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. I see a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs waste too much time chasing money rather than figuring this out first. Order Here. Now In Print!

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

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

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

It was amazing to see the two founders, Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain, build a $100 million company from coffee cups and T-shirts. But Cafepress’s most memorable moment was when the founders used a “Lessons Learned” VC pitch to raise their second round of funding and got an 8-digit term sheet that same afternoon. Order Here.

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. This model certainly makes sense.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. This model certainly makes sense.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

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.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

We Don’t Need Domain Experts When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. Only in Silicon Valley could we have got funded with this idea, and not surprisingly, it was our technology that had the VC’s confused. Nor was there anyone with game experience on our board. Vision and $1.65

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. 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.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

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. I’ve tried to read a lot of your History of Silicon Valley posts.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

One can even make the case that getting Market Type right is the most valuable thing a marketer can do to add value and affect success in an early stage venture. That’s no longer the case in Silicon Valley. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Keep teaching! Order Here. Now In Print!

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

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

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 17, 2018

We invest in the early stages of company creation , leading or participating in pre-seed and seed-rounds with cheque sizes between $500K and $750K. And we also look at companies that are creating the best product for a specific vertical – including bio/healthcare and other emerging tech. About Fund III.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley North America San Francisco LP 127

Austin Startup

MARCH 7, 2018

Brunner (@heatherjbrunner) | Twitter Preston James Co-founder & CEO DivInc Preston is at the center of everything Diversity & Inclusion in Austin. Eugene Sepulveda (@EugeneAustin) | Twitter Ingrid Vandervelt CEO & Founder EBW2020 Ingrid Vanderveldt is the Chairman and CEO of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 (EBW2020).

Technical Cofounder 48

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 48

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. Decathlon Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 5, 2013

by Bill Clerico, CEO and co-founder of WePay. Homebrew, an early stage venture firm focused on this same revolution has illustrated the following: An engineer or designer gets work by offering his skills via vertical marketplaces. An entertainer sells music, tickets and merchandise directly to her fans online.

Silicon Valley 208

Silicon Valley API Cofounder Salary 208

www.businessinsider.com

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Silicon Valley 100. Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, the influential advisor to dozens of startups like Dropbox and Airbnb , sent his entrepreneurs an email Wednesday afternoon cautioning them against taking "lowball offers"—in particular, he said, from Google Ventures. 10 Of The Deadliest Boat Disasters Of All Time.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup Valuation Venture Capital 54

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. As usual, then, I worked with three entrepreneurs working on specific businesses. Mava Consulting.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

the Connectors, Angels, Venture Capitalists, Founders, Professors, Hackers, Press… and the Legends. Find the Connectors , the Angels , the Venture Capitalists , the Founders , the Professors , the Hackers , and the Legends you need to meet and get some hints about the best ways to meet them. Here is your COVID-friendly cheat sheet.

Austin 110

Austin Texas Cofounder Los Angeles 110

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? Where as most start-up founders start with the conviction that they know success looks like and [.] Is there any way to predict success or failure?

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Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 143

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

Reply An Interview with Mark Fletcher, Founder of Bloglines and ONEList — TechDrawl , on July 10, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Process for the Enterprise » Blog Archive » Faith-based versus Fact-based , on June 21, 2009 at 3:55 pm Said: [.]

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Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 212

Austin Startup

JUNE 27, 2017

Many investments in startups start with local venture firms in the early stages and then attract non-local venture firms for later stage and larger deal size opportunities. Entrepreneurs with early stage companies typically look for local funding before going out of region to pursue other funding sources.

Venture Capital 54

Venture Capital Austin Texas Private Equity 54

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 24, 2013

Already have a bunch of local friends; critical mass of startups in verticals matching our Bottom Up Economy theme; on-the-ground frequently (I grew up here and Satya lived in Manhattan for several years). Wanted to go somewhere he believed in and experience early stage first hand. The next generation of founders being groomed.

Silicon Valley 102

Silicon Valley New York Vertical Early Stage 102

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

As a founder you need to prepare yourself to think creatively and independently, because more often than not, conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty.

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 170

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets , and with my team of vertical marketers , I thought I had achieved absolution and redemption. But there was one fatal flaw. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 172

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 172

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

But what I remind them is that great grades and successful founders/technology entrepreneurs have at best a zero correlation (and anecdotal evidence suggests that the correlation may actually be negative.) And founders don’t apply for jobs. Google is looking to hire workers. Google is looking to hire workers. Reply Michael F.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I first met the founder of Pose, Dustin Rosen , when he was a junior person with an LA-based venture capital firm called The Mail Room Fund. Our firm invested at a very early stage in retail brands including CostCo, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta, Starbucks and many more. The other “first call” went to Founder Collective.

Term Sheet 303

Term Sheet Mobile Cofounder Early Stage 303

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

I would be very curious to hear the (hypothetical) suggestions you would have given to twitter’s founders, for example. That’s why early stage companies aren’t run by accountants with spreadsheets. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 181

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 181

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. We’ll look at the model stage-by-stage. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Coming next Part 2: What’s Wrong with Product Development as a Model? Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. Reply founders, beware « Adisababa’s Weblog , on January 20, 2010 at 10:05 am Said: [.] great book on a related matter is 4 steps to the epiphany, by steve blank, founder of… E.piphany, once a big [.]

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 127

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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Cracking the Code

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Rising tide When I was in Silicon Valley, I spent most of my time investing in SaaS companies. As it takes around 10 years for a SaaS company to reach maturity, the explosion we are seeing at the early stage has not yet translated into a significant number of exits.

Europe 48

Europe Artificial Inteligence Vertical 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Cultural Revolution at Large Corporations – the Founders Return Of the companies that do reinvent themselves it’s interesting that often its the founder or an outsider that has the insight and makes the radical changes. At HP the founders were still at the company and still running the business.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Hippoland

JULY 24, 2016

Valuation is a nebulous topic amongst early stage startups, so I thought I’d really spell it out in detail. In short: Valuations for seed stage companies are fairly arbitrary and driven solely by supply and demand. Some verticals will be difficult to get revenue traction in. 2008-2009 was a terrible time to raise money.

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Seed Stage Valuation Vertical Demand 48

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Been there Done that This is very depressing for all future founders, or even currently early stage founders. The cost of money is steep, and only works in certain verticals, of which software is NOT one. These two factors alone represent a real double whammy for early stage growth companies.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62