Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Their engineers hated us. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Since I wasn’t an engineer, my contribution was around the team-building and fund raising. 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. I was an idiot. These questions I know will be on top of the list that VC’s will ask.&#

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money. Would you mind sharing them? Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

When you're getting started, sweat equity is often a critical component of your negotiating leverage with co-founders, early stage employees and others who aren't paid market wages to help you grow your business. Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation. Subscribe to Entrepreneur RSS.

Sweat Equity 55

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prosperati.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

As a result, local universities here churn out thousands of new graduates each year who can spell Microsoft but understand nothing about proper software engineering. Part 1 How To Evaluate Early-Stage Web 2.0 Prosperati is proudly powered by WordPress 3.0.1 | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS). WHERE ARE YOU?

Offshore 40

Offshore Malaysia Developer Stock Options 40

siliconflorist.com

DECEMBER 22, 2012

Subscribe via RSS population: Blog. 13) Portland startups at an “Early Stage”: Start-Ups: Silicon Valley, it ain’t (and that’s awesome) (0). Senior Systems Engineer. Front-End Engineer. Distributed Systems Software Engineer. Software Cloud Engineer III. Software Engineer.

Portland 46

Portland Oregon Technical Cofounder Startup 46

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

In December, AngelList , a service that matches early-stage startups with investors, debuted the ability to allow accredited investors to actually invest in startups on the platform with as little as $1,000. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was. → Learn More. Wednesday, April 24th, 2013. Privacy Policy.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Having to invent ad hoc terms to work together, negotiating terms, and throwing money into hiring lawyers can really hamstring the formation of productive founder-advisor relationships — something that can really make or break a startup in its early stages. Follow @TechCrunch. 2011 Holiday. Gift Guide. Crunchboard. startupcto

Equity 94

Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

socialmatchbox.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

If you post up an ad to an online job board asking for someone to join your very high risk early stage startup company the odds of getting someone who decent are slim to none. These days sales, marketing and PR people seem to grow on trees. client / Washington, DC ($500 Referral Reward) Developer/Partner / Rocket Whale, Inc.

Part-Time VPE 41

Part-Time VPE Sweat Equity DC Washington 41

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Combined with product costs, an engineering budget, and schedules, this results in a spreadsheet that faintly resembles the first financial plan in the company’s business plan. Engineering focuses on building the product; it designs the product, specifies the first release and hires a staff to build the product.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

I am also a pilot, and computer engineer, and love to read stories about sigint and black aircraft programs. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty. It may not be for you. Also, it would be nice to do something that helps this country (but not solely for that reason).

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 170

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

Preserve your equity by using a consulting CTO to ramp up your company before securing early-stage financing and hiring a permanent technology partner. The best ones know enough about Internet marketing (and search engine optimization) that they’ll be visible if they are looking for new projects. Try Google.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

Scott Edward Walker

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here. “Be wary of lawyers who are not familiar w/early stage startup work…can cause all sorts of unwanted trouble.” What you do with those early investment dollars…is you go about systematically trying to eliminate risk.”

RSS 49

RSS Early Stage Engineer Founder 49

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

The Customer Development model delineates all the customer-related activities in the early stage of a company into their own processes and groups them into four easy-to-understand steps: Customer Discovery , Customer Validation , Customer Creation , and Company Building. Its strength is its rigor and flexibility. Now In Print!

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

For example, in the semiconductor business engineers spend enormous time, money and effort on simulation , the process of actually building the chip in software and running tests to see how well it will perform – well before they ever get to first silicon. The next Vertical Markets post will put all the pieces together. Now In Print!

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing RSS 128

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.) Very few companies can make the “Four Steps to the Epiphany” work financially – this is one reason having engineering located in a cheaper country from day one is a major plus.&#

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you think you are going to offend your customers or embarrass your engineering organization, get out of the marketing department. Then shout the messages out (virtually) at the top of your lungs. Visually, demo’s, wild colors, etc. IBM doesn’t have to shout to get noticed, but you do. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

andrewchen.co

AUGUST 20, 2012

You can also subscribe by RSS or email below, and youll get updates when things start back up again. How long will the “seed stage bubble” last? My theory is, we’re currently in a golden age for early stage startups, and the early stage market will stay hot for at least the next 3-5 years.

