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. The same is true in your company. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 300

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. Our vision was that just as the PC was revolutionizing the business market, we were going to do the same for scientists and engineers.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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 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 release of the product.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

A month or two before the QuickTime public announcement in May, the SuperMac hardware engineers (who had a great relationship with the QuickTime team at Apple) started a “ skunk works ” project. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. The software was idiot proof.

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Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 10, 2010

He thinks about how he can offer solutions, not create more problems like RSS readers did. Remember the joke on Office Space where you can’t have the engineers talking to the customers? That the one guy’s job was just to interpret what the customers wanted for the engineers. That’s not entirely far off.

Cofounder 123

Cofounder CTO Hire Design Founder 123

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires. And our Director of Technical Marketing was superb at understanding customer needs and communicating them to engineering.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

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 To Order Outside of the U.S.

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Since no benchmarks existed, we enlisted our engineering department in a serious software development effort and wrote our own. We listed the editors, writers, what they had previously had written, deadlines, what the competitive products were, how our benchmarks stacked up, what “upgrades” our boards needed from engineering to win, etc.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 124

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

The Army offered Fred Terman, the Dean of Engineering at Stanford, a $5M contract to build an electronics countermeasures lab. HP had an ethical culture, entrepreneurial spirit, and deep Stanford engineering department connections. The “customers’” contracts funded the company. Seven years later in 1971 ESL went public.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

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. No kidding.

Silicon Valley 180

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 180

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

And I understood engineering since I interacted with them almost daily. And finally, I had a great working relationship with our engineers who designed the chips. I even had time to find a girlfriend who was a contractor to the company. In reality it would be another 20 years.) I also knew our customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Scott Edward Walker

JANUARY 23, 2012

If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here. Cheers, Scott Top 5 Tweets Software Engineering Salaries in Silicon Valley bit.ly/zJpyHd zLmdx7 “We pitched investors 348 times before getting a ‘yes’ from Walden Venture Capital in March 2004.”

Silicon Valley 45

Silicon Valley Software Engineering RSS Venture Capital 45

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Some students who were getting their engineering graduate degrees wrote masters and PhD thesis that were classified. Four years later Ayer and another Granger engineer would leave Granger and found one of the preeminent electronic warfare and ELINT companies: Applied Technologies. The future of the valley was clear – microwaves.

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 142

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Look for some “ skunk works &# project where the product developers are actively seeking alternatives to their own engineering organization. In Apple’s case Burrell Smith was designing a computer in a skunk works unbeknownst to the rest of Apple’s engineering. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Brendan McManus said: “Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch [link] #startup #advice [.] Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch « Steve Blank (tags: presentations presuation vc startup) [.] Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch [.]

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

techcrunch.com

JUNE 22, 2012

. “We’ve been seeing at least one post per week on TheFunded concerning mentor compensation”, said Adeo Ressi, the founder of both Founder Institute and TheFunded.com (a site focused on revealing the inside truths of the Venture Capital world). Follow @TechCrunch. 2011 Holiday. Gift Guide. Crunchboard. Privacy Policy.

Equity 94

Equity San Francisco Startup Silicon Valley 94

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

A consulting CTO can help you find and qualify a permanent technology partner, a lead developer, a user experience expert or interaction designer, a graphic designer, or a VP of engineering. The best ones know enough about Internet marketing (and search engine optimization) that they’ll be visible if they are looking for new projects.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

If you have invested $100,000 worth of your time in writing a business plan, and your partner, a young engineering student, has invested $25,000 worth of her time in building a prototype, it doesn't mean the market value of your startup is $125,000. Million in Venture Capital. Subscribe to Entrepreneur RSS.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

socialmatchbox.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

We’re contact@socialmatchbox.com and we will be happy to get you in touch with the right recruiter or user group to talk to for networking purposes. client / Washington, DC ($500 Referral Reward) Developer/Partner / Rocket Whale, Inc. Ycombinator © 2010 Social Matchbox, - WordPress Themes by DBT.

