Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

We were impressed when we found that they did the in-person interviews by hiring usertesting.com for $39 to set up test scenarios, gave the users specific tasks to accomplish with their minimum viable product, videotaped the customer interactions and summarized customer likes and dislikes.)

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Among these was the realization that a formal onboarding process for new hires is critical. Steve : There used to be this culture, it still is in a number of startups, is you throw them in the deep end of the pool, you assume you hired smart people and they’ll figure it out, right? You hire really smart people-.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Cofounder Channel 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

And to keep executing large organizations hire employees with a range of skills and competencies. A company needs innovation policies, innovation processes and innovation incentives to match those it already has for execution. And secondly, their sole purpose is to focus resources on the executionof their business model.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … Hire around you to fill those weak spots. …. Nayeem : I didn’t, no.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

If you hire a VP of Sales with the idea that they can do customer discovery you violated the first principle of Customer Development – this isn’t a step the can be outsourced to a non-founder. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back. However, your product itself will be doing a lot of the selling.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Lets Try to Make the World Match Our Spreadsheet. Revenue Plan Needs to Match Market Type. What went wrong was that the founder had built a product for a New Market and the VC’s allowed him to execute, hire and burn cash like he was in an Existing Market. Make sure your revenue and spending plan matches your Market Type.

Revenue 230

Revenue Balance Sheet Hockey Stick Burn Rate 230

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

AUGUST 15, 2016

Andela selects and trains world-class tech talent from Africa and matches them with U.S. A college degree is great if you’re looking to get hired. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. You’re never going to come up with a different strategy for how you approach the world. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money. Blame it On Marketing In the next 3-6 months, a new VP of Sales is hired. The rest of the organization (product development, marketing, support) has been burning cash, all according to plan, expecting Sales to make its numbers.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

MARCH 17, 2020

If it’s just three-months, (looking more unlikely by the day) then an immediate freeze on variable spending (hires, marketing, travel, etc.) Unless your investors are matching their orders for “full speed ahead” with a deposit into your bank, now is not the time to be railroaded into a burn rate that is unrecoverable. is in order.

Burn Rate 436

Burn Rate Startup Valuation Sales Cycle 436

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Andela selects and trains world-class tech talent from Africa and matches them with U.S. A college degree is great if you’re looking to get hired. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. You’re never going to come up with a different strategy for how you approach the world. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

Unlike existing companies that fire executives when they fail to match a plan, we keep the founders and change the model. Companies in execution suffer from a “ fear of failure culture “, (quite understandable since they were hired to execute a known job spec.) And most of the time these experiments fail.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

It typically takes multiple iterations and pivots to find product/market fit – the match between what you’re building and who will buy it. 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.

Startup 120

Startup Lean Venture Capital Advisory Board 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Doing all those demos took up a lot of my travel time so I hired someone from one of the customers as our Washington sales person.” My ex-student asked, “Are you suggesting we hire a new Washington sales person?” We’d give a demo, they’d bring their boss over, jaws would drop, and we’d get an order. Hmm, a hint. Actually no.

Washington 272

Washington Los Angeles Startup Cofounder 272

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

Generate end user demand (to match our revenue goals) Drive that demand into our sales channels Value price our products to achieve our revenue and margin goals (create high-value) Educate our sales channel(s) Help engineering understand customer needs That was it. We hired union laborers to do that.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2011

And once we went public, we hired a veteran VP of Sales from Honeywell. Marketing to Match the Channel. Marketing materials need to match the channel. Convergent had assembled a stellar team with founders from Digital Equipment Corporation and Intel and engineers from Xerox PARC. Lessons Learned.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Channel Cofounder Demand 267

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

Rather than just have me drone on as a talking head, I hired an animator to help make the lectures interesting, and the Udacity team had the insight to suggest I break up my lecture material into small, 2-4 minute segments that matched students’ attention spans. If you can’t see the video above click here.

Lean 319

Lean Incubator Video Open Source 319

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

If we tried to match them on their playing field we’d never catch up. You need to hire the right type of sales people for the type of [.] You need to hire the right type of sales people for the type of [.] You need to hire the right type of sales people for the type of [.]

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Without the revenue to match its expenses, the company is in now danger of running out of money. Why it’s not a crisis is that the Customer Development process says, “do not staff and hire like you are executing. Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.)

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Or if you have sufficient cash, now is the time to hire great people who were never available. Then walk them through why the changes you’re suggesting match that plan. When hiring began again, everyone was relieved: “The worst is over. To recover and grow quickly? Or to launch new products? Things are getting better.”

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 20, 2011

But in a stroke of genius GM transformed these divisions into a weapon that Ford couldn’t match. Sloan hired Harley Earl to set up GM’s in-house styling staff. Market Segmentation General Motors had turned the independent car companies acquired by its founder Billy Durant into product divisions. Earl would run it from 1927 to 1958.

Jordan 300

Jordan Engineer Advertising Design 300

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Yet this same network of connected people affects who gets funded, how startup teams form, and who gets hired. . The features didn’t match what ultimately the customers would buy or wanted. Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture means that others will help when you’re starting up. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Carolina Cofounder Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Hiring a PR agency too early is a sign that the CEO is treating this as someone else’s problem. Craft messages to match what your audience has already told you. Often, they themselves are the thought leaders. I tell them, “The question isn’t if.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. Another key part of China’s cluster strategy was collaboration between research and business, as well as between large enterprises and tech-based small and medium enterprises. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Have a loud product demo; give away pieces of candy; hire a masseuse and offer free back rubs. If there aren’t any that match your company, create some. Offer a free bestselling book in your industry (can you have the author there to autograph it?); Leading or speaking at any? No is the wrong answer.

Silicon Valley 178

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 178

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. Another key part of China’s cluster strategy was collaboration between research and business, as well as between large enterprises and tech-based small and medium enterprises. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

His wife, about my age, could have been a poster child for the stereotypical California hippie surfer, with politics that matched her style – antiwar, anti government, antiestablishment. Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. He knows how to publish articles that drive page views, and this is a good one.

Silicon Valley 184

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 184

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Frustrated by the FDA’s 20 th century processes for 21 st century technology, companies hired lobbyists to force a change in the laws that guide the FDA regulations. Given the potential size of the opportunity, the rhetoric doesn’t match the results and the results to date feel off by at least 10x.

China 67

China Technical Review Software Review Algorithm 67

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Product/market fit means that you’ve found the match between your potential customers’ pains, gains and jobs to be done and the features of your minimal viable product. Repeatable sales means if you hire an account exec, you know that they will close $1M Annual Recurring Revenue in a year.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Steve Blank

MARCH 28, 2017

Seems like it would be a match made in heaven, right? Industry needed to attract and hire qualified employees. is expected to climb to over a million by 2020. From a business perspective, obtaining technically qualified talent is among the top constraints to growth in the US. Not so fast….

Lean 120

Lean Kansas Government Afghanistan 120