Seed Stage 51

Seed Stage Early Stage Mobile Asia 51

www.drowningamerican.com

JUNE 22, 2012

Here is the original post: Early Stage Web Application Start-Up Seeking Developer/Designer. Application programming Expertise: PHP, ColdFusion, AJAX, Web Services (RSS, REST, SOAP, XML-RPC, etc.). Quick question: How did you decide on 3-5% equity for the first engineer hire? JS (for web/internet and mobile devices).

Sweat Equity 40

Sweat Equity Equity Hiring Technical Review 40

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Luckily while I was teaching classes at headquarters, Zilog’s field application engineers (the technical engineers working alongside our salesmen) would work side-by-side with our large customers as they designed their systems with our chips. The VP of Sales gave me a funny look and just moved on with the agenda. VP of Sales?

Silicon Valley 175

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start-up Lessons. &# If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. It you have a great software engineer that’s awesome. This is a BIG mistake many early stage companies make. Build prototypes and/or product.

Founder Vesting 365

Founder Vesting Intellectual Property Stock Options IP 365

www.startupnorth.ca

OCTOBER 23, 2010

But for every founder, there is an early employee that takes near equal risks in joining an early-stage company. This should force companies to think about building value with each early hire, and not just filling a position. Lead Engineer 0.5 – 1 5+ years experience Engineer 0.33 – 0.66

Employee 41

Employee Founder Salary Equity 41

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. This is my new favorite post on your blog. 9 companies in 6 years… did any of those other ones catch on? To Order Outside of the U.S.

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

prosperati.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

When we first built our engineering team in Malaysia, they were structured to implement the specifications and design requirements from the US team. Prosperati is proudly powered by WordPress 3.0.1 | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS). For Malaysia, we achieved a cost savings between 70 – 80%. WHERE ARE YOU?

Offshore 40

Offshore Malaysia Developer RSS 40

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. I remember thinking, “What a disappointment one of the smartest engineers I know and he is going to waste his time making games.”

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 27, 2011

SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE AND AFFORDABLE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING Home About Consulting Products Programs Workshops Blog Resources Contact Subscribe by RSS Subscribe to Duct Tape Marketing by Email Small Business Week 2011 Our winners! The Referral Engine – Teaching Your Business to Market Itself – by John Jantsch.

Social Media 57

Social Media Stock Media RSS 57

trada.com

APRIL 7, 2010

He noted that Chris Dixon ( @cdixon ) of Hunch tweeted, “New early-stage start up trend: get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.&# Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Stealth 40

Stealth PPC Advertising Conversion 40

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

In 1M/1M, I teach the EJ Methodology which is based on my Entrepreneur Journeys research, and emphasize bootstrapping, idea validation, and crisp positioning as some of the core principles of building strong fundamentals in early stage ventures. You can pitch to be featured on my blog following these instructions.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

In 1M/1M, I teach the EJ Methodology which is based on my Entrepreneur Journeys research, and emphasize bootstrapping, idea validation, and crisp positioning as some of the core principles of building strong fundamentals in early stage ventures. You can pitch to be featured on my blog following these instructions.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

Being a resource-constrained entrepreneur, I wanted a co-founder because even if I got a paid engineer or an outsourced team to build it, I would still need to build a team, and there would be continuous development needs. Then, what’s missing — clearly an engineer — and why do I want a partner?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Learn more about: Founders 40 responses so far · Comments RSS # scott edward walker · Nov 12, 2009 Great post.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

Our team is 5 engineers, 2 QA and a project manager. Sun Microsystems has a program called Startup Essentials [link] thats designed specifically to help early stage startups get into some great equipment, free software and other great stuff too. I do think there is a built-in level of inefficiency with offshore development.

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

You can listen by subscribing to my podcast on iTunes , or it’s enclosed in this blog’s RSS feed , or you can just download the mp3 of the first hour. Is that true or is there some engine there I’m not familiar with? So if I were you I would say, ‘That is not a viable engine.’ Why listen?

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Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

While all of these factors are true to an extent, the truth of the matter is that the reduced costs of hardware and software are easily offset by the expense of engineers and experienced business people. Nearly all of your costs will be headcount, primarily in the engineering department. million in venture financing. “The

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

Reply Harvey , on April 11, 2009 at 7:05 pm Said: Some of the best engineers I hired out of school were not 3.5+ And even not-so-new engineers. You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. You just get successful. I’m printing and framing this one.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 327

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 20, 2009

For short stories - I think it is always good to introduce some practical problem (you might have heard from entrepreneur at early stage) and how the lean startup method helped solved that. August 20, 2009 6:44 AM Prashant Sachdev said. Eric, I do think you should cross-post them here.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 68