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. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Customer Development and Selling Strategy If you’ve just started your company you are in customer discovery.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

View from Seed

JULY 26, 2022

Founder: Alexandria DeVito. Alexandria has unparalleled founder/market fit, and the kind of deep experience and passion for her market that we love to see in all of the founders we work with.” Get to know the founders. RH: What’s your favorite thing about being an early-stage founder?

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Founder 156

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Market Risk vs. 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.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Jeff Hilimire

OCTOBER 8, 2014

We actually met taking some web development classes in Chicago. I was doing an early-stage startup in Chicago and Betsy was running a physical product development company in Charlotte that she’d recently sold. Both Betsy and I come from entrepreneurial backgrounds before starting TTS.

Cofounder 68

Cofounder Charlotte Raleigh Atlanta 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. Then, create an encouraging environment for early-stage companies.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Continuous Deployment 113

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 17, 2015

These days most startups need only a fraction of that to launch – our idea stage partners get to significant traction within a year on a £250k investment – which means there isn’t much money to hire a team and the founders have to cover a lot more of the bases themselves.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Venture Capital San Francisco Silicon Valley 60

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Alternative Capital. “

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

The investment will be used for product development initiatives. Summit is a hugely respected firm in Silicon Valley and a long-term “institution&# but they’re better known as more of a “private equity&# investor meaning that they do later stage investments in much larger companies that are profitable.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Early stage startups have to survive one day at a time and are often presented with limited choices of the moment that enable them to continue. At early stages you probably don’t have an assembly line and can’t clearly define any particular job. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

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

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Transcript of Bringing Marketing and Product Development Together written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing. She is a Silicon Valley based strategic product and marketing executive, happens to be the Chief Product Officer at a project management tool called Obo. Back to Podcast. Transcript.

Product Development 31

Product Development Product Developer Marketing 31

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Another advantage of the early stages is that most dont have to juggle too many competing priorities. If you dont have customers, a product, investors, or a board of directors, you can pretty much stay focused on just one thing at a time. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 9, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, June 9, 2009 The Lean Startup Tokyo edition I had a blast speaking at Startonomics Tokyo , which was organized to foster ties between the startup cultures in Japan and Silicon Valley. benjaminjoffe : early adopters of buggy product are visionary customers, sometimes smarter than founders!

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Japan Continuous Deployment 60

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Such positions include: PR, Sales, Product Development, Lead Generation, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, etc. Their story, market positioning, products, etc. At the early stages of your company’s life, you cannot rely on disinterested, hired guns to define your company’s key tasks. Pyramid Power. John Greathouse.

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 40

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? The Traditional VC Pitch Entrepreneurs who pursue the traditional product development model don’t have customer data to answer these questions.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The Customer Development process says preserve your cash by not hiring anyone in sales and marketing until the founders turn hypotheses into facts and you have found product/market fit. How to raise real money with a Customer Development presentation in the next post. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

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. I love business plan competitions (and with my valley-centric bias, I think Berkeley and Stanford have two of the best.)

Business Plan 140

Business Plan Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital 140

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. My blog also allowed me to indulge my interest in a few other subjects: The Secret History of Silicon Valley , thoughts on a career as an entrepreneur, observations about family and startups, etc.

Silicon Valley 202

Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 202

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He should then bootstrap his product development by using the consulting fees. 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.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 18, 2010

He should then bootstrap his product development by using the consulting fees. 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.

Marketing 52

Marketing Bootstrapping Incubator Angel Investor 52

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. Founders push for it.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

what are the most crucial steps to be taken by a new tech startup when outsourcing major part of the tech to IT firms or outsourcing “product development” eg new social media website project? Near shoring development with your team (ex: your team is based in Canada / India) is cool, but not outsourcing.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

What all these teachers had in common were two things: they were technology early adopters that were willing to take a chance on a new software product, and they all had similar problems organizing their classes and students. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. And then, at my first Silicon Valley startup , I watched friends get laid off in successive waves as it started to fail. No business model, either.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. and Google. So what is your point?

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

One of the things we hear a lot about in Silicon Valley is how cheap and easy it is to launch a startup these days. I’m now in my second founder/CEO role, having raised more than $18.5 For example, my company decided early on to hire a UI designer, which has helped tremendously with our product development.

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was “how do I find my co-founders?&# And therein lies the problem in finding co-founders for that startup you’re dying to launch. Having trouble meeting folks you think would be good co-founders?

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 66

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea. Rockstar v.

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

In doing research for a post on “The Enterprise Cool Kids” at the tail end of last year, I interviewed Silicon Valley veteran Marc Andreessen about where he thought the enterprise was headed. Mr. Marc Andreessen is a co-founder and general partner of the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. ALEXIA TSOTSIS.

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

mashable.com

JUNE 11, 2013

Perhaps the team is working on a product that really isnt that great or useful. Or maybe the co-founders have a poisonous relationship that will hinder the companys growth. Maybe they never thought about product-market fit. Check out the tips below from founders, CEOs and investors alike. Leave it in the comments.

Cofounder 111

Cofounder Technical Review Startup Software Review 111

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. ” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Great for visualizing work of product development.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53