Part-Time VPE 41

Part-Time VPE Sweat Equity DC Washington 41

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. The plan calls for selling in volume the day Engineering is finished building the product. While the product is being engineered, Marketing begins to create web sites, corporate presentations and sales materials.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 215

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

The startup develops its first positioning statement and uses this to explain the company and its benefits to venture capitalists. 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.

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. Besides it being harder to get funding, it seems like this would be a good time to get cheap labor, rent, and product. Also, it would be nice to do something that helps this country (but not solely for that reason). Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 170

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 170

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

In times when venture capital is hard to get, investors extract high costs for failure (down-rounds, cram downs , new management teams, shut down the company.) Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.)

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

Frederick Terman, Stanford’s Dean of Engineering, enlisted Stanford University as a major arms suppliers in this war. Stanford as a Center of Microwave and Electronics In 1946 after running the military’s secret 800 person Electronic Warfare Lab at Harvard, Fred Terman returned to Stanford as the dean of the engineering schoo l.

Silicon Valley 153

Silicon Valley RSS Europe Germany 153

mashable.com

MAY 5, 2011

But a new angel fund is hoping that they’ll do the same in exchange for engineering talent. “Most of that money [from venture capitalists and angels] is used to build a product,&# explains Haig Kayserian, the CEO of Kayweb Angels. “Once that product is built, you will probably have given away a lot of equity.&#

Equity 74

Equity Engineer Technical Review Social Media 74

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2007

It would be nice if You wanna give us some advises on the recruiting process in Venture Capital Industry. Add RSS feed. Venture Capital. (3). Explore Venture Capital. Monday, February 12, 2007. Getting the most of your online marketing: the In & Out of SEM/SEO. How does one contact you Phillippe?

Software Review 48

Software Review SEM Marketing Las Vegas 48

www.cscyphers.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Clearspring just did this; they held a Big Data meetup and were pretty open about trying to recruit engineers — which was a smart move in a target rich environment they created inside their own office. Adventures In Venture Capitalism. Full RSS - Comments RSS. Just something to think about. PowerPoint.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Technical Review Founder Software Review 40

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Product Development – How do you engineer it? Business and Revenue Model – How do we organize to make money? Intellectual Property/Patents – Strategic or Tactical, timing? Regulatory Issues – What are they? Time to Market – How long? Waterfall, Agile, Lean? Manufacturing – How do you build it? Liquidity – How? M&A, IPO? Now In Print!

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We decided to work with our engineering department to create the Potreo benchmarks because we really wanted to see how our boards performed with the four applications customers told us that they used; Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator and PageMaker. These were applications we had never seen or ran before when the boards were designed.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 124

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Market Type Integral to the Customer Development model is the notion that Market Type choices affect the way the company will deploy its sales, marketing and financial resources. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Vertical 128

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 128

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. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Cracking the Code

JANUARY 28, 2008

" Become.com is a search engine designed to help consumers searching for products on the web. William Smith -- Overview of Become.com [link] Become.com is a comparison search engine designed to help consumers doing product research on the web. Add RSS feed. Venture Capital. (3). Explore Venture Capital.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Los Angeles B2B 48

gigaom.com

JUNE 18, 2012

With Facebook engineers, it appears the high-performance database apple doesn’t far fall from the tree. The company has raised a $5 million in venture capital thus far from First Round Capital, IA Ventures, NEA, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Paul Buchheit, Ashton Kutcher, Max Levchin and Aaron Levie. 4 Comments.

Database 73

Database SQL RSS Cloud 73

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

By the late 1930′s when HP started, a small group (measured in hundreds) of engineers who made radio tubes were building the valleys’ ecosystem for electronics manufacturing, product engineering and technology management. And these microwave engineers were working at startups – not large companies.

Silicon Valley 270

Silicon Valley RSS San Francisco Technical Review 270

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

And if this business partnership doesn't work out, the CTO / Founder, the engine of value for the company, is stuck in a bad, bad place. And if this business partnership doesn't work out, the CTO / Founder, the engine of value for the company, is stuck in a bad, bad place. Click to email him.

CTO Hire 40

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