Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Every potential early-stage Venture Capitalist should take a year and do it before he or she makes partner. Early-stage Venture Capital firms grow their partnerships in different ways, some hire: partners from other firms. an executive who had startup “operating experience” rarely a startup founder/CEO.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Ventures that are further along and now executing their business model are no longer startups, they are now early-stage companies. Large corporations come to the valley to looking to acquire both startups which are searching for a business model and early-stage companies which are executing. Lessons Learned.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

It’s the antithesis of how founders want to build a business. And they are all very different from the business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets most founders and their investors are familiar with. How do you get your early customers to advocate on your behalf? How do you know you’re in a regulated market?

Washington 271

Washington Government Marketing Silicon Valley 271

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. Founders fit the definition of a creator: they see something no one else does. George Bernard Shaw.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. Some of the engineers figuring if the founder was declaring they were toast in 90 days were updating their resumes. A Pivot a Week.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? What startup stage do they typically invest in? How many of their founders are still with their company? How many of their founders are still with their company? Here are five questions to consider.

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

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. I got answers that sounded like the Tom’s – new stock grants for the executive staff, great new building, and oh, by the way, Tom and his co-founder got to sell some stock in the new round.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Instead the business press dumped on the founders for “selling out.” Many founders mentioned this as a reason not to incorporate or grow their companies in Finland. You find early stage employees expecting to work normal hours, to get paid a regular salary, and not asking or expecting equity.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite of a startup if you don’t hold any. You can’t be an effective founder or in the C-suite if you don’t have any.

Business Model 305

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

MAY 13, 2010

But startups can shoot themselves in the foot when founders use consultants at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Customer Development is designed so that you the founder(s) gather first hand experience about customer and market needs. Founders get out of the building (physically or virtually) to test their hypotheses against reality.

Founder 199

Founder Cofounder Business Model Customer Development 199

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Jeremy Johnson.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 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. Anduril founder Palmer Luckey has sardonically noted that the only defense companies to reach unicorn status in the past 30 years have all been founded by billionaires able to endure long gaps in funding.

Artificial Inteligence 326

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

If you’re an early stage company, that number may be zero. But remember no winter lasts forever and in it smart founders and VCs will be planting the seeds for the next generation of startups. And how much are variable expenses (salaries, consultants, commission, travel, AWS/Azure charges, supplies, etc.?). Lessons Learned.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

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. Founders operate in a chaotic regime. 1) Structure.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

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. So I co-founded the FoundersPad accelerator, a 12-week, Lean Startup program focused on customer development that helps founders develop, refine and grow their business.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

are much softer and much, much harder to measure (or believe) in a very early stage startup. Holding founders and engineers feet to the fire will inevitably remove the rough edges from the the product, imporving bounce rates of newcomers and loyalty of established users. In contrast, customer acquisition, brand, reputation, etc.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

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. Do it Again!? Typically this is a bad idea for all involved.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

A veteran board can bring 50-100x more experience into a board meeting than a first time founder. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings. 2) Founders who have a great board do recognize the uncanny pattern recognition skills that good VC’s bring. Wastes Founders Time. Angels In America.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

A veteran board can bring 50-100x more experience into a board meeting than a first time founder. From a founder’s point of view there are three reasons for board meetings. 2) Founders who have a great board do recognize the uncanny pattern recognition skills that good VC’s bring. Wastes Founders Time. Angels In America.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

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

APRIL 11, 2018

They are talking about everyone who chooses to be self-employed – from a corner food vendor without a high school diploma to a high-tech founder with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.). (By the way, as you read the conclusions keep in mind the authors are not talking just about high-tech entrepreneurs. They found: Signaling.

Entrepreneur 336

Entrepreneur Business Model Capital Gains Aggregator 336

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up. Digital Health covers a broad spectrum of products, unless the founders have domain experience startups in this area usually discover the FDA and the 510(k) process later than they should. . Venture Capital Issues. Regulatory Issues. Venture Capital.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2012

I often get asked about finding cofounders and I usually give the standard list of characteristics of what I look for in a founder. But Jessica Alter , Cofounder & CEO of FounderDating , pointed out that co founders did not mean two founders in the same room. What matters in real life is what are the fights like?

Cofounder 329

Cofounder IPO Early Stage Green 329

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Moreover, since the first CEO was likely to have been one of the founders, the trauma of CEO removal begins. 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

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.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

JULY 19, 2010

As a founder I fought with VC’s over vesting as they brought in a new CEO and walked me out the door. The customary vesting model has founders vest their stock over 4-years , and when the founding CEO gets in over their head the VC’s bring in professional management. It assumes that founders contributions are linear over 4-years.

Vesting 251

Vesting Liquidity Event Venture Capital Founder Vesting 251

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Some of the other founders had sold minicomputers to scientists and engineers, but no one knew or understood the unique class of applications and customers of supercomputers. A few days later Gordon became a founder. We were going to be guessing. I invited him to meet the team.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

JULY 1, 2014

While the posts were theory I was a bit surprised when John Selep , an early-stage investor, approached me and said he was actually using the Investment Readiness Level (IRL) in practice. Is Prescriptive – offers founders a “what-you-need-to-do-next” framework to reach a higher level of readiness. But the ‘ah-hah!’

Sacramento 306

Sacramento Framework Customer Development Lean 306

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 145

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

And they are all very different from the business-to-consumer or business-to-business markets most founders and their investors are familiar with. Most early stage startups don’t have the regulatory domain expertise in-house. However, every regulated market has its own rules, dynamics, language, players, politics, etc.

Marketing 321

Marketing Startup Government SEC 321

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

If you’ve tried to slog your way through my book on Customer Development you know that I’m insistent that the founders need to be the ones getting outside the building (physically or virtually) to validate all the initial hypotheses of the business model and product. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

AUGUST 8, 2016

Values – who and what founders and customers hold dear – were the focus on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Ryan Smith. Lane Merrifield.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder New York City Entrepreneur New York 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 1, 2016

The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Joining me in SiriusXM’s studio in New York were: Nina Tandon , CEO and co-founder of EpiBone , the world’s first company growing bones for skeletal reconstruction.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Michigan Detroit 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 29, 2016

Realizing you need help and learning how to ask for help are crucial skills for a founder. The show follows the journeys of founders who share what it takes to build a startup – from restaurants to rocket scientists, to online gifts to online groceries and more. Steve Sims , founder of Bluefish executive concierge service.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Monaco San Francisco Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. Gary Marcus , one of the country’s best-known cognitive psychologists, is a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU and founder of Geometric Intelligence. The stuff founders are made of. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120