Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

—————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. . Just a quick history refresher.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 180

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

“Lean” is great in the early days but if you discover an attractive market opportunity you need to get “fat” really quickly or somebody else will. And the wrong message is frankly strewn all over Silicon Valley. And this is fueled by the VC culture in Silicon Valley. Or pivoted too quickly.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

They launched an incubator for the top scientists and engineers in the U.S. 63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks , turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. government agency that supports research in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. billion U.S.

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Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. Our goal was to teach both theory and practice.

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Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2015

Just before the holidays I had coffee with Anne, an ex MBA student running a fairly large product group at a search engine company, now out trying to raise money for her own startup. I was in New York last week teaching my annual 5-day version of the Lean LaunchPad class at the Columbia Business School. Women in New York Startups.

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Silicon Valley New York City New York Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

In some cases, branches of the military contracted directly with Stanford which worked with local contractors in Silicon Valley to build these components or systems for the military. Some students who were getting their engineering graduate degrees wrote masters and PhD thesis that were classified.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Government 142

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Innovation outposts in Silicon Valley allow big companies to sense and respond to rapid changes in technology. How to make corporate innovation work and drive success in startups were the topics of discussion with the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Clips from their interview are below.

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Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. Timecodes: 00:00 Welcome, our guest is Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup Movement. 01:17 Background, before the Lean Startup. 22:53 Eric’s book: The Lean Startup.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Lean Social Media PR 301

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. Today the U.C.

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Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Hacking for Defense has its origins in the Lean LaunchPad class I first taught at Stanford in 2011. Our goal was to teach both theory and practice.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

BMNT , a new Silicon Valley company, is combining the Lean Methods it learned in combat with the technology expertise and speed of startups. The OODA Loop was the Lean Startup philosophy before lean. In 2010 Colonel Peter Newell took over the REF and turned its focus into what we would call a Lean Startup.

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Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Kuwait 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D , part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley , and part three The 6 Decisions to Make Before Setting up an Innovation Outpost. Silicon Valley, Boston). Startups, entrepreneurs, and management teams. Innovation areas the corporation is interested in.

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Silicon Valley Incubator Acquisition Business Model 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 24, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Part 1: Bend, Oregon Ecosystem and Entrepreneurs. Part 3: Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster.

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Engineer Silicon Valley Oregon San Francisco 307

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. I was stunned.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 25, 2021

Eren Bali arrived in Silicon Valley from Turkey in 2010 hoping to relaunch Udemy , his online education company. Eren came to the US from Turkey to work at a Silicon Valley tech startup, which is actually where I first met him a few years ago. How did you first get into tech and come to Silicon valley?

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Silicon Valley Turkey Los Angeles California 60

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. The flaw in this thinking is that “first customer ship&# is simply the date when engineering thinks they “finished” the 1.0 Product Development Diagram 1. release of the product.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Since I wasn’t an engineer, my contribution was around the team-building and fund raising. Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. I was an idiot.

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Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. On the other hand, the Motorola 68000 microprocessor (used in the Sun and Apollo engineering workstations) and the IBM 360/370 mainframes were big-endian. What a great idea.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. Start your lean business plan today: Download our Free Lean Plan Template one-page-pitch-download.pdf. I’m going to start with what’s a lean business plan.

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Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

One of the things he mentioned was that when it came to decision-making he still tended to think and act like an engineer. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. in Entrepreneur, VC, decision making.

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Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. We were going to be guessing.

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

The popular view of a real entrepreneur is someone with a big vision, and a stubborn determination to charge straight ahead through any obstacle and make it happen. His new book on this subject, “ The Lean Startup ,” lays out how today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses.

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Lean Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Architecture 255

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. I offered to introduce him to the firm whose Entrepreneur-in-Residence offer I had just accepted.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

The presentation didn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. I am a young entrepreneur here, absolutely dying to hear the talk. And many of the best entrepreneurs experience failure a number of times before building a legendary business (thanks Steve Blank, you’re an info sharing rockstar).

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Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). Yet this system isn’t perfect. – seems like another planet.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. What’s Different.

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Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

These topics were the focus of interviews with the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on SiriusXM Channel 111 (airing weekly Thursdays at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern). And before he was an entrepreneur, when he was at a foundry, things were going really well, and he was promoted to foreman. Clay : Yeah.

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Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. Fred Terman Sent Us In 1953 the U.S. The “customers’” contracts funded the company.

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Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. ———-.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Principles of Lean Startups, presentation for Maples Investments Image via Wikipedia Steve Blank and I had the opportunity to create a presentation about lean startups for Maples Investments. My path to lean startups began with Kent Beck and extreme programming.

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Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Steve Blank

AUGUST 7, 2017

Listen to the entire interview here : Or listen to just parts of the interview: 3:29 Entrepreneurs make their own luck. 4:35 The difference between an idea and an entrepreneur. 5:18 Why entrepreneurship thrived in Silicon Valley. 16:01 20th century investors were not entrepreneurs. It’s worth a listen.

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Silicon Valley Boston Lean Government 206

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. Engineers as Salesmen I thought (and still do) that this sales guy walked on water.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

Lean Business: Capacity Management, Overhead, and Your Business – [link]. Money matters: why women founders struggle in Silicon Valley | The Verge – [link]. Lean Business: Capacity Management, Overhead, and Your Business – [link]. I bet you over-engineered your startup – [link].

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Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Marketing is Heard From Engineering was discussing how sophisticated the graphics portion of our computer should be, debating cost and time-to-market tradeoffs of arcane details such as double-buffering, 24 versus 32-bits of color, alpha channels, etc. The conversation that day would become one of my professional watermarks.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

This week, the startup tribe from Harvard Business School is making their annual trek to Silicon Valley. It’s a common refrain around Silicon Valley to disparage the role of MBA’s in entrepreneurship. One of my beliefs is that such a theory should be addressed to entrepreneurs and the people who hold them accountable.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

The Next Web

MARCH 11, 2014

Then Ben [one of the mobile engineers on the team] suggested a concept around sticking pieces of media to friends and people in the real world. In many cases, these are good advice but sometimes it’s a waste of time or worse, directs entrepreneurs away from something truly great. Entrepreneur Analysis and Opinion' It was absurd.

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