Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2017

We’d managed to secure another infusion of cash, but it wasn’t going to last long. When I asked our trade show manager, she looked surprised and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to take our booth to trade shows and set it up?” What I was hearing was a failure of management. We hired union laborers to do that.

Startup 310

Startup PR Public Relations Channel 310

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Early-stage Venture Capital firms grow their partnerships in different ways, some hire: partners from other firms. because culture is such an important part of who we are, we will probably never hire a partner from another firm. Then take a year as a product manager in a startup in the firm’s portfolio. How to Become a VC.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Early Stage Technical Review Startup 332

Steve Blank

MAY 19, 2015

While he kept bringing the conversation back to their big valuation I tried to steer the conversation back to how they were going to deal with: training the influx of new hires – in both culture and job specific tasks. retaining their existing hires who were working for intern-like salaries with little equity.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Salary Early Stage Software Review 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2010

My first job in Silicon Valley was at ESL (a supplier of intelligence and reconnaissance systems,) I had managed to talk myself into getting hired as a training instructor. Out of desperation and a warm body right in front of them, they realized I was probably better than nothing, so I got hired. Long back-story here.)

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Technical Review Hiring Programming 258

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

But the world you lead will be much different from the one your professors knew or your predecessors managed. Yet in the face of all this change, traditional firms continue to embrace a management ethos that values efficiency over innovation. To manage these employees companies create metrics to control, measure and reward execution.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) As we described in previous posts , startups fail on the day they’re founded if they are organized and managed like they are a small version of a large company. Albert Einstein. That’s the definition of insanity.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Who can I hire later? In medical device startups these resources are expertise in the basic science, industrial design, human factors, managing Contract Research Organizations, reimbursement, Intellectual Property, and someone to lead the team and raise capital and establish strategic partnerships. And what can I outsource?”

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Most large companies manage three types of innovation: process innovation (making existing products incrementally better), continuous innovation (building on the strength of the company’s current business model but creating new elements) and disruptive innovation (creating products or services that did not exist before.).

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

He just hired Meg Whitman. Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan. Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios. the ex-CEO of HP and eBay, as CEO of NewTV.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Help them?!!

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

One of the first potential advisors I reached out to was someone who 10 years earlier tried to hire me as the VP of Marketing of his new division at Sun Microsystems. For lots of reasons that never worked out, but I liked him so much that the following year I tried to hire him as the VP of Engineering of Ardent. (He Lessons Learned.

Advisory Board 260

Advisory Board Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Stock 260

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. I chose to hire engineers from within each of our target markets and set up “Steve’s one month MBA course for engineers.” These hires were definitely not your standard marketing types.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 9, 2020

Risk Management Tools. The department launched a pilot program with commercial risk management tools. We have rather Byzantine hiring processes. Therefore, it will require all DOD contracts by October 21, 2025, a five year span, to have some level of CMMC. Now, I think of this as we think of ISO quality. The same kind of idea.

Acquisition 284

Acquisition Technical Review Technology Security 284

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2011

It’s not that the tools are wrong, I think the entrepreneurship management stack is correct and has made a major contribution to reducing startup failures. It is a very different skill than science, engineering, or management. it is an art) and again hired professionals. I’m beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong.

Agile 332

Agile Customer Development Early Stage Business Model 332

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

The Energy Storage division is acting like a startup, and Prescott Logan its General Manager, has lived up to the charter. This is a new division of a large, old company where one would think innovation had long been beaten out of them. You couldn’t be more wrong. He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. So why this post?

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

50% the fault of a Nokia management that didn’t see it coming, while 50% was due to brilliant Apple execution.) They’ve stopped hiring the best talent, and startups are not looking so risky compared to large companies. Nokia was blind-sided in a classic disruptive innovation.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. I reminded my friend that I’ve never been an engineering manager so any advice I could give him was just from someone who had seen the movie before. The old code is as good as dead the moment management introduces the word “rewrite.”

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If the Microsoft board was managing for quarter to quarter or even year to year revenue growth, Ballmer was as good as it gets as a CEO. Projects not directly related to those activities never got serious management attention and/or resources. Yet in five years the only new thing that managed to get out the door is the Apple Watch.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

If the Microsoft board was managing for quarter to quarter or even year to year revenue growth, Ballmer was as good as it gets as a CEO. Projects not directly related to those activities never got serious management attention and/or resources. Yet in five years the only new thing that managed to get out the door is the Apple Watch.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. Great sales and marketing people are great at execution – that’s what you hired for. It’s a big idea.)

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Big companies have great execution habits to manage and improve successful business models and value propositions. This happens because managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future. Large companies have a habit of hiring outside agencies to do market research and customer discovery.

Non-Compete 329

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 329

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

He got his start at Kozmo , a now-defunct startup that offered free one-hour delivery of DVDs, food and other goods, then went on to manage American Express’ $50 million Innovation Fund. Among these was the realization that a formal onboarding process for new hires is critical. You hire really smart people-. I left Amex Jan.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder Channel 120

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

Neither management nor investors tolerate “wrong turns” that result in delays. Even worse, a start-up’s investors are managing their financial expectations by this date as well. Even the most experienced executives are pressured to hire and staff per the plan regardless of progress. where they can “launch” the product.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 21, 2009

We Hired the CFO. Their business had just crossed cash flow breakeven, had grown past 50 employees, just raised a substantive follow-on round of financing and had recently hired a Chief Financial Officer. This company had grown from the founders, who hired an early team of superstars, many now managing their own teams.

Engineer 335

Engineer Valuation Hiring Stock 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Management 101. But the differences are worth noting – it’s a young ecosystem, so startup management tools are nearly non-existent. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

He had introduced the idea that customers don’t buy a product, rather than they hire it for a “job to be done.” I realized what he and other management thinkers had long figured out. Here again I referred to Christensen’s work not only in the Innovators Dilemma, but the Innovators Solution.

Lean 428

Lean Business Model Government Agile 428

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week, our first team up was PersonalLibraries (the team that had software to help researchers manage, share and reference the thousands of papers in their personal libraries.) The news from customers was not good. Let the real learning begin. The Nine Teams Present. cold calls, in-person interviews, and a web survey. (We

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

For our students, that can mean anyone from a Syrian refugee trying to make contact with his family back home, to a supply chain manager for a major apparel brand who wants to make sure his contract factory in Bangladesh doesn’t use forced labor. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

For our students, that can mean anyone from a Syrian refugee trying to make contact with his family back home, to a supply chain manager for a major apparel brand who wants to make sure his contract factory in Bangladesh doesn’t use forced labor. Christos Makridis, a Ph.D

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Investors bet that by offering prospective hires a stake in the company’s future growth- with a visible time horizon of a payoff – employees would act more like owners and work harder– and that would align employee interests with the investor interests. That made sense. And you’re working just as hard.

Stock Options 333

Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 333

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Our small training department had been without a manager for months and finding a replacement didn’t seem to be high on the VP of Sales list. Then it hit me – no one else wanted to be manager – what was the worst that could happen? What’s the Worst that Can Happen? All I had to do was ask.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Big companies have great execution habits to manage and improve successful business models and value propositions. This happens because managing the present often takes oxygen away from inventing the future. Large companies have a habit of hiring outside agencies to do market research and customer discovery.

Non-Compete 120

Non-Compete Agile Business Model San Francisco 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Management 101. But the differences are worth noting – it’s a young ecosystem, so startup management tools are nearly non-existent. Perhaps it’s the weather.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Unfortunately as you hire more people, the casual, informal “do what it takes” culture, which worked so well at less than 40 people, becomes chaotic and less effective. Now the organization needs to put in place culture, training, product management, processes and procedures, (i.e. generate users at a rate that can be monetized….

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

B2B – cloud services, online meetings, virtual workforce management, collaboration tools. What are your “lifeboat choices” – what layoffs to make, renegotiate payables, rents, leases, how to trade off cash management versus revenue growth? Your CFO now becomes the head of cash management. Lessons Learned.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Larry didn’t practice any kind of textbook management, but he was an intense communicator and inspiring leader. Hired the Smartest People. The old adage “A players hire A players, and B players hire C players ” applies here. He liked to experiment with novel management ideas, like competing teams.

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333