams. Raising Venture Capital. Angel Topics. Entrepreneur DNA.

Fractional VPE 89

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Fractional CTO CTO Hire 89

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity. Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!)

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

Most technology startups seem to be founded by three types of people: product managers, engineers or biz dev types (MBAs and the like). Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. More on that later. The difference is PROCESS ORIENTATION.

Early Stage 350

Early Stage Startup Sales Campaign 350

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 16, 2018

Apps popularly started out as a means for communication (call, SMS), which then evolved to a platform for content consumption in the early stages of data (news, MMS and YouTube), and finally to what we now define as demand services (food delivery, transport and e-commerce). The Need for Faster Communication.

SMS 164

SMS Japan Asia China 164

Steve Blank

JUNE 19, 2014

After seeing the process work so well for scientists and engineers in the NSF, we hypothesized that we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently. Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI): The assigned PD/PI on the SBIR/STTR Phase I award.

Lean 269

Lean SBIR Intellectual Property Customer Development 269

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. VC has operated as an “old boys club”, with access to capital often requiring entrance through an elite university engineering department in one of two cities.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

I’ve had this conversation with several communities such as in San Diego where I believe there are way more qualified and talented engineers than available local capital to support them. It’s a very smartly designed debenture program. Every city should have a “BuildIn” program. Otherwise, good luck!

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

Gust

FEBRUARY 22, 2014

When people would ask a similar question back then about the difficulty of software development, my usual response was “anyone can write a TAP program over a weekend that will work with 80% of the paging systems in the world…but getting it to work on the other 20% will take you a year.” despite having lots of competitors.

Belarus 107

Belarus Kazakhstan Portugal Accredited Investor 107

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

She’s also a professor at the University of Cincinnati in their Engineering department. Steve Jobs once challenged Obama to find him 30,000 engineers so he could build a plant in California. Now most recently they have embarked on billion-dollar program to build a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.

Technical Review 102

Technical Review Engineer United States Government 102

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

Working with our summer fellows recently on a “preparing a fundraising pitch” exercise, I had them define success for the next 18 months by setting milestones in three broad categories: product/engineering functionality, customer/user numbers, and, if applicable, sales (revenue) targets.

Valuation 100

Valuation Dilution Chicago Technical Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

I think you have to listen to the queue’s.” “…if you look at a lot of the early stage investors, whether it be Union Square Ventures or First Round or Jeff Clavier at Softtech or Dave McClure – we want to try the product, we want to experience the product, we want to get a sense of how the entrepreneur is thinking about it.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

blog.wepay.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

» 6 Things a Non-Engineer Should Know Before Founding a Web Startup By Rich Aberman Despite the obvious look of shock and panic on the faces of my WePay teammates, I recently committed my first lines of production code. Non-engineers are not “designers” by default. So, without further ado, what I’ve learned: Don’t be Helpless.

Engineer 53

Engineer Software Review Web Technical Review 53

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 8, 2021

You could put together a client referral program. There are countless strategies to consider employing here, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, and even traditional advertising are all viable options. . But what if you want to grow more or grow faster? Memorability.

Startup 127

Startup Retention Acquisition Agile 127

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2018

For the whole program, please take a look here. It’s the engine that has powered companies including Amazon, Alibaba, and Google. As we put the final touches on Lean Startup Conference 2018 , I wanted to take a moment to share more about some of the panels, workshops, and events. You need the right tools.

Lean 103

Lean Las Vegas Cofounder Startup 103

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 30, 2017

My visit took place courtesy of the Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative (YTILI), a State Department program implemented by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley.

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Intellectual Property 48

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

There's a thriving geek culture in Paris, and no lack of software development expertise, thanks to superior universities that produce superior engineers. While foreign entrepreneurs wait for the Startup Visa to become a reality so they can go launch their startups in the US, France has quietly had a similar program in place for some time.

France 163

France Technical Review Incubator Early Stage 163

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. However, I’ve now begun questioning how and what an early-stage / startup CTO should be. That’s why Roger Smith puts the focus of the CTO on programming for the earliest stage.

CTO 225

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 225

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. It is a very different skill than science, engineering, or management. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

blog.wepay.com

APRIL 28, 2010

» 6 Things a Non-Engineer Should Know Before Founding a Web Startup By Rich Aberman Despite the obvious look of shock and panic on the faces of my WePay teammates, I recently committed my first lines of production code. Non-engineers are not “designers” by default. So, without further ado, what I’ve learned: Don’t be Helpless.

Engineer 53

Engineer Software Review Web Technical Review 53

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 25, 2023

While platforms like Instagram offer a great starting point, the key to differentiation lies in the age-old strategy of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). And yet, it’s surprising how hesitant small businesses are to engage in loyalty programs. And that can make or break your customer retention, especially in the early stages.

eCommerce 126

eCommerce Omaha Entrepreneur SEO 126

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 20, 2014

In the early stages of every technology, the market is usually dominated by products built for early adopters who are typically tech savvy – this mainly consists of developers who like to have full control over a product and its features. 1st phase (late 90s, early 00s): New Web programming languages and frameworks.

PHP 143

PHP Management HTML Framework 143

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, science and engineering at both Stanford and U.C. Starting in the 1950’s, Stanford’s engineering department became “outward facing” and developed a culture of spinouts and active faculty support and participation in the first wave of Silicon Valley startups. The Business Plan is Dead.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

As we enter year three, we are excited to announce that both accelerator programs in Austin and Houston will run simultaneously which gives us the ability to support up to 200 early-stage startups, and help connect them to Texas’ innovation communities. THE TEXAS PROGRAMS 2020 is a hallmark year for the Texas team.

Texas 62

Texas Programming Houston Early Stage 62

ConversionXL

MARCH 17, 2021

And while this was a good start, a significant position of these companies were early-stage startups. No surprise, during this time, many B2B businesses were struggling to adjust to a world without physical events. To have a comprehensive view, we also wanted to discover the challenges faced by more mature B2B companies as well.

B2B 150

B2B Sales Cycle Belgium IP 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

The thesis is that before investing in an early-stage startup it is close to impossible to know which of the deals you did will break out to the upside. It’s therefore important to have enough deals in your program to allow for the 15–20% of amazing deals to emerge. to start their next company.

Angel Investor 301

Angel Investor Deal Flow Portfolio Forecast 301

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

What I love about my job is getting to see teams of super-early-stage companies develop ideas that while raw have potential to make an impact on the market. Who is leading your patent filing program? And I have seen inefficient early-stage CEOs staying up late working through QuickBooks entries. Shame on you.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 17, 2011

A new incubator program, Imagine K12 , launched today in Palo Alto aimed specifically at building entrepreneurship in the education space. Founded by three Silicon Valley veterans - Tim Brady, Alan Louie, and Geoff Ralston - Imagine K12 will support early stage ed-tech startups through a funding and mentorship program.

Incubator 116

Incubator Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 116

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. Inside of companies these are the mavericks you want to fire for not getting with program.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

msuster looking for an inspired post on when an exclusivity deal (w/ major industry player) works (cons as well) for an early stage tech co. — I would trade a 6-month exclusivity for a large, 3-year guaranteed revenue deal in many instances provided I’m an early-stage company looking for my first big contract win.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

In junior high and high school, I did a bunch of programming, mostly self-taught. In addition, I do a few consulting projects on the side, in the areas of product strategy, search engine optimization, and intellectual property. He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. How did you do that?

Management 150

Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Bottom line, early stage equity is very, very expensive. So at any point, if you are trying to raise money, and you are hearing from investors that you are too early and have too little validation, it may be a good thing. Then Liana Thompson pitched Trendy Loot , a very early stage deal site for low-end jewelry.

Valuation 119

Valuation Silicon Valley Pre-Money Valuation Bootstrapping 119

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1M/1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program and the FAQs. Thursday, December 22, Register Here. Discuss.

Early Stage 116

Early Stage India Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 116

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 19, 2010

During this week's roundtable I addressed a commonly held critique of the 1M/1M program: that we're focusing on the basics and stating the obvious. Well, I have coached early stage entrepreneurs for a couple of years now - diligently, patiently - and have learned a few things. You can register for the next roundtable here.

Silicon Valley 114

Silicon Valley Technical Review Startup Early Stage